You're not answering the key question though. In what way would things improve if you move the Edinburgh portion to the ECML?
So what service pattern are you actually proposing? and in what way is your new service pattern an improvement over the old one?
Couple of points here:
It would provide Newcastle, York, Doncaster and possibly Leeds (if you send it via Leeds) with earlier arrival times into London and Edinburgh.
One could send the sleeper via Leeds, which could open quite a bit of demand.
Doncaster to London is way too short a distance for a sleeper train. London-Central belt is very much at the lower end of distance/time where a sleeper makes sense
Then the Sleeper could go to Glasgow via the ECML.
Please, just write a clear list of what exactly you're proposing to do. Where would it start and end, what stops would it make for passengers, what portions would there be?
A sleeper service from either Glasgow or Aberdeen, stopping at Edinburgh, Newcastle, York, Leeds and London King's Cross.
The platforms at Queen Street are very short.
Not when electrically hauled. The Highland portions are on occasions.
York to Leeds isn’t electrified. So how are you hauling it?
If something like this is funded I think we can assume that the various obvious stretches of electrification including this one have been filled in.
I just don't think there would be sufficient demand for such a service, I highly doubt more than 5% of passengers on the usual NE-SW cross country service are doing more than 2 hours on the train, and I think the journey needs to be at least 5/6 hours for someone to consider getting a sleeper.
I suspect the original poster probably may just want the novelty of sleeper trains passing through their station. They haven't indicated that they are actually intending to make the journeys they suggest are needed.
And conversely, Leeds and York have last departures from King's Cross at 23:00 or later; there's probably extremely little demand for anything later which couldn't be filled by one extra 'daytime' service. (The last Newcastle service is at 22:00; the last Carlisle / Glasgow's 19:30, the last to Preston is 21:10 and there's nothing past Wolverhampton after the 22:00 to Liverpool and the 22:03 Manchester.)
Use a 93 (when it gets certified) all the way but use something like a 68 between York and Leeds.
Just seems an unnecessary duplication, what about other cross country routes like from south coast to Scotland or Devon/Cornwall to North Wales or Northern England?
So yet more cost. Another loco and another crew required for a service that is already a financial basket case.
Divert via Sheffield for around 3am. Station is already staffed for the transpennine Manchester service leaving either at 3:20 or 3:40am
In summer 2021 (so admittedly not necessarily representative) Bristol–Edinburgh was the 13th busiest domestic flight route in the UK and sixth excluding Northern Ireland, although I suspect the solution to that is building HS2 in full and from Curzon Street towards Cheltenham rather than (just) sleeper trains. Around 68,000 passengers across three months gives ~750 a day, which doesn't seem enough to fill a (probably more expensive) sleeper from flight passengers alone even if you added in Bristol–Glasgow and Exeter / Newquay–Scotland flight passengers.
Where would the Highlander split if not Edinburgh?
2 completely different markets. Air passengers are going to have limited interest in a sleeper train.
Bounds Green?
Glasgow.
Not a bad idea, would also mean that Sheffield gets a KGX service.
What other alternative is there for a service like this?
Capacity would be an issue on the line, especially in the Birmingham area.
Glasgow Queen Street most likely.
Why would Sheffield need a King's Cross service when St. Pancras is next door?
