Glasgow - Edinburgh night services

[snookertam]

Something I've wondered about is what it would take to begin a regular service at nights between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Something that I thought might work well would be something like the following:

00:15 departures from both GLQ/EDB Mon-Sat (or Tues-Sun mornings if you prefer)
01:00 & 03:00 departures each end on Fri nights/Sat mornings (all week from Edinburgh during the festival).

Currently on Fridays there are a number of after midnight departures from Glasgow Central to various destinations, so repeating this on the E&G shouldn't be too much of an issue (costs aside), and not much engineering work gets done on Fridays. Meanwhile the 00:15 departures shouldn't be too much of an issue as a similar service operates in the west to Ayr each night.

Need to get the staff to work them obviously, but I think it would be a welcome move and I'm surprised it was never made a franchise commitment to introduce such a service.

 

[Starmill]

I thought that this is absoultely 100% the way to go once final testing and comissioning of electrification on the Shotts route is complete, and once the full compliment of new rolling stock is in passenger service.

There are so many permutations of diversionary routes that surely an overnight service in both directions is feasible. There is a clear demand given the night bus services which now run. Of course it might need to initially be funded by Transport Scotland, but I would have thought that they would be well up for something like this.

Seems unlikely it would call at any intermediate stations after about 0100 though.

How successful are the 0018 Glasgow Central to East Kilbride and 0020 Cathcart Circle? If I remember correctly, these and the later Lanark and Kilmarnock trains are introductions in recent years?

 

[snookertam]

I think all the late departures from Glasgow Central are very well patronised. Can't say specifically train by train, but I'd reckon all of them are really well loaded.

 

[Stopper]

There’s a massive demand for this, for intermediate stations too. I know a lot of people from Linlithgow/Falkirk areas that go out in Edinburgh and want to come back after midnight.

Would love for the E-G to become 24 hours one day. With an hourly service all night calling at Haymarket, Linlithgow, Polmont, Falkirk High, Croy and Queen Street. People may say those calls are unnecessary but these are busy stations and I don’t think journey time is the biggest worry at that time of night nor is pathing.

 

[Esker-pades]

Night services always have to take into account overnight engineering possessions. There are enough different routes from Edinburgh to Glasgow to makes this possible. However, intermediate stops may not be possible of this.

 

[Stopper]

There isn’t a whole lot of engineering trains on the E-G. Not enough to prevent an hourly service stopping at a few stations. During the night the intermediate stops would probably generate more demand than end-to-end.

 

[snookertam]

It's the engineering work itself that would be the potential issue, as a lot of necessary work goes on overnight whilst trains are not running. Because of this I think there would always be a limit to the service that could be provided, as the line has to be closed at some stage so that maintenance work can be carried out safely.

 

[Starmill]

There isn’t a whole lot of engineering trains on the E-G. Not enough to prevent an hourly service stopping at a few stations. During the night the intermediate stops would probably generate more demand than end-to-end.

The problem is not engineering trains, it is possession. The route will need to be closed for a time for a period of several hours. End-to-end services could probably run overnight every day, taking whichever of the routes is not closed that night. Services calling at stations like Polmont have no alternatives. This would mean they'd routinely need to be replaced with buses some weeks. Doubtless this bus replacement would garner ScotRail nothing but criticism in the Scottish press and nothing but moaning about it here. If I were ScotRail I probably wouldn't consider this.

Transport Scotland seem to have very little inclination to pay for late night trains to after midnight for any of the other routes radiating from Edinburgh. It's unclear why people going to Polmont and Linlithgow would get funding from TS when people going to Fife, North Berwick, Gala etc don't.

 

[Esker-pades]

Based on my journey on the N900, I can say that about half the passengers do the full length (or near enough). The coach itself was at full seated capacity on departure from Glasgow (this was the 1am departure on Sunday morning).

 

[Stopper]

The previous extra late services leading up to Christmas have called at every single intermediate stop I believe, apart from Edinburgh Park.

 

[kilonewton]

There isn’t a whole lot of engineering trains on the E-G. Not enough to prevent an hourly service stopping at a few stations. During the night the intermediate stops would probably generate more demand than end-to-end.

There’s not even a night bus from Edinburgh to Linlithgow/Polmont.
Whilst a “build it and they will come” attitude is admirable, if two buses on a Sat/Sun morning were not sustainable, those that would be responsible for deciding to subsidise such a service would probably deem the decision to do so to be “courageous”.

 

[Stopper]

There’s not even a night bus from Edinburgh to Linlithgow/Polmont.
Whilst a “build it and they will come” attitude is admirable, if two buses on a Sat/Sun morning were not sustainable, those that would be responsible for deciding to subsidise such a service would probably deem the decision to do so to be “courageous”.

Falkirk and Croy are also intermediate stations. As I’m from the area I know there’s a demand for these night services, several of my ‘non-train interested’ friends and family have commented on it.

 

[kilonewton]

There is a demand, on occasion it includes myself, but if there were enough, the buses would still be operating.

 

[Stopper]

To be fair ScotRail appear to operate under a “build it and they will come” attitude with their recent improvements. Edinburgh Gateway (and previously Park) and the E-G via Cumbernauld services come to mind. It probably won’t happen but a trial run of overnight services would be interesting.

 

[kilonewton]

Gateway is in a area planned for development and also was part of the original EGIP with the Almond chord.
As for via Cumbernauld, whilst the PR guff is anout new journey opportunities, it’s really about providing Linlithgow / Polmont with capacity to Edinburgh Park & Edinburgh in general. The Dunblanes were horrible in the peaks. But as I don’t have a need at the moment to go to Edinburgh Park, I’ve no idea if there is less crowding in the via Cumbernaulds than there was on the Dunblanes. And neither do you, as you, like me when heading to Stirling, are in the car.

 

[Stopper]

Gateway is in a area planned for development and also was part of the original EGIP with the Almond chord.
As for via Cumbernauld, whilst the PR guff is anout new journey opportunities, it’s really about providing Linlithgow / Polmont with capacity to Edinburgh Park & Edinburgh in general. The Dunblanes were horrible in the peaks. But as I don’t have a need at the moment to go to Edinburgh Park, I’ve no idea if there is less crowding in the via Cumbernaulds than there was on the Dunblanes. And neither do you, as you, like me when heading to Stirling, are in the car.

Not denying that. Just saying that ScotRail do have a track record of ‘build it and they will come ‘ initiatives. They also have a track record of trial services (Broughty Ferry, Croy etc) so it would be interesting if they ran a trial of late night services for a few months.