Sleeper tickets avialablity

[Failed Unit]

I know it was short notice but yesterday I tied to book tickets on the sleeper down to London, I was told that both portions of the Lowland Sleeper were sold out and my option was from Falkirk Grahamston on the highland.

Just got me thinking do the sleeper only have 2x first class coaches and once they are gone that is it, or do they have more first class beds if they have the demand. I must admit I slipped up and never asked if I could have a standard solo to see if the train was totally full.

Good news they can fill the sleeper, the Edinburgh portion is now very hard to get tickets even 2 weeks in advance on Sunday's.

Nice little trip on a day train instead for the failed unit, but hey shouldn't really complain that last minute!

 

[rail-britain]

do the sleeper only have 2x first class coaches and once they are gone that is it, or do they have more first class beds if they have the demand

Yes, the sleepers have typically two First Class coaches per set, the Fort William has one
25 First Class and four, five or six (depending on day) of 12 (berths) / 24 (beds) Standard

It is more normal for a berth to be downgraded, usually for Solo ticket holders who will be offered the First Class berth (basically nearer the lounge car)

 

[Tom B]

Out of interest, what's the down Edinburgh portion like on a Friday night? I was thinking of getting a seated ticket on that in a couple of weeks - when I did the reverse before Christmas, it was about 1/3rd full in the seated coach - is this the norm?

 

[Broken Viking]

My experience of the Sleepers is limited to the few that I used on my ALR; But when I did that, the seated cars were about 25-50% full of passengers travelling, but every single seat seemed to be reserved. It seems to me that the seated sleepers might have a lot of "contingency" reservations made in the seated section for some reason...

What beggars belief is - If that's the case - Why can't they have passengers confirm bookings within the final 24 hours before travel? If they did, it'd release a lot of these seats for passengers who actually intend to use them!

 

[transportphoto]

What beggars belief is - If that's the case - Why can't they have passengers confirm bookings within the final 24 hours before travel? If they did, it'd release a lot of these seats for passengers who actually intend to use them!

But these may be back up plans if you miss the last train - seats are free, you may aswell make sure you can get back somehow than not atall.!

For this reason you may not know 24hrs in adv if you need it.

 

[Broken Viking]

But these may be back up plans if you miss the last train - seats are free, you may aswell make sure you can get back somehow than not atall.! For this reason you may not know 24hrs in adv if you need it.

The problem with that though is that it denies seats to those who genuinely intend to use them. With the infrequency of sleeper services bad enough as it is, having 50 people all trying to book "just in case" reservations on the 24 seats in the back van doesn't help matters! :roll:
(I must admit that for one night of my ALR, I held reservations on all three parts of the Caledonian Sleeper. Two days before however, I confirmed my decision to go to Inverness...So when I reached EXD, I had a call put through to Euston to have my other two seats released for the use of any other passengers who might've needed them. )

Personally, I would like to see an unreserved Mk. III added to the back of sleeper consists to provide seat space for all of these "just in case" passengers. It'd no longer mean that ALRs have to be planned in advance, and up to 100 walk-up passengers could use each sleeper without any reservations being required.

 

[EltonRoad]

Does ScotRail get more revenue when a seat is reserved on the Sleeper? I seem to remember reading that this is the case for certain types of berth reservation. Maybe their slice of Anglo - Scottish revenue is determined by the number of reservations?