New Edinburgh-Paris Sleeper Service Proposed

[Arpster]

Yes, I guess a trip down the WCML and NLL would make more sense than my hope of an ECML journey I could jump onto. I get the impression that they've drawn some aspirational lines on a flashy website but not really thought about the rolling stock implications of sourcing sleeping cars that are Channel Tunnel-compliant and UK loading gauge-compliant!

 

It does seem like there is quite the rennaissance in sleeping trains at the moment, with OBB's new Brussels and Amsterdam to Vienna service, rumours of a restarted Amsterdam to Copenhagen train, and now this proposal. I've done Paris - Munich and Vienna - Cologne, both of which depart and arrive at civilised times. Paris - Milan and Zurich - Bonn both dumped me out at 6am and left me wandering around an empty city looking for a café that was open. Ideally the trains would be timed to arrive at their destination at sensible time.

 

I've also done UK to Spain by train, Eric. Getting to Bilbao from Newcastle was just about doable in 24 hours, with the last train down to King's Cross, a night in a grotty hotel opposite St Pancras, the first Eurostar of the day to Paris, a schlep across to Gare de Montparnasse, a TGV to Irun, and then the Euskotren along to San Sebastian and a coach to Bilbao (arriving at 9:30pm). A sleeper would have made that easier, but the Trenhotel from Paris to Madrid and Barcelona was recently removed because the new high speed line made the journey so short that the sleeper was uneconomical. Why would this new service be considered competitive if RENFE didn't want to continue their sleeper?

 

Arp

[letterspider]

I can see a glossy website with some attractive routes.

Nowhere to book tickets

no rolling stock

 

Looks like they are just going to measure visits to the website to get an idea of which countries' residents are showing a passing interest

 

It would be nice for the EU to do what it was created for and co-ordinate this project - it has tremendous potential just for weekend romances

 

[flapland]

I wonder if the Trenhotel stock is actually part of the equation in Europe if that is struggling. I can't see how that could work in the UK though. 

[TravisM]

I think it’s a good idea but I feel that it’s going to come up against the same issues that killed off Nightstar, which was budget airlines.  Who wants to be stuck on a train for 10+ hours whereas you can get a early EasyJet flight from Edinburgh or Glasgow and arrive in Paris at a decent time for probably a quarter (or less) of the price.

 

If I was just a normal member of the travelling public, I think I’d pick the flight over the train every time.

[Steamport Southport]

Quick look and the prices I found were

 

£60 each way by EasyJet.

£88 return by Air France.

 

Takes 1 hr 45 mins per leg.

 

Whilst looking I got an offer for £14 both ways.

 

So how are they going to tempt me to go by train instead?

 

 

That is Edinburgh to Paris, it applies equally to those of us in the north.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Steamport Southport
Added the last bit for clarity

[Dungrange]

I've no idea whether this service will ever come to fruition, but looking at the website, I'd say the intention is to run the service non-stop between Paris and Edinburgh, which means that which route it takes in the UK is in some respects irrelevant to most people.

 

It looks to me as though the intention is for the Venice service to stop at Milan and for the Rome service to stop at Florence.  It looks like both the Berlin and Copenhagen services would stop at Brussels and Hamburg.  However, no intermediate stops are shown between Paris and Edinburgh, which leads me to assume that none are proposed.  Also, the vision is to travel to 'more than ten European cities': 12 are shown on the map, with Edinburgh being the only UK city.  If the intention was to serve more intermediate destinations, then I'd expect the vision to be to serve more than ten European cities.

 

It looks like they want to target the market that would currently stay in a hotel and then get an early morning flight.  If we assume that a few more airlines get into financial difficulties as a result of COVID-19 restrictions, they are perhaps hoping that the cost of air travel will increase and therefore rail will be better able to compete.

[nigb55009]

5 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

I caught the Caledonian sleeper to Perth a while back. That passes through Milton Keynes non-stop, which gave me 2 choices: catch a train to London then board the train in Euston at 9pm(ish) or get to Crewe for midnight.

Getting to Crewe for midnight was a lot more trouble. Services stop well before then so I would have to get there a lot earlier. It was also more expensive than a train to London.

It was the same price to catch the sleeper from London as it was to catch it from Crewe. I guess they don't sell seats/berths on it from London to Crewe so it makes no difference to the service where I board it.

 

I am just trying to think how long it would take to get from Edinburgh to Paris. Sleeper speeds on the WCML are lower than for daytime services. I believe this is to reduce noise but it also makes the journey more comfortable & reduces stress on locos & rolling stock. I would expect the Paris-channel leg would also be slower overnight for the same reasons.

The nice things about doing Perth-London was boarding the train at sleeping time & waking up at my destination around the same time I would normally wake up. Adding the extra distance to Paris doesn't mirror this.

Sleeper services are subject to an 80mph maximum. IIRC, this falls to 65mph between Carnforth and Carlisle. As you say, to provide a greater degree of comfort. Although when I travelled from Inverness to Euston I found that drinking Deuchars IPA in the bar as far as Perth also helps.

[DY444]

9 hours ago, nigb55009 said:

Sleeper services are subject to an 80mph maximum. IIRC, this falls to 65mph between Carnforth and Carlisle. As you say, to provide a greater degree of comfort. Although when I travelled from Inverness to Euston I found that drinking Deuchars IPA in the bar as far as Perth also helps.

 

They are timed to run at a maximum of 80mph which is not quite the same thing.  They can and do exceed that if running late.  In the case of the Scottish services the locomotives on the trunk haul are limited to 87mph so the gains are relatively small but the Cornish service is able to run up to 95mph if required where the line speed permits.

Edited June 17, 2021 by DY444

[AMJ]

Talking about cost comparisons I had a long weekend in Barcelona a few years ago and flight back cost about £12 and train from Manchester airport - Leeds was more.  Sometime I might even time it and have a meal before catching train.  Still no comparison to cost of sleeper even in the UK.

 

Most of the travelling public will want to get there as soon as possible.

 

When I have holidays away the travel is the main part of the journey.   To quote RL Stevenson "It's better to travel than arrive".

[Zomboid]

In round numbers, the WCML is 400 miles long, HS1 is 70 miles, the tunnel is 30 and the LGV Nord is 210. So the journey is approximately 710 miles. So if it departs at 8pm and arrives at 8am the average speed would need to be basically 60mph. The Edinburgh portion of the Caledonian sleeper seems to average about 50mph, including some stops and the Carstairs shunt, so without any of that it might be doable. Whether it would be achievable without the high speed lines is another matter.

[Ron Ron Ron]

10 hours ago, jools1959 said:

I think it’s a good idea but I feel that it’s going to come up against the same issues that killed off Nightstar, which was budget airlines.  Who wants to be stuck on a train for 10+ hours whereas you can get a early EasyJet flight from Edinburgh or Glasgow and arrive in Paris at a decent time for probably a quarter (or less) of the price.

 

If I was just a normal member of the travelling public, I think I’d pick the flight over the train every time.

Not a personal swipe at you jools, but with regard to Nightstar and Regional Eurostar, the budget airline thing is a total myth.  It’s a complete nonsense, because European budget airlines were only in their infancy when those proposals were scrapped and those flights that did exist, didn’t serve any of the routes and markets that the ill-fated rail proposals were aimed at.

The great boom in European budget air travel arose several years later, but even to this day, the same markets the Channel Tunnel rail proposals were aimed at, have hardly been covered by budget airlines, if at all.

Nightstar and Regional Eurostar failed, because there never was a sufficient market for it in the first place.

 

 

[Fat Controller]

1 minute ago, Zomboid said:

In round numbers, the WCML is 400 miles long, HS1 is 70 miles, the tunnel is 30 and the LGV Nord is 210. So the journey is approximately 710 miles. So if it departs at 8pm and arrives at 8am the average speed would need to be basically 60mph. The Edinburgh portion of the Caledonian sleeper seems to average about 50mph, including some stops and the Carstairs shunt, so without any of that it might be doable. Whether it would be achievable without the high speed lines is another matter.

Both the French and UK high-speed lines are available at night, subject to pre-planned single-line working and speed restrictions; they carry a small amount of freight. Eurotunnel is fully available Monday- Thursday nights, and has differing amounts of SLW on the other nights.

[Ron Ron Ron]

8 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

In round numbers, the WCML is 400 miles long, HS1 is 70 miles, the tunnel is 30 and the LGV Nord is 210. So the journey is approximately 710 miles. So if it departs at 8pm and arrives at 8am the average speed would need to be basically 60mph. The Edinburgh portion of the Caledonian sleeper seems to average about 50mph, including some stops and the Carstairs shunt, so without any of that it might be doable. Whether it would be achievable without the high speed lines is another matter.

Who cares what average speed it would be?

Who is going to want to use such a service and just how many of them?

There isn’t a sufficiently sized market to make it work, unless it’s a less frequent offering aimed as part of tourist itineraries.

 

A flight from Paris - Edinburgh takes about 1hr 20 mins actual flying time (schedule times allow 1hr 45min or so).

Even allowing for journeys to and from the airport and pre-boarding time, you can be there in hardly no time and either save an overnight stay, or have a comfortable night in a decent hotel bed …and save money to boot.

 

What fares would have to be charged to recuperate the cost of bespoke CT compliant sleeper stock and the high running costs?

It just doesn’t add up.

 

 

.

[Zomboid]

29 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Who cares what average speed it would be?

I was looking at whether the journey could be completed in a sensible timeframe at the kind of speed that sleeper trains typically achieve. If it were much further or slower then it would be more like some of the trains that Amtrak and Via Rail operate in that it would need to be a day train as well as a night train.

 

The average speed itself would be of little importance to most though.

[C126]

2 hours ago, DY444 said:

 

...  but the Cornish service is able to run up to 95mph if required where the line speed permits.

 

As a hopelessly romantic old softy I hope this service is a success, but I share the previous posters' doubts, and can attest to the sleep-denying qualities of high-speed running on the Cornish Riviera a few years ago.  A trial run before spending a fortune on the V.S.O.E., it put me off sleeper trains for life, alas.

[Arpster]

I agree that in current circumstances the sleeper option seems to play second fiddle to the cheap flight. I guess for leisure travel it will always be thus, except for those of us who enjoy the longer train option. But for business travel, there might be a market for the sleeper - getting to your destination at a reasonable time without having to get up at 4am to go to the airport, or travel the night before and pay for a hotel, may be attractive. 

 

I think we also need to recognise that decarbonisation will play a part too. For a long time aviation has been left out of national emissions targets but that will soon change. This might finally start to put a fair price on aviation and make rail more competitive. There are also a lot of companies (like my employer) who are taking their own emissions seriously. Our business travel policy now mandates rail for domestic journeys (no more internal flights for us!) and has targets to reduce the number of short-haul flights we take. Such a sleeper would help reduce business carbon emissions even if it cost more than the equivalent flight, and businesses are increasingly thinking about their carbon budget as well as their financial budget.

 

 

[chrisf]

I suspect that it would be more realistic to contemplate one sleeping car rather than a whole train.  When I visited Prague a couple of years ago I discovered the sleeping car from Zurich to Prague and built the journey round it.  The car is attached to a succession of trains and reaches Prague late morning.  It does help if the trains are loco hauled!  For Edinburgh - Paris you would need a few mail vans and a loco as well as the sleeper - oh, and a time machine to go back 40 years or more when such things were commonplace.

 

It costs nothing to dream ...

 

Chris

[adb968008]

21 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

And yet....While the Iron curtain was at it's most ferric, I  travelled on overnight trains from Aaachen to West Berlin via E. Germany, from Berlin to Moscow, from Venice to Zagreb, and across plenty of European borders that were then quite strict such as Italy to Austria and Netherlands to Germany- and, though I never travelled on it,  we did have the Night Ferry and they managed that at one platform at Victoria once a day without any problems .  

Ive done many of the same, Budapest to Moscow, including being regauged whilst in my carriage, 3 hours locked in a cell at Csop station for immigration, and being woken up at 2 am by a 20 year old blonde in military uniform asking for my passport at the Russian border... 2.5 day journey by train.

 

My record for immigration checks on a sleeper is Budapest to Krakow back in 2003.. immigration at Hungary & Slovak borders, then again both sides of Slovak/czech, and a really odd one on the Polish border, where an ancient guy with beard produced a hand written register of names, and proceeded to check it against my passport, taking him 20 odd minutes, before he grunted something equivalent to ok.. all between dinner and breakfast.

 

Europeans in general dont have an issue with overnight travel, where it saves on hotels.

i’m surprised their plans are only western european, given the tens of thousands of Eastern Europeans roading by coach daily between east and west, some form of Eastern connection may make sense.

 

Speed isnt the issue with a sleeper, and much of europe still uses loco hauled, so adding / removing coaches isnt an issue, rather than dedicated trains... Being shunted whilst in your carriage is europe is fun, and accepted, but hasnt been the norm at all in the UK, except maybe in days of the ACE.

 

How could it work in the UK... same way as in Europe... a knock on your compartment door, and a quick passport check... its never been any different on the Eastern Frontier, and still happens on occasion in the EU too (usually by the Germans looking for someone)... Europe has successfully done international overnight sleepers for 150 years, including gauge changes, customs searches, managing immigrants and smugglers.. its all old hat for them... 

 

When it comes to full deboarding and immigration by rail, I can only think of are Canada (Vancouver, Montreal & Toronto),  Singapore (Woodlands)..note exiting Malaysia is entrain,  China (Lo Wu), Eurostar (All), all other international trains ive done seem to be ok with onboard checking.

 

why it might not happen..British bureaucracy, we wont take their advice and will insist on doing it our way, without experience doubtlessly making it overbearing and uneconomic. Doubtlessly the business case will be price based on British ABC socio economics, when reality will be tourists, students, back packers and short term workers who need a budget way to travel thats better than a bus.

 

I wish it all success, but what I really need is a sleeper + motorrail.. if I could get to Eastern Europe or Southern Europe/Med overnight with my car.. i’d not be flying that route any more.

 

Edited June 17, 2021 by adb968008

[Pacific231G]

16 hours ago, jools1959 said:

I think it’s a good idea but I feel that it’s going to come up against the same issues that killed off Nightstar, which was budget airlines.  Who wants to be stuck on a train for 10+ hours whereas you can get a early EasyJet flight from Edinburgh or Glasgow and arrive in Paris at a decent time for probably a quarter (or less) of the price.

 

If I was just a normal member of the travelling public, I think I’d pick the flight over the train every time.

I'm not so sure. It wasn't an overnight trip but the last time I travelled from London to Bordeaux - with a change of station in Paris- I calculated that the total overall journey time was about forty five minutes longer than Easyjet (and that was before the Poitiers-Bordeaux LGV was open) and the total cost was similar. I did regret, while enjoying a baguette in Paris, that I wasn't in the security queue at Stansted instead  NOT.  A major deciding factor was that I'd  flown with Easyjet on my previous visit and, though I don't have a problem with Easyjet, I certainly did not enjoy two hours of the delights of Bordeaux Airport's low cost Billi airline shed terminal followed by an hour queing for immigration at Luton. Ugh! 

[Fenman]

7 hours ago, C126 said:

 

As a hopelessly romantic old softy I hope this service is a success, but I share the previous posters' doubts, and can attest to the sleep-denying qualities of high-speed running on the Cornish Riviera a few years ago.  A trial run before spending a fortune on the V.S.O.E., it put me off sleeper trains for life, alas.

 

Twenty-thirty years ago I had occasional evening meetings with a work dinner in Edinburgh, and the Sleeper let me then get back to my London office for a normal start to the working day. It was theoretically ideal, had a whiff of romance, and in reality never worked.

 

I called them "dozers" rather than sleepers -- random points jarring suddenly shaking you awake; your bed running side-to-side instead of front-to-back making every change of speed worse; and occasional stops in the middle of the night where some platform worker would stand randomly outside a carriage window and shout "Crewe" (or whatever) in their loudest voice... And without going into TMI, my bladder has not improved with age: a schlep along the corridor was never any fun (though I understand some of the new trains have ensuites).

 

So I think it's a non-runner? Not necessarily, actually.

 

It's hard to predict the future, but the trends seem to be: discouraging air travel (look at how some European governments made airline bail-outs contingent on them stopping routes which competed with high-speed rail); a shift to EVs (and it's difficult to see how aviation could do that -- though, as I wrote, it's hard to predict the future); a world in which we have to live with Covid, which makes individual sleeper compartments much more attractive than being crammed into an over-crowded short-haul plane; less mobility for much higher prices...

 

That world might be a little more amenable to overnight sleeper services. Though I'm still not betting my pension on it. 

 

Paul

 

 

 

[JN]

Looks interesting. Seems to me they are invoking the spirit of the Orient Express/Trans Siberian Express etc by selling the journey as an experience rather than just connecting two destinations. People might travel for the experience as much as wanting to visit Edinburgh from Paris (or Paris from Edinburgh). Midnight Trains seem to be going for the higher end of the travel market, travel by train in comparative luxury to even first class air travel - as well as the added bonus of arriving in the city itself rather than flying to an airport and then going in to Edinburgh or Paris via non-luxury public transport.

[caradoc]

8 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Doubtlessly the business case will be price based on British ABC socio economics, when reality will be tourists, students, back packers and short term workers who need a budget way to travel thats better than a bus.

 

Even with the huge subsidy it receives, and the comparative simplicity of operating entirely within the UK, the Caledonian Sleeper is not exactly a budget way to travel ! Lovely though it sounds, I have to agree that the finances and technical complications make this proposal a non-starter. 

 

[Foulounoux]

10 hours ago, C126 said:

 

As a hopelessly romantic old softy I hope this service is a success, but I share the previous posters' doubts, and can attest to the sleep-denying qualities of high-speed running on the Cornish Riviera a few years ago.  A trial run before spending a fortune on the V.S.O.E., it put me off sleeper trains for life, alas.

 

The VSOE is worth it we did it 25 years ago this month going to Innsbruck and onto Vienna

Our Honeymoon and at that time involved a Seacat crossing out of Folkestone ....not to recommended in a force 7/8

 

 

It was a world away from any other sleeper service and we were lucky to be offered a trip later that year to Paris as recompense for the crossing 

 

Sleeping on the VSOE we had the window open and  woke up in  Zurich  it was surprisingly relaxing 

And it certainly wasn't high speed 

Colin 

Edited June 17, 2021 by Foulounoux
Remove duplicated quote

[Legend]

23 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

Quick look and the prices I found were

 

£60 each way by EasyJet.

£88 return by Air France.

 

Takes 1 hr 45 mins per leg.

 

Whilst looking I got an offer for £14 both ways.

 

So how are they going to tempt me to go by train instead?

 

 

That is Edinburgh to Paris, it applies equally to those of us in the north.

Thats  exactly why the last night star services never got off the ground , they hadn’t foreseen the rise of budget airlines and the main liners dropping ticket prices to suit .  I can’t see it any different now , although the website makes a lot of carbon footprints . When it comes down to it it’s £ that counts .  Only if they turn the journey itself  into an event , sort of like The Royal Scotsman or the VSOE would this work . I don’t think that’s the intention 

[adb968008]

2 hours ago, Legend said:

 Only if they turn the journey itself  into an event , sort of like The Royal Scotsman or the VSOE would this work . I don’t think that’s the intention 

More Easytrain or RyanRail I think.

Having a Edinburgh - Europe would suite SNP agenda, especially if it deliberately didnt stop in London, but ended up subsidised by it.