Great Western Coffee Shop

From Citylab (https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/04/europe-night-train-sweden-eco-travel-sleeper-car-fossil-free/586228/)


I will admit to being fan of sleeper trains in the past ... and could be in the future.   The idea of getting into a berth mid-evening in London and waking next morning for arrival in Inverness remains attractive.   More recent journeys,  such as hanging around in Waverley until 11 p.m. and Motherwell until midnight, rather remove the glamour.  Overnight / time taken really isn't so much of an issue - but price has been; the effect of specialist stock, high staffing levels, and just one journey made every 24 hours.

Ironic question to be asking when we don't know what our relationship with Europe will be even in two weeks time - but are forum members attracted by the idea of being able to board a train at St. Pancras International between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., and get off the next morning in Copenhagen or Munich or Marsailles or Barcelona?  How about catching the Night Dragon from Cardiff (or get on at Stapleton Road, Bath Spa, Swindon or Reading) and get off the  next morning in Paris or Frankfurt or Amsterdam?

The idea of it appeals. The cost of it might not.
Then again, maybe not. If you take the normal price of an "ordinary" ticket, then look at the price of an overnight hotel (or even B&B) and add them together, it may turn out to be a more affordable little adventure than first seemed the case.

Late evening boarding Stapleton Road bound for Paris - now that really is the romance of rail travel personified.

Overnight sleeper trains? That's all very well but how about non-overnight sleeper trains. I'd sometimes appreciate a doze on a sunny afternoon...

Grammar poking aside and being serious, although I've enjoyed sleeper trains in the past, the last one I took wasn't so much fun. Mind you that was a long time ago too - I think it was in 2000. From Bratislava to Warsaw, the problem was the border crossings, which there were two of: it crossed into the Czech Republic as well, so that was four separate inspectors banging on the door in the middle of the night. The other sleepers I've taken have been within one country, as well as being longer (multiple nights and days in one case), and were more enjoyable and worthwhile.

Yes, my last one was Toronto to Vancouver.  4 days and 3 nights on the same train.  What an experience.  3500 odd miles (if I remember correctly) 1/3 trees, 1/3 desert plains and 1/3 mountains.  Can't remember how may G&Ts I had........

Yes - I'd definitely look on that favorably.

I am not holding my breath waiting, mind!

Overnight sleepers and daytime sleepers mentioned so far. Got me thinking, overnight non sleepers?  Open access services when there is less rail traffic? If demand was there (who knows?) would it be a non starter for other technical reasons?

Maybe Severn Tunnel Jn and Pilning International too?

Fairly well down the list ... I did wonder whether to suggest some extra places, and I did note that the Fort William sleeper will call on request just about anywhere.  Actually carefully chosen - Cardiff, a Bristol Station, Bath for its tourist trade to the continent, Swindon, and on ...   next ones to add - Reading, then Newport.

...or Montpelier to Montpellier - now that would be something; a quick pint in the Cadbury House, hop on a train and wake up by the Med.

The last sleepers I took were a couple of years back in China - a wonderful experience. They have "soft sleepers" and "hard sleepers": the former aren't that dissimilar to UK sleepers (or, at least, the pre-refurb Cally Sleepers, which are the only ones I've tried), but the latter are quite a different experience - pics at https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/hard-sleeper.htm .

I suspect the catering would not have been to broadgage's taste:

• Buy Pot Noodle from station shop
• Find very hot water tap on train
• Scald yourself with said very hot water
• Swear volubly
• Eventually, add hot water to Pot Noodle

On the other hand, the scenery was astonishing, and as a railway experience it was quite something - not least to see the construction work underway for new high-speed lines running roughly parallel.

Just as an aside, Montpellier is one of my favourite places. Everything is properly zoned - Residential, Commercial, Industrial etc - and those zones are linked together by the most wonderful tram network, which is made even better for me from a personal perspective by an unusual lack of restrictions on dogs (many other networks require them to be in carriers, or to be muzzled etc)

It really is a masterclass in urban transport planning - please do go and experience it for yourselves if you get the chance.

Ive always wanted to live here in France, and if it wasnt for the fact i need to be able to easily visit the UK on a reasonably regular basis, then Montpellier would be pretty near the top of my list for places to live.

Who knows - maybe if i manage to hang on through these interesting times to retirement.

Montpellier was the destination of one of the sleepers I've taken! It was the early 90s and I was travelling down with my cousin to meet our families on holiday. I can't remember whether we boarded in Paris or maybe did it go direct from Calais? Paris seems more likely. Anyway, that was a good train and a good holiday.

A Redland to Montpelier sleeper on the Severn Riviera Express would barely be a cat nap unless there was a signalling failure. Might be worth it on a bus replacement service though.

I have been on a sleeper bus. A proper one with bunk beds and curtains and all... Surprisingly okay, though obviously a train is comfier.

I wasn't aware of their existence. Not in the UK? Do tell.

I can still remember returning to Montpellier in 1998 (having visited in 1992), while the trams were a-building, and thinking what have they done with all the cars? Unlike how it was before, or any other French city, there wasn't a single car visible parked in the central squsre (l'Oeuf) nor in any street nearby. There was still access to private courts via back lanes, but lined by big iron balls so closely spaced as to prevent a car being parked without blocking them.

You wondered how anyone managed to persuade the French (of all people) to give up their ingrained promiscuous parking habits; surely it would take a dictator to do that? Well, fortunately(?) Montpellier had as mayor the famously irascible Georges Frêche, who was pretty much that.

Lee - a note of caution from someone who has also stayed there twice and enjoyed the experience.

The downside is that it is very prone to flooding - Google Montpellier Floods and you will see 2014, 2015 and 2018 incidents mentioned. We were there in November 2011 when there was an autumn cloudburst over the city, as we were out for the day looking at the bridge at Millau. As we drove back in the gathering gloom there was a terrific thunderstorm we could see over the city as we approached. When we arrived - chaos! Roads closed, water flowing through the streets of the lower city, particularly the recently built Antigone area south of the city centre. At that time the internet was full of stories of the 2005 floods. Make sure your dream retirement property is in one of the higher parts of town!  

If only the famously irascible Georges Ferguson had not been thwarted in his efforts to do something about promiscuous parking habits in my part of North Bristol...

Ive tended to be quite lucky on that front. My flat in Portsmouth was north of Portsea Island halfway up Portsdown Hill, so avoided that problem. Then I lived in Batheaston for 5 years, which flooded several times while I was there (sinking the dreaded Park & Ride proposal in the process), but I had a house on higher ground and escaped all that too.

Callac itself is built on a hill with fab views of the lower countryside surrounding it, and hopefully my luck will continue to hold if and when i choose to move south  ;D

This thread, and other research I was doing yesterday afternoon, got me thinking. Dangerous. And thinking whether there's an economic and environmental case (if not a business case) for Britain to Europe overnight services and indeed daytime beyond-London and beyond-Paris/Brussels services.

I find myself concerned at taking a further look at these services when it's only 20 years since their previous stillborn appearances, with sleeper services in the heart of Europe slashed back just a couple of years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightstar_(train)  abandoned by 1997
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Eurostar - abandoned late 1990s
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/rail-journeys/the-last-surviving-sleeper-trains/

But then, we have a history of the tail of rail closures being very close to and even overlapping the head of successful re-openings.  Closures .. Bridport and Heysham, 1975. Alston, 1976. Claydon West, 1983. Radipole, 1984. Bradford North Curve, 1990. Ongar, 1994.  Openings .. Feniton, 1971. Alfreton, 1973. Five Ways, 1978. Melksham, 1985. Heysham, 1987. Islip, 1989.  Close to home ... reduction to 'parly' level of services at Melksham 2006, and improvement from that level back to 'poor but useable' in 2013.

So - comfortable with a fresh look, learning from history but not looking to duplicate what we had or what we nearly had; new and current metrics.  Services such as London to Liverpool, Manchester and Barrow sleepers which were around 30 years ago make less sense as daytime trains start earlier, finish later and routinely run faster.  Services such as London to Istanbul are clearly still going to eat into a traveller's prime awake time and flying - with climate friendly concerns considered (RyanAir now 10th most CO2 producer in Europe?) though. But potentially possibilities at the intermediate distance.

So - regions of UK to Paris, Brussels, perhaps Amsterdam and Frankfurt. London to Munich, Marsailles, Copenhagen, Berlin, Barcelona.  London to Rome, Warsaw, Madrid start looking a bit far. London to Paris, very much a "day train" job.

Now - stock.  Are we going 'high luxury' with showers in every compartment, or are we going for something that's a convertible - beds that drop down over seats / fold back and can run a round trip every day, with the added advantage that seat to sleeper ratios can be changed to meet market needs on a per-trip basis.  Yes - even daytime sleeper berths if people would like.  And does it make sense to let the AT300 production line at Newton Aycliffe carry on producing 5 car units which can pair up for much of the run, with shared servicing and spares with our national fleets.

Ah - I have things to do today.  Will stop there.

Thello (https://www.thello.com/en/) may be a concept worth looking at regarding this, as they seem to be surviving well enough on Paris-Milan-Verona-Venice providing a largely budget experience with budget prices available.

Perception seems to be key here. I'm told that if you are the type of person who is genuinely ok with a budget experience then you may well really enjoy it, whereas if your expectations of comfort are higher, then it's quite possible that you really wont, and that's where some of the more negative reviews you will find online will stem from. The Man in Seat 61 provides an excellent and very comprehensive overview here. (https://www.seat61.com/thello-train-from-paris-to-italy.htm)

Will I personally be joining the sleeper revolution? I have to say probably not. While I did enjoy using night trains to get around Europe in my younger days in the 90's, these days I just don't find them comfortable enough or that competitive pricewise compared to taking a day train and staying overnight in a cheaper hotel such as Travelodge and Premier Inn in the UK or the likes of Ibis Budget over here, all of which I feel have upped their game in terms of comfort and service in recent years, as the fortunes of sleeper trains have waned over the same period.

Also part of the attraction of rail travel for me is the simple pleasure of being able to see the scenery during the daytime, particularly if I haven't travelled on the route before.

The Thello looks remarkably cheap for the distance. Absolute bargain. But the Man in Seat 61's report has confused me: I thought I knew the difference between couchette and sleeper, but it looks from his photos that the only real difference is that (on Thello) sleepers include a toilet per compartment.

The Man in Seat 61 clarified this in a 2013 TripAdvisor post (https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1-i12483-k6302412-Thello_4_bed_couchette_or_3_bed_cabin-Train_Travel.html)


Thello describe the difference as follows:

Stagecoach ran them for a few years as Megabus Gold: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/articles/Megabus-Gold-luxury-sleeper-service-seven-things-you-need-to-know/ . Sadly they're no more.

We did one of the Austrian (OEBB) Nightjet trains from Vienna to Cologne last week, in a sleeper.

The stock was fine. The operation, alas, less so.

There's a clever timetable whereby this sleeper meets the one from Innsbruck to Hamburg in the middle of the night, at Nuernburg. They do a lot of shunting so as to transfer Vienna - Hamburg and Innsbruck - Cologne vehicles to the right departures. And that includes keeping the sleepers, couchettes and seated cars separate from the car-carrying wagons (much used by motorcyclists).

But on this occasion the Innsbruck was late. Whether that was OEBB's fault (train operator) or DB's fault (network), I'm not sure. My money would be on DB.

Anyway, we set off again from Nuernburg some 115 late. Not good news - we were on an 88-minute connection at Cologne towards Bruxelles and London. Rolled into Cologne 95 late, watching the Bruxelles departing.

Slight compensation - the late running meant that we were properly awake for the run down the Rhine gorge.

Sorry, missed this reply earlier. No, it was in India, Bangalore to Pondicherry. It looked a bit similar to that Megabus inside but it was a single-decker, there were privacy curtains, I think the beds were a bit wider. They were comfy but frankly not particularly clean. Being India, there was no toilet; instead, the coach stopped at some grassy place and all the men got out and peed on the roadside. Again, being India, women are expected to have bladders like elephants. You could bring your own food and drink or buy at one or two stops.

Across Europe, I would suggest that there are three main markets:

1) Business travel - time poor, price insensitive, seeking quality
2) Premium Leisure travel - time rich, relatively price insensitive, seeking quality
3) Bargain basement - competing with Eurolines/EasyJet/Ryanair

To be honest, for most of these (other than the long-distance coach) I see them as replacing a plane and a hotel room rather than a car. The problem with all of these is that they are going to be quite expensive to run in terms of rolling stock, labour etc., and the hospitality skills that all that the most basic services demand do not really exist within most TOC's.

Nonetheless I reckon there is a ready market if the product were right. Particularly in the first category, the advantage of a well-appointed train from say, London to Frankfurt is that you can go out for dinner, flash your passport and hop onto the train with your overnight bag, get a couple of hours work done or have a few glasses of wine in the bar, have a good nights sleep then be up and fresh to either get to the office or go to your client, without the rigmarole of security, airports, waiting around etc.

It's not a product that's going to appeal to your private jet owner, but there are something like 300k high net worth individuals in London, for whom overnights to Paris/Amsterdam/Frankfurt/Geneva (and further pairs within Europe ) could be quite appealing and merit a fairly high price tag if they were run with high quality rolling stock in conjunction with a hospitality heavy hitter like Accor. 

Caledonian Sleeper definitely going for higher end option judging by initial trips by new carriages - https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17566183.new-caledonian-sleeper-trains-carry-first-passengers/