Complain about slack timetables all you like...

[EXTspotter]

I wouldn't mind having sleeper DMUs if it meant increase in coverage, however unfortunately the UK is too small to benefit from them fully. Even going down our way isn't really far enough.

[Ameecher]

I suppose it is because Sleeper services are heavily subsidised and no one is willing to put more money in than is really necessary. Buying new stock when there are perfectly good sleeping cars that have just been refurbished would seem rather pointless.

[JamieLei]

It's an excellent idea, and I'd love to see sleeper trains running to smaller settlements all over the country!

However, there's 2 problems in the working:

One is that trains nowadays require a substantial number of them for any company to begin to produce them. All British MUs in recent years have arrived in substantially-sized batches. Even the smallest order in recent years, the 11 sets of 4-car 377s for FCC (technically for Southern) involves 44 carriages, and that was for reproducing something already mass-produced. Any order for a "new" MU (it would have to be new since the doors would have to be intercity-style, with sleeper-style windows) would require at least... 40-50 coaches being built. I doubt any company would be willing to put that sort of investment into it...

Secondly, each independent sleeper set requires a driver and someone to be awake throughout it. That means paying 2 staff to be on each of the little branch-line services once the train has split. It would be prohibitively expensive...

Thus I doubt it would be viable, as much as I'd love to board a train in Birmingham and end up in Dover the following morning, getting off the same train as those who have got on at Leicester, or Manchester.

[Ameecher]

Sleepers just aren't worthwhile in the UK because the nation is too small. The reason there are only 3 sleeper services in the UK are because they serve the only 2 markets that are far enough away from each other and large enough to deem it worthwhile. Even going from Plymouth to London you have to board the sleeper at midnight since FGW ditched the Plymouth portion, I thought the idea was to get a good night's sleep!

Perhaps there are arguments for more sleeper routes but I fail to see them really, daytime travel (when most of the major overnight and weekened engineering works) will continue later in the night and start earlier in the morning and be faster negating the need for sleepers. Even the well organised Mainland Europeans don't bother with sleepers that much although a sleeping car recently introduced to allow through running from Berlin to Irkutsk but even that is only 1 coach.

Scotrail and FGW currently provide one member of staff for each coach on the train meaning that each portion of the Highland Caledonian needs a driver and 6 staff, so that's 7 staff for each section plus a driver for the first leg to Edinburgh and shunters at Edinburgh to detach etc, cleaners and co to change the beds. It's a people intensive (and therefore costly) thing to run and it's not the fact it's locos that is making it that.

[JamieLei]

I would definitely say there's a market for continental sleepers though. London to Berlin is a possibility, or even to Barcelona (there currently is a Trenhotel from Paris that's very well used according to Seat61). HS1 was built with passing loops for freight - slow moving sleepers could also use these.

Whether the Channel Tunnel rules allow sleeping throughout is is another measure though. There's all sorts of little regulations for tunnel use.

[3pr]

When I was in China I took a couple of sleepers. One overnight from about midnight to 5am. The other was a sleeper a daytime train from about 11am to 3pm maybe. The daytime was pretty much an express service but I still got a bed and about a third of train had them. I got a couple of hours kip as I had been up early for a connecting coach but still it was comfortable to stretch out and get what sleep I could. The beds were in stacks of three in open compartments so used about the same as a row of seats. As for the night time sleeper, there were maybe three guards and the train was at least twice the length of a British train, probably more like three times.

Applying this to Britain, economies of scale could make looking after sleeper trains not too difficult if the fat was a cut a little. People are more than capable of looking after themselves, and the stories I've read of people causing trouble on late night sleepers is frankly a load of crap. Im sure a stack of beds would be appreciated on Scotland to London services during the day or even journeys a few hours long that connect to or from airports. There just needs to be a relaxation on experimentation but with the rail sector how it is in Britain there is just no incentive or way to play around with change.

[JamieLei]

Whereas in China where there is an open compartment with stacks of bed three-high, by-and-large, the British public would prefer to have individual cabins with individual beds, with a great big lock to prevent those horrible murderers that the Daily Mail reports from stabbing you in the night. FGW has just removed all "sleeping with a stranger", although the Caledonian Sleeper still allows it. While some people (me included) would not mind at all sleeping with a stranger on top, below and beside you (across the asile), the majority of people certainly would.

PS: Did you take a hard sleeper or a soft sleeper? - and what did the difference seem to be?

[Dave]

Have to disagree with Ameecher since the Fort William portion of the Highland Sleeper is only two or three cars.

[3pr]

Both hard sleepers I think, although I've not heard the term before- hard is 6 beds no door yeah? Didn't get much of a look around the train to see what other classes it had. Also, from searching on the internet people complained about beds being over sold. In my experience, even the unsold beds could only be used until the conductor approved.

I agree about British people being a little cagey. Hell, I got a survey from the Conservative Party about fear of crime. Probably not the biggest priority in rural South East Cornwall.

Maybe on the shorter journeys we are suggesting if the train companies could admit that people don't tend to get much sleep a bed for a nap as a better alternative to trying to sleep upright in a chair and open compartments to keep people in the safety of open sight?

I remember reading about the sleeping with stangers thing. My guess is that FGW want to run the service in the ground so they can axe it out of lack of use.

[EXTspotter]

That sounds like hard class if it is still similar to when Michael Palin went through China and south east asia on full circle and around the world in 80 days. Soft class is even nicer!

[Ameecher]

Have to disagree with Ameecher since the Fort William portion of the Highland Sleeper is only two or three cars.

Well the Fort Bill sleeper has a 1st class and 2nd class sleeper and then at Edinburgh a "day" car and normal seated coach are added making it 4 coaches. In the summer, a sleeping car is nicked off the Aberdeen portion and added to the Fort Bill section. My Point remains though that the whole service is labour intensive because the other two sections still run with 6 sleeping cars plus a seated car meaning 7 staff on the train and a driver.

JameiLei, sleepers to Europe? Someone had that idea once, they even built all the coaches. Want to buy them back from the Canadians?

[EXTspotter]

Ah - the Ill-fated Nightstar! Whoever thought of that clearly wasn't right in the head. Fair enough using the Chunnel all through the day, however it would be so expensive to put customs at many stations and separating international and domestic passengers. When the service was announced in the early 90s, there was little cheap competition for the service, but even by 1992/3 there was already competition from the newly-reaimed Ryanair, which became an LCC (it was a full service carrier before) and pretty soon many new airlines were taking over the skies of western europe, however the project wasn't stopped until 1997 and it was 1999 when it was actually cancelled alltogether. The plan was inconcieved in many ways. Even the locos they were planning on using (37s and 92s) were too weak to operate services on their own, making the service even more expensive to operate. It is a shame it never started, however if it had, it would have turned into a big white elephant - well bigger than it was at the time of cancelling the entire project.

[Parkey]

Really nice coaching stock though, from what I've seen.

Part of me wishes that we'd kept building Mk4 carriages instead of going for these new EMU/DEMUs. This is the part of me that likes to see out of a window, actually get my bag into an overhead rack, and not have my teeth rattling because the underfloor engine is idling.

Never figured out why the Nightstar carriages weren't put into use on the UK domestic sleeper routes.

[Ameecher]

The 92s were more than adequate but the 37s had to be paired up when running on the GWML in order to run at an acceptable speed.

Parkey: Introducing Nightstar stock on the Cally and Night Riveria would have been a right old headache. The Nightstar coaches were ridiculously heavy meaning they'd probably be barred from the West Highland Route, they needed Generator vans due to their continental system of providing train power meaning each section of the Cally would need a generator van so on the Caledonian alone that'd be 5 for just one direction (1 each for the Highland portions and 1 for each of the portions on the Lowland sleeper) then you need the return legs which requires another 5, 10 so far before we've got to both the Night Riveria rakes and spares. IIRC only 5 genny vans were built. Also, at that point in time it looked like the sleepers would be ditched completely so new stock wouldn't be wanted.

As for customs at stations I suspect that it would have been done like they do at Ashford and Lille and many other international trains in Europe, customs officials board the train and check everyone's passports and then leave the train at the next stop. They even ditched the customs facilities at Ashford in favour of this method!

[Parkey]

There we are then. Knew there must have been a reason.

Re. Customs, does anybody know the Eurostar trains to Avignon are handled when they arrive and travel back? Somehow I doubt there's a dedicated international terminal there?

[Ameecher]

I think the Avignon trains run non-stop between Ebbsfleet and Avignon meaning that customs officials can do all the checking in England.

[JamieLei]

Most of continental Europe are part of the Schengen Agreement, which means you can travel between countries without showing a passport or being stopped. I suggested that the sleeper trains to the continent started at London (I was implying St. Pancras) where there is adequate international facilities already. Surely the French section could be taken alongside the English section simultaneously? - And once the French section has been carried out, there's no need for a German, Austrian or Spanish section since they're part of the Schengen Agreement.

International law relating to airline travel mandates a passport or ID check before each flight to prevent unlawful nicking of tickets in the terminal and travelling to various places. However, you step off the plane and there's no border check at the other end. I evidenced this in Iceland, where the pier is split into two - one half for non-Schengen arrivals where you must pass through immigration, and the closer half for Schengen arrivals where you walk straight out the airport.

[Ameecher]

Great, and where were we disputing that bit?
Edit: Many remaining sleeper services are in the former Eastern Bloc or cross the borders so still need customs services.

See map here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Treaty