Caledonian Sleeper

[MoominAndChips]

I see the Fort William portion arrived 59 minutes late. That's strange, same as ours did a couple of years back. So we only got 50% delay repay.

Maybe off-topic here, but VR in Finland have done this to me so many times I've lost count. Drive it like you stole it till you get down to 58 or 59 late and then stay that way for the remainder of the journey. Compensation starts at 60 minutes, of course...

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Maybe off-topic here, but VR in Finland have done this to me so many times I've lost count. Drive it like you stole it till you get down to 58 or 59 late and then stay that way for the remainder of the journey. Compensation starts at 60 minutes, of course...

I can’t explain why but that sounds a little naughty to me.

 

[paninaro]

Maybe off-topic here, but VR in Finland have done this to me so many times I've lost count. Drive it like you stole it till you get down to 58 or 59 late and then stay that way for the remainder of the journey. Compensation starts at 60 minutes, of course...

I know nothing about train driving and whatever the line restrictions that make the Sleeper slow in the Highlands lz but is the above even possible? Why not just carry on driving at that speed if it means you get to Fort William quicker?

 

[800002]

I know nothing about train driving and whatever the line restrictions that make the Sleeper slow in the Highlands lz but is the above even possible? Why not just carry on driving at that speed if it means you get to Fort William quicker?

Sectional Running Times are such that if the time allowed to traverse between consecutive points is calculated using line speed then the only way to make up time is to:
Skip station calls or do them quicker (shorter dwell time)
Brake harsher into a station call
Accelerate harder out of a station call.

None of which are conducive to passenger comfort (unless no one is scheduled to get off the train and it is 'set down' only.

The bits that can allow you to make up time, for example any engineering, performance, or other allowance doesn't really equate to that much of a saving. Maybe a half-dozen minutes if your lucky.

There is also the train path to consider. As happens with many XC trains, when delayed. They'll happily fall into the path of the following XC an hour later (if the service is hourly) as this is there path each bour.
If you fall behind other services, it may be that you're following that service (and others) because they're on time and you're not. There isnt really a way round it, without affecting other services and causing more delay.


There could be any number of reasons why the delay hovers around 59 minutes, without any malice involved.

The hourly service pattern has had me a few times where trains can usually arrive a minute or so early each hour at certain stations (for various reasons) reducing a 60+ minute delay down to 58 / 59.

 

[Tetragon213]

I can’t explain why but that sounds a little naughty to me.

Certainly better than XC, which has outright lied about a train being 29L, despite photographic proof to the contrary by a colleague showing the train didn't come to a stand at the platform until 31L.

In fairness, CS is relatively quick to cough up in my experience; they also outright told me via text to claim delay repay through their website as we were about 48L into Birmingham Intl.

 

[jagardner1984]

Personally, and perhaps more controversially, given the state of the public finances, I am not sure I agree the same delay measures that are applied to a ScotRail Service from Edinburgh to Glasgow or a Reading to Birmingham Cross Country shuttle should be applied to a service scheduled 13 hours overnight with so many additional risks / diversion and service issues.

Lovely as it is for everyone to have a free trip (at our expense), I would have thought doubling those end to end delay repay trigger times for services scheduled end to end longer than 6 or 8 hours, which I would think is mostly limited to some XC services, a handful of LNER services, and the sleeper services, would be entirely pragmatic and reasonable. Given the inevitable complexities longer routes have covering greater mileage and therefore issues along the way.

It still would give some or full compensation for people who really have “one of those nights” on the sleeper and provide more of an incentive to get back on track, where currently a bit of a coupling issue at Carstairs or Edinburgh generally can put the full train into full refund territory.

Similarly I have never fully understood why genuine “force majeure” for example a winter speed restriction or indeed the tragedy of a person being hit by a train, results in me getting hundreds of pounds of refund from the taxpayer. If the issue is GBRF having insufficient serviceable CL.92, absolutely, fine them to the hilt, let it be a contractual stick by which they are forced to sort themselves out. But a bit of snow in January in Fort William ? To me that is a foreseeable risk I take when booking. I also don’t want every train to be permanently timed unnecessarily longer in order for the “just in case” of extreme weather.

To be clear, not obviously in favour of weakening the customer service offer, just given the resources available to actually fix these issues, would question whether the £150 million paid to passengers in 2024/2025 (and climbing rapidly (source below) it is actually the best use of what are increasingly public resources. Certainly compared to domestic air travel, it is an incredibly generous scheme.

Rail passenger compensation paid by train operating companies

www.gov.uk

And again, given the tone of the last few messages, most travellers on CS get where they want to be on time, and in instances of disruption, CS do in my personal experience support travellers considerably better than most of the other long distance operators in this country.

 

[Isle of Mull]

Personally, and perhaps more controversially, given the state of the public finances, I am not sure I agree the same delay measures that are applied to a ScotRail Service from Edinburgh to Glasgow or a Reading to Birmingham Cross Country shuttle should be applied to a service scheduled 13 hours overnight with so many additional risks / diversion and service issues.

Lovely as it is for everyone to have a free trip (at our expense), I would have thought doubling those end to end delay repay trigger times for services scheduled end to end longer than 6 or 8 hours, which I would think is mostly limited to some XC services, a handful of LNER services, and the sleeper services, would be entirely pragmatic and reasonable. Given the inevitable complexities longer routes have covering greater mileage and therefore issues along the way.

It still would give some or full compensation for people who really have “one of those nights” on the sleeper and provide more of an incentive to get back on track, where currently a bit of a coupling issue at Carstairs or Edinburgh generally can put the full train into full refund territory.

Similarly I have never fully understood why genuine “force majeure” for example a winter speed restriction or indeed the tragedy of a person being hit by a train, results in me getting hundreds of pounds of refund from the taxpayer. If the issue is GBRF having insufficient serviceable CL.92, absolutely, fine them to the hilt, let it be a contractual stick by which they are forced to sort themselves out. But a bit of snow in January in Fort William ? To me that is a foreseeable risk I take when booking. I also don’t want every train to be permanently timed unnecessarily longer in order for the “just in case” of extreme weather.

To be clear, not obviously in favour of weakening the customer service offer, just given the resources available to actually fix these issues, would question whether the £150 million paid to passengers in 2024/2025 (and climbing rapidly (source below) it is actually the best use of what are increasingly public resources. Certainly compared to domestic air travel, it is an incredibly generous scheme.

Rail passenger compensation paid by train operating companies

www.gov.uk

And again, given the tone of the last few messages, most travellers on CS get where they want to be on time, and in instances of disruption, CS do in my personal experience support travellers considerably better than most of the other long distance operators in this country.

It does surprise me with those stats that LNER and GWR have almost triple the delay repay than cross-country.

 

[cats_five]

Certainly better than XC, which has outright lied about a train being 29L, despite photographic proof to the contrary by a colleague showing the train didn't come to a stand at the platform until 31L.

In fairness, CS is relatively quick to cough up in my experience; they also outright told me via text to claim delay repay through their website as we were about 48L into Birmingham Intl.

My first thought would be how was the time proved? Is there a known-to-be-accurate clock in the background? I wouldn't accept the camera/phone's time stamp as proof

 

[Bald Rick]

It does surprise me with those stats that LNER and GWR have almost triple the delay repay than cross-country.

GWr has a lot more passengers, and LNER has much higher average fares.

 

[Adam Williams]

In my experience, CrossCountry do as much as they can to get away with not paying the Delay Repay to the passengers that they are owed (I'm up to 3 Rail Ombudsman complaints for XC now, one of which turned into 2 subsequent complaints against the Ombudsman for being useless as well)

 

[Scotrail88]

Slightly on fleet topic but if 13 x new locos are planned for the service, do we envisage that they will run top and tail on the 2 London services and enable the shunt loco moves at Carstairs and Euston to be removed.

Also if ran top and tail on highlander then could use the sub to save a run around in both directions??

I work it out at 10 for that (including shunt at GLC still needed) with 3 spare?

 

[trebor79]

Slightly on fleet topic but if 13 x new locos are planned for the service, do we envisage that they will run top and tail on the 2 London services and enable the shunt loco moves at Carstairs and Euston to be removed.

Also if ran top and tail on highlander then could use the sub to save a run around in both directions??

I work it out at 10 for that (including shunt at GLC still needed) with 3 spare?

I don't think the platforms at Euston are long enough for that?

 

[zwk500]

I don't think the platforms at Euston are long enough for that?

The current trains end up in a top/tail formation at Euston due to the shunt release.

 

[Kite159]

Slightly on fleet topic but if 13 x new locos are planned for the service, do we envisage that they will run top and tail on the 2 London services and enable the shunt loco moves at Carstairs and Euston to be removed.

Also if ran top and tail on highlander then could use the sub to save a run around in both directions??

I work it out at 10 for that (including shunt at GLC still needed) with 3 spare?

If one loco is powerful enough to haul the full 16 coaches when why increase running cost by having a 2nd loco on the rear just to save light engine shunts at Euston/Carstairs?

Especially as running both top & tail will require an extra loco at the London end (as I'm sure the 92 which brings in the Highland empties shunts across to power the lowland service

 

[norbitonflyer]

Especially as running both top & tail will require an extra loco at the London end (as I'm sure the 92 which brings in the Highland empties shunts across to power the lowland service

It does

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 09:56 ==

Slightly on fleet topic but if 13 x new locos are planned for the service, do we envisage that they will run top and tail on the 2 London services and enable the shunt loco moves at Carstairs ....to be removed.

Difficult to see how that would work in the up direction

 

[43096]

Difficult to see how that would work in the up direction

The same way it does now: Glasgow portion arrives at Carstairs, then the Edinburgh section runs past it and is propelled onto the rear.

 

[Bill57p9]

Thinking about it the lowlander could run top & tail now without increasing the number of 92s required:
Currently the Edinburgh up portion 92 stays overnight at Carstairs to work the Edinburgh down portion, whilst the 92 that drags the down lowlander ECS into Euston shuffles over to a siding after the down lowlander departs and then moves back to drag the up lowlander ECS to Wembley.
Therefore both could be left on the rear and simply swap over.
I assume that there is a good reason for not doing this, maybe a platform length issue somewhere or the reduction in flexibility, e.g. the recent shortage of 92s requiring the use of 73967 on Glasgow portion ECS.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 10:49 ==

The current shunt at Carstairs is fairly straightforward, and a shunter would be required anyway to split the Glasgow and Edinburgh portions since there is ETS and the data cable that don't go through the Dellner.

The Edinburgh shunt is always going to be quite complex, being 1 into or from 3 with additional day coaches for Fort William.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 10:53 ==

Where there definitely would be an opportunity for simplification with a bi-mode locomotive is with the Edinburgh ECS which could run round the sub rather than requiring a run round at Waverley, including during the morning peak.

 

[3RDGEN]

Thinking about it the lowlander could run top & tail now without increasing the number of 92s required:
Currently the Edinburgh up portion 92 stays overnight at Carstairs to work the Edinburgh down portion, whilst the 92 that drags the down lowlander ECS into Euston shuffles over to a siding after the down lowlander departs and then moves back to drag the up lowlander ECS to Wembley.
Therefore both could be left on the rear and simply swap over.
I assume that there is a good reason for not doing this, maybe a platform length issue somewhere or the reduction in flexibility, e.g. the recent shortage of 92s requiring the use of 73967 on Glasgow portion ECS.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 10:49 ==

The current shunt at Carstairs is fairly straightforward, and a shunter would be required anyway to split the Glasgow and Edinburgh portions since there is ETS and the data cable that don't go through the Dellner.

The Edinburgh shunt is always going to be quite complex, being 1 into or from 3 with additional day coaches for Fort William.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 10:53 ==

Where there definitely would be an opportunity for simplification with a bi-mode locomotive is with the Edinburgh ECS which could run round the sub rather than requiring a run round at Waverley, including during the morning peak.

The sleeper is already heavy enough so why stick another 125 tonnes of dead loco on the back to drag over Shap & Beattock, particulary in the leaf fall season? You are also adding mileage to the dragged loco which will effect maintenance intervals, as a way to move loco's around it's OK but not as a regular plan.

 

[najaB]

The sleeper is already heavy enough so why stick another 125 tonnes of dead loco on the back to drag over Shap & Beattock, particulary in the leaf fall season? You are also adding mileage to the dragged loco which will effect maintenance intervals, as a way to move loco's around it's OK but not as a regular plan.

Not that I think it's a great idea, but if it's top-n-tailed then it's not a dead loco, and they would operate at reduced power so less wear and tear.

 

[zwk500]

Not that I think it's a great idea, but if it's top-n-tailed then it's not a dead loco, and they would operate at reduced power so less wear and tear.

For 92s hauling Mk5s, does the Rear Loco being in power require a 2nd driver?

I always understood Top & Tail to include the rear loco being either dead or under power, rather than specifying the rear loco was assisting. The key thing it signified was that both locos were capable of hauling the train, simplifying reversals.

 

[3RDGEN]

Not that I think it's a great idea, but if it's top-n-tailed then it's not a dead loco, and they would operate at reduced power so less wear and tear.

Your not going to be running both loco's that would require some form of TDM/multiple working jumpers on the coaches which aren't there.

 

[najaB]

I always understood Top & Tail to include the rear loco being either dead or under power, rather than specifying the rear loco was assisting.

I guess it's a personal understanding thing.

For me, dual-headed means two locos at the front both in power, top-n-tail means one at either end both providing some power, and dead-in-tow means a loco attached at the rear but not providing any power.