Glasgow to Fort William on the sleeper - reservations required?

[theshillito]

Pretty self explanitory from the title, but the 0548 Caledonian Sleeper service to Fort William (et al) picks up passengers at Glasgow I believe, yet booking websites (including CS themselves) say it's mandatory reservations. Is this just because it's officially a sleeper, by which I mean can I get a bog standard open return and turn up on the day for the seated section? It's an early morning, but it makes a day trip for the Jacobite feasible.

Thanks.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes. You can't even get a reservation for that leg.

 

[Hadders]

This is typical of the useless Serco and hardly encourages passengers to use the service.

You'll be absolutely fine if you just turn up without a reservation.

 

[yorkie]

Pretty self explanitory from the title, but the 0548 Caledonian Sleeper service to Fort William (et al) picks up passengers at Glasgow I believe, yet booking websites (including CS themselves) say it's mandatory reservations. Is this just because it's officially a sleeper, by which I mean can I get a bog standard open return and turn up on the day for the seated section? It's an early morning, but it makes a day trip for the Jacobite feasible.

Thanks.

Although it is "compulsory" to obtain a reservation, it is not actually possible to obtain one. :roll:

This is because the UK railway industry is almost unique in being riddled with oxymorons, misnomers and contradictions, and Serco are certainly no exception to that!

 

[Flying Snail]

It always has plenty of space from GLQ, in fact I think currently it would be impossible for it to be full with through passengers as the Edinburgh-Fort William portion uses a higher capacity 2+2 coach rather than the 2+1 the feeder Euston-Aberdeen portion uses.

All of that is rather academic as I have never seen it with more than half a dozen snoozers on board from Glasgow although they are usually occupying 2 or more seats each, I did board it once in Westerton with no through passengers present. Never been asked for a reservation by the guard, not when I have had one (pre-Serco) or when I haven't.

 

[Blindtraveler]

If you really want a reservation, try a compitant booking office clark, I have succeeded this way before!

 

[Hadders]

If you really want a reservation, try a compitant booking office clark, I have succeeded this way before!

I tried to get such a reservation earlier this year at three different booking offices (including the excellent VTEC Stevenage office) but was unable to do so. I have email correspondence with the useless Serco who confirm it's not possible to get a reservation!

In fact, so useless are Serco that when I pointed out that I regularly managed to obtain seat reservations for the sleeper between FTW and GLQ before they took over their response was 'they must've been issued in error'!

 

[Blindtraveler]

Unbelievable!

I got one in Oban last year without any fuss what so ever.

Off topic, thanks for the tip about the office at Stevenage, commited to memory as a loyal supporter/user of station booking offices!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Oh and my reservation was made 7.5hrs before travel and my seat was correctly labeled when I joined at FTW that night, much to my rileef I might add as Id just done Edinburgh Oban Fortbill Mallaig Fortbill in a day and was returning home!