Talk:Caledonian Sleeper

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Contents

[edit] Number of sleeper services

This article states that it is one of two remaining sleeper services. The Night Riviera article says that it is one of three. This is inconsistent. Can we have a definitive number and update the erroneous article? Wilmot1 21:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Technically, the only sleeper services are the Night Riviera and the Caledonian Sleeper. However, the Caledonian Sleeper is three trains that converge at Edinburgh, and then two trains that converge at Carstairs. So technically, the Night Riviera is either one of two trains (NR and CS), three trains (NR, Lowland CS and Highland CS) or 5 trains (NR, Edinburgh Lowland CS, Glasgow Lowland CS, Inverness Highland CS, Aberdeen highland CS and Fort William Highland CS). Draw your own conclusion as to which is the correct inception. M0RHI | Talk to me 00:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Free cross-london journey

Yeah, all travellers starting at either Glasgow or london are allowed a free cross-city journey with their ticket. Added this to the article, since it's a nice perk. Not sure, though, if it extends to the tube/SRT undeground, or just surface journeys. Anyone know for sure? Graldensblud 22:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

In London the free cross-city transit is the Tube ...as it's not very fast from Euston to Waterloo by overground otherwise! In Glasgow, I've always presumed that the cross-city transfer is the Tube (Glasgow Subway) aswell, though I've never been in possession of Scotrail sleeper-specific ticket to legitimately test this! —Sladen 00:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of destinations

I'm thinking of re-adding the destinations table, which seems to have been lost when the infobox was placed. Many of the links may be of interest to readers of this article. Who agrees, and if so, where do you recommend? M0RHI 00:55, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Be careful about re-adding the table, as it would mess up the way the page is laid out. What you could do is to divide up the route section into individual sections, for example one for the Aberdeen section, one for the Inverness section etc, and then list all of the destinations that way. Hammersfan 11.00 BST, 30/03/06
Worth merging the London Euston, Watford Junction, Crewe, Preston and Edinburgh Waverley, between the Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William routes, to prevent repetition? M0RHI 22:17, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I've started on a set of WP:TRAIL Template:Caledonian Sleeper route maps. For the Highlander, it might be possible to interlace the stations, or to separate out the portions into three separate diagrams. The overhead of the London/Crewe/Preston being duplicated in four diagrams vs. two is not very great compared to the huge number of small Highland stations served. —Sladen 00:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Haulage

It would be nice to have a "traction" section covering the locomotives used to haul the Caledonian Sleeper, both past and present. Emoscopes Talk 21:28, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Almost exclusively the sleeper traction is Class 90s under the wires and Class 67s for the Diesel sections. The MotherwellCarstairs–Edinburgh and v.v. drag of the Edinburgh portion can also be a Class 67; and for the Fort William you might be really lucky and get the Class 37 back up for when 67004 has worn its break blocks. The most exotic that you can get is an ECML diversion that is further diverted over non-electric sections; though even that would probably be a skip these days. —Sladen 00:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] That Booking Section..

I think that booking section is highly irrelevant. It is not the job of Wikipedia to inform whether tickets are readily available or not. Furthermore, since the changes that were made over Christmas (I think), it's made it easier to book tickets via online retailers. I always book mine at mainline train stations and have never had a single problem.

Furthermore, they don't appear expensive, they appear at the right price for this service. It's not the job of Wikipedia to define what's expensive, although I agree with the Bargain Berths being referred to in some context.

Please reply within 3 days or I will adapt this to a more factual and NPOV.

Did this get done? (The comment above wasn't/isn't signed). —Sladen 00:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lowland locos

Can anyone add the locomotives used for the LOWLAND sleeper? I can not find that on the page.

I think it specifies Class 90s, but it's not too clear, I'll try to clarify it. M0RHI 22:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thanks 82.40.75.55 17:01, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Class 90 from Euston to Glasgow and v.v., dropping half of the train, where a Class 90 or Class 67 collects it to Edinburgh. —Sladen 00:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Showers

Travelled on the sleeper last month, no showers available at Euston to standard class passengers (whether paying a surplus or not). Ammended accordingly Graldensblud 12:14, 05 August 2006 (GMT+1)

IIRC, showers at Euston only available to First class passengers (single berth holders) and in which case, the showers (inside the Virgin lounge) are free. As you note, use cannot be "purchased", except by holding a First class ticket. —Sladen 00:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Have recently corresponded with FirstScotrail about this, planning a trip to London on the sleeper. They informed me that standard class passengers can obtain use of the showers in the Virgin Lounge by holding a First Class ticket for travel on a Virgin service from London Euston that day. A first class ticket to Watford Junction costs £11.50 - so you could gain access to the showers for that amount. £3.50 less than a shower in terminal one at Heathrow, but hardly cheap. Anyone want to amend? Echo park00 (talk) 14:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Route diagram

Iv'e removed Watford Junction as a highland sleeper stop. If there are any other alterations, please direct them to me as I can alter the original vector file rather than the *.png. Emoscopes Talk 16:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello Emoscopes, would it be possible to upload this SVG/vector original to wiki-commons along with the PNG. Not having the vector is what lead me to finally start on doing a WP:TRAIL Template:Caledonian Sleeper diagram—the PNG route map on its own isn't quite so easy to maintain. —Sladen 00:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Would it be worth pointing out (as a resident of this town) that the Highland Sleeper stops in Dunblane going southbound at night but, for some still unknown reason after years and years, it does not stop at Dunblane on the way north! This is the same story with the Highland Chieftain GNER service on a Sunday, which serves Dunblane only in the southbound direction! Very frustrating for those who like to travel on the few remaining "real" trains in this country!

Hello "unsigned comment"! According to the timetable at [1], The Highlander does stop at Dunblane; and checking the output from the DB/German Railways timetable passengers for Dunblane may both leave the train in the morning and join a northbound sleeper at Dunblane. However if your are a local and have a differing experience, this could definitely do with checking out. —Sladen 00:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Timetables

An unregistered user keeps adding huge aouts of material related to curret and future timetables. Please don't. And don't include associated trivial items (e.g. mentioning that engineering works may change train tims).

Such enrtries are not encyclopaedic and are not really what Wikipedia is about.

see WP:NOT#DIR and WP:NOT#REPOSITORY DrFrench 12:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to step back from this edit war. I've tried to make my positiion clear on the anon users talk page User talk:81.109.234.187 as he's done the same thing to the Highland Chieftain page, and blanked talk pages to remove my concerns.

I don't believe this sort of information belongs in Wikipedia - a link to the Fisrt website is enough to obtain timetable information

DrFrench 13:37, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It certainly does not belong on Wikipedia, and the user is going about his business in entirely the wrong way. Emoscopes Talk 14:19, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, per Emoscopes above. We have a routemap and a link to the First Scotrail website. This is sufficient, and the edits break WP:NOT. M0RHI | Talk to me 15:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)


Diasagree useful information --Prof Jolly 16:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, per Emoscopes above. Fraslet 16:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Also agree that this information isn't suitable and that the links provide this info. Adambro 16:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

The question is not whether it is useful, it is whether it should be included as per WP:NOT. Adambro 16:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to be argumentative but in which category would it fit into? Because I can't seem to see on that fits --Prof Jolly 17:12, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I would say that it easily fits into WP:NOT#IINFO, also, I have never seen an encyclopedia giving timetable information, this is why the links on the page point at the First ScotRail website so that a reader can access that information if they so desire. It is not the function of an encyclopedia to give timetable information. Fraslet 17:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
just looked and i cannot see which it falls into

1.8 Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information

  1. Lists of Frequently Asked Questions. - not an faq
  2. Travel guides. - not a travel guide but i could see where this could get close
  3. Memorials. - not a memorial
  4. Instruction manuals. - not an instruction manual
  5. Internet guides. - not a guide
  6. Textbooks and annotated texts. - not a text book
  7. Plot summaries.  - not a plot summary
  8. Lyrics databases. - not a lyric

its got other information than whats on the firsts website --Prof Jolly 17:51, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment The article has more than is at the First ScotRail website, however I cannot see any information that is not related to the timetable that is not produced at the First website, or is ephemeral. See the previous clashes, and above / history to see. This has been quite a stable article, those that try to disturb this by going against concensus are simply disturbing what could be a good article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by M0RHI (talk • contribs) 00:46, 5 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] North British relevance

I'm not really sure what the relevance of linking to North Briton is; the "North Britain" fad was largely an 18th and 19th century trend amongst the Scottish elite to identify themselves as British unionists. It really has little, if anything, to do with the Caledonian Sleeper, which is named after a far more ancient term for Scotland - Caledonia! Also, the Caledonian Sleeper to Aberdeen may run over some ex-NBR metals for a small portion of its journey, but equally so it runs over Caledonian Railway and Highland Railway territory in Scotland (and LNER and LMS if you look at a different era), that is not justification of the relevance of the link. We might as well list every single rail company that the CS runs over, it isn't an entirely Scottish affair. Emoscopes Talk 11:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

We're talking about a portion of a sentence and a couple of internal links. I honestly don't see any harm in helping the reader find a bit of background information where it happens to come up in the course of the text. – Kieran T (talk) 11:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and you've reverted again. Didn't feel like waiting for the discussion you started? That's one way to try to close the point. – Kieran T (talk) 11:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I was merely reverting the article back to how it was, and pointing out what I see are more than reasonable grounds for doing so. Articles can very rapidly snowball into an entirely diffuse collection of random information. I really do not understand what the "useful background aspect" of the link is. This article explains the relevance of Caledonia and Caledonian, which is entirely reasonable seeing as that is the name of the service. Were it the North British Sleeper then explaining what North Britain is all about would to be useful. The fact is, North Britain and northern Britain are different; one is a political and social movement, the other a geographical descriptor. The latter is relevant, the former is not. Emoscopes Talk 11:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
You're quite right about the snowball effect. However, what I particularly objected to was that despite now agreeing that one of the links is relevant, you reverted rather than constructively editing. To the point about relevance; the section refers to the name of the service. We don't know what was in the minds of the people who chose the name, so by the logic above we would perhaps also be required to remove the link to Latin too? Hardly relevant to the train service by strict criteria. – Kieran T (talk) 12:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I reverted the article because, as explained - and I believe justified - in depth above, I did not see the relevance of linking to either North Briton or North British Railway, how else this could have been constructively edited in the context of the name "Caledonian" I could not see. Considering that Caledonia is a Latin term, I think that is fully justified in being included. I would suggest that if you wish to link to the NBR, a more appropriate way to do so would be to describe the Aberdeen portion of the Highland Sleeper as running across the old-NBR mainline from Edinburgh to Aberdeen. Emoscopes Talk 12:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History

Does anyone have enough of a knowledge of the Caledonian Sleeper over the years to write a brief history section? The Guardian quotes the Sleeper first ran in 1873, but I can't find any more sources for the history of the Sleeper. I'd be interested to learn though, if anyone has any sources. M0RHI | Talk to me 21:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

It was formed from the Intercity West Coast sector, which ran the 5 sleepers to Scotland. I believe, from googling, it was incorporated into the ScotRail franchise to protect it within the domain of the Scottish Office (later, Scottish Executive), as British Rail threatened to withdraw the highland sleepers in 1994. There's a couple of things you can find from Hansard and *.gov.uk websites using google. Emoscopes Talk 21:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stopping Patterns - Seated/Sleeping

copied from User Talk:Sladen (by Stewart (talk) 08:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC))
Wow! Your Caledonian Sleeper template is far more impressive than my humble effort! A lot better on the eyes too with the collapsible sections for the various parts of the routes. I'm not sure about the distances, I'll have a look and see what I can find. Emoscopes Talk 14:36, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Is this what you are looking for? http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~butler/miles1.lst Emoscopes Talk 14:40, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Some excellent work on the Caledonian Sleeper. A few detail comments however:-
  • There appears to be some mix ups in the columns for the stopping patterns - you have Stirling above Westerton and Dalmiur above Falkirk. (I have corrected this, and the double Dalwhinnie entry)
  • From personal experience having travelled from Westerton to London several times in the past few years, I have seen passengers leaving and joining the seated portion at Preston, Edinburgh and Westerton. I have a colleague who regularly uses this seated accomodation to travel from Preston to Edinburgh (and vice versa). On this basis, I do not quite see the relevance of putting Preston as the adjacent stopping point to Westerton. Following this logic to the next step, Dalmuir is not adjacent stop for the sleeper portion as it is not possible to use a sleeper compartment for a journey between Westerton and Dalmuir only. Logically the way forward would be to have separate seated and sleeper accomodation lines for all the stations as passengers who travel in a sleeper compartment from Scottish stations have a next station of Preston (taking the Highland Sleeper as the example), whilst it is possible - from personal observation on the West Highland service - for passengers to join/leave the train at all stations.
  • Are you also aware of the dedicated Glasgow Queen Street to Westerton (non-stop) service - usually a Class 158 - that ScotRail provides to specifically connect with the sleeper (in both directions). --Stewart (talk) 07:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC) Revised Stewart (talk) 07:54, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Hi Stewart:
  • Is the diagram mix-up with the table Emoscopes just placed up directly onto the Caledonian Sleeper article, or the collapsible one I've been working on at Template:Caledonian Sleeper? —The later isn't finished yet as I want to get the Km distances correct first. ...I haven't worked out whether to calculate the West Highland Line distances via Falkirk High or via Springburn, though I should now have all the information as I could somebody to read off some more details from a Quail diagram.

  • Yes agreed, this whole issue to do with the different components of the sleeper and "not" stopping in Edinburgh *cough* is all a bit messy. Overnight trains have a tendency to build up the passenger numbers with a series of "pick up only" stops, followed by a core section of 2-3 hours with no stations, then a series of set-down-only stops. Such a profile ensures that local "on-off" traffic is avoided, that everyone gets a decent sleep in the middle and that the train can make decent headway (with flexibility for engineering re-routeing during the core section).

    A sleeper-style profile can be shown in the timetable with a train that only has Dep. (departure) times for the first N stations, then only Arr. (Arrival) times for the last N stations. The first opportunities for a north-bound passenger to officially get off are Westerton, Stirling and the far side of the Forth Bridge. In this case we know that the train goes straight from Preston. Display signs at Crewe will show 1S25 as the 21:15 departure from Euston to Inverness, stopping at Preston).

    A morning traveller at Edinburgh is unaware of any trains from London, or to Aberdeen/Inverness. But the convenient looking 1Y11 04:50 train does exist leaving Waverley, to Westerton and stations to Fort William.

    Going north from Preston, the next stop is Westerton: simple, sort of. But going south from Westerton, the next stop is Edinburgh, followed by Preston. My argument for linking to both to allow traversal of the linked-list from start from end-to-end. I'm equally open to fudging the logistics in some other way or even reverting back to brutal honesty on the scheduled service stops (maybe adding the Lowlander at Preston).

  • I have done Belfast→Stranraer→Glasgow Central→Westerton→Dalmuir→(Edinburgh Waverley)→Crewe once, but that is the sole limit of my experience on the Fort William portion; Westerton seemed empty and cold, so I caught the train one stop along to civilisation (with a quick check of the timetable first) ...this last train Westerton→Dalmuir could have been the multiple unit in question, though I may have caught it accidentally!. I was the only person to get on so the connection might be underutilised—the train staff even suggested that I should have gone straight to Edinburgh and "got my head down sooner".
In a way I'm quite glad there is still a train (should that be is that be 2/4/5, or 10 trains?) which are still logistically interesting enough to present us with such a challenge. And the two services I've used the most? The 01:14 Edinburgh→London and 23:45 Crewe/Preston→~04:00 Edinburgh; ...much more conveniently timed than the scheduled alternatives!... —Sladen 09:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I've switched in a version of the collapsible Template:Caledonian Sleeper and removed the incomplete distances removed for the moment. Hopefully it should solve some of the layout/ordering issues. Note that there is lots of extra `` information in that article which should come in useful later for completing the map. —Sladen 09:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I to have experience using the Sleeper as a non-sleeper service; Bus from Mallaig to Fort William, Sleeper to Westerton in the seated compartment, connecting service to Queen Street then on to Waverley, because of this situation where you cannot disembark at Waverley from the Highland Sleeper. It is timetabled as such on the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry timetable, but its an inconvenient journey to say the least! That said, do we really need to include all possible combinations of non-standard sleeper journeys that one can make? I would however agree that we should put in the connecting service from Westerton to QS, and possibly on to Waverley in a shade of light pink, as it is possible to make this as a timetabled journey (at least, according to Calmac!, when I phoned up ScotRail booking they denied all possibility of such a service) Emoscopes Talk 10:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
When it comes to the West Highland Line, we can think of the early morning first and evening last services of the day as a normal train that happens to have some invisible sleeping carriages attached. Joining/leaving this train is just the same as using any other—I don't think it even requires reservation. First Scotrail
  • "Limited seating accommodation is available from Fort William to Edinburgh arr. 0014 Mondays and 0050 Tuesdays to Saturdays; and from Edinburgh at 0450 to Fort William." sleeper+times.pdf
  • "Limited seating accommodation is also available between Fort William and Edinburgh (both directions)." —caledonian-sleeper-timetable.pdf.
  • "First ScotRail also provides extra seating accommodation attached to the Sleeper service between Edinburgh and Fort William." —cycle-info.php.
  • "04:50: Limited seating accommodation available. Reservations recommended." 1123601678-route06a.pdf.
  • "Please note that Freedom of Scotland Travelpass holders do not get free travel on the Seated Coach. (except when travelling between Edinburgh – Fort William) —merch.doc
Perhaps we should instead think of the Fort William as a sleeper with a normal train attached. There's lots more references, all of which use some variation of the Limited seating space is available mantra. Most of these documents do immediately following the extra seating references with a note about "a connecting service from Glasgow is available except on Sunday nights"; whilst not giving the passenger any guidance which station (or level) they should catch this from! —Sladen 15:04, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fish transport/Inverness sleeper

I will have a think about this. Please be aware that it was never my attention to doubt that this was so, it is just in my long experience of Wikipedia, you cannot say something, even if you know it is right, if you cannot provide a reliable source for it, and you cannot cause from effect in a source. Otherwise somebody (like me!) comes along and shoots you down. I've had it happen to myself countless times. I take it from the "Royal Kitchens" comment that this produce is heading for Fortnum and Masons? Of course, there is a third option of finding somebody in Inverness getting the goods loaded into the Guards van. Emoscopes Talk 15:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

No, you're quite right; The royal kitchens part does need backing up, beyond the hearsay of those involved with loading and unloading the crates (Fortnum and Masons—I have no idea). I've had a fruitless time searching online for (any) source, so I've emailed First Scotrail with a request for information regarding the history of the fish transport. We'll have to wait and see when/if I manage to get anything back. Yes, I like the Inverness photo idea; infinity more practical (if a local can be found) and much more informative. Thank you for picking me up on not providing a reference. —Sladen 16:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Got a reply from Scotrail Customer Support:

Our Ref: 3406670/FSR

Dear Mr Sladen

Thank you for your email dated 30 August 2007 enquiring [sic] about the fish that is carried on the Caledonian Sleeper.

The Inverness to Euston service carries fresh shellfish for use in London the following day. We agreed to carry the produce after Red Star parcels ceased to trade. It is the only service I know of in Britain.

Janine Smith
Customer Relations Advisor

—Sladen 09:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Highlander diversionary routes

I travelled on the Caledonian Sleeper last Friday night (1st Feb) and was quite surprised to note that after calling at Stirling, the portion from Inverness did not veer left at Larbert and head for Edinburgh, but went on the Glasgow branch, took the Cumbernauld-Coatbridge line and then joined up with the other portions of the train at Carstairs, not Edinburgh Waverley. Is this a permanent change, and, if so, should we be changing this page to reflect it, or was it, perhaps, just a temporary measure during engineering works or something? I'm just confused about what they did with passengers who might normally have boarded at Falkirk Grahamston. Fraserboyd (talk) 00:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

For the Highlander, this is most likely just an engineering diversion. To answer about the Falkirk passengers, IIRC, the portion from Aberdeen also does a diversion at Falkirk and (coming in from the east), collects any passengers there, instead. Do you remember anything about the order that the sections linked up at Carstairs? Or what happened to the seats off the Fort Williams portion (if you were able to see it at any point). —Sladen (talk) 01:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rail Fare Changes

There are some major rail fare changes being brought into affect across the network next month which will include the abolition of 'apex' fares and include the introduction of railcard discounts on advance fares. Does anyone know how this will effect the sleeper service as this will require a major change to the section regarding tickets on this article?Grizzlyqi (talk) 11:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)