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West Highland Sleeper

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4SRKT

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Doing it all at Euston provides all sorts of synergies. For example, the 90 incoming off the Lowland sleeper can shunt release the stock of the Lowland sleeper. With only two departures per night it makes perfect sense to have them both from the same station.
 
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Certain people seem not to consider potential passengers from Yorkshire and the North East. Wonder where these live...

If you did run a sleeper from St Pancras, isn't there a line connecting to the East Coast at the portal of HS1? Route it down there.

It was a hypothetical question, but it does seem odd that the only Northbound night train caters for only one potion of the country.

So what if the waiting facilities are at Euston. There are none at any of the other stations which the sleeper serves.

It wasn't a serious argument saying we must have this, but more a concept of having better transport links between the North and the South, and between Scotland and England.
 

Striker

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If you did run a sleeper from St Pancras, isn't there a line connecting to the East Coast at the portal of HS1? Route it down there.

Yes, there is a link between the domestic platforms at STP to the ECML.

There is already a train from Kings Cross to Leeds at 2330, which is the time a sleeper would leave, so Leeds is already catered for, so it only leaves Newcastle (as Edinburgh is served from Euston). Do you realise the hassle involved for what would be few passengers? I sometimes wonder if people know what is involved when running a train service or whether they think trains can just be magically be run anywhere without any concern to the actual logistics of it.
 
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Wasn't aimed at you 4SRKT

I don't work on the railways. I assume that that is clear from my lack of knowledge. But that doesn't invalidate the question raised. I appreciate that there is a late train North from Kings Cross. But there is no night connection between East England and Scotland, which is the argument I am stating.

Yes it would not be the easiest thing to implement, but this was a hypothetical question.

Does anyone know about the potential passenger levels? Has anyone done a feasibility study? I doubt it. It just seems that the mockneycentrics of this world (where I am originally from) don't seem to consider anything away from the M25, there is something in place for them, and that is good enough. And it's not just railways. It's everything. I appreciate that there is the most demand from London for a lot of things. But that doesn't depreciate a need for the rest of the nation.

And now I am ranting about the bias towards London. <(

Incidently, the last train to London from Newcastle is 20.38. That's not sufficient either.
 

EltonRoad

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Yes, there is a link between the domestic platforms at STP to the ECML.

There is already a train from Kings Cross to Leeds at 2330, which is the time a sleeper would leave, so Leeds is already catered for, so it only leaves Newcastle (as Edinburgh is served from Euston). Do you realise the hassle involved for what would be few passengers? I sometimes wonder if people know what is involved when running a train service or whether they think trains can just be magically be run anywhere without any concern to the actual logistics of it.

I thought dickdarlington was suggesting the Highland sleeper calls at ECML stations to pick up, and was suggesting departing from St Pancras to avoid the reversal at Wembley.
 

sprinterguy

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I'm agreeing with Striker on this one:
I have yet to travel on the Sleeper, but I reckon I can safely say that the principal passenger flow is from London to Scotland. I don’t imagine that demand for travel from the intermediate stations in England that the Sleeper serves is particularly high or forms a sizeable percentage of the trains’ revenue.

Therefore it seems unwise to change the perfectly adequate departure arrangements of the current Sleepers in order to accommodate a minimal number of passenger journeys from East Coast cities to Scotland through expanding the spread of Sleeper calling points. It is best to continue to have both Sleepers departing from Euston as it helps to consolidate the operation of the two trains, in terms of platform staff, and ECS movements from Willesden.
 

tbtc

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Certain people seem not to consider potential passengers from Yorkshire and the North East. Wonder where these live...

Yorkshire to the North East of England is covered by some TPE services to/from Manchester Airport in the middle of the night. Maybe there's some logic in a TPE service connecting with the Sleeper at Crewe/ Preston (yes, TPE don't serve Crewe, but it's not far beyond Manchester Airport)?

North East of England to Edinburgh is too short a journey, meaning people would have to board the train in the middle of the night and get off in the middle of the night. At least with the current times they work so that you either leave or depart at a civilised hour.

Plus, running via the WCML means only one line needs keeping open for engineering/ posessions etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love if the Sleepers stopped in Sheffield, but that's not realistic for many reasons.
 

Striker

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The highland one leaves earlier than that. And picks up successfully at Preston...why can't it happen at York?

Because the sleeper has to go through Preston anyway so of course there's no real issue with stopping there. But you're talking about changing the route PURELY to pick up passengers in York, and that is a highly different issue.
 

laird

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1 Aug 2009
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With the lowland sleeper serving Carlisle I guess that could be the reason why the East Coast and Midland Mainlines would be unfavourable. Perhaps if the Skipton-Settle-Carlisle was electrified then there could be an argument for that route.

I've long thought that the Highland and perhaps Lowland sleepers could benefit from a stop in the West Midlands (Birmingham New Street?), I have boarded at Crewe but unless you are approaching from Wales or Chester it doesn't offer much over the enforced crew change stop at Preston for those joining in the North West.

Sadly when the sleepers from the South and South West were withdrawn the opportunity to fill the gap created by their loss wasn't filled by the redirection of the Euston sleepers.
 
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