Great Western Coffee Shop

Just spent close to an hour sifting through the complicated and conflicting information on the GWR website regarding the Night Riveria sleeper over christmas. Gave up and decided to phone ticket sales only to be told that the Night Riveria Sleeper bookings have been suspended over christmas whilst they review cabin sharing policies. I asked why the website and journey planner/timetables havn't been updated to be told that this "has only just happened."

I don't see any particularly good reason for this, coronavirus rules havn't suddenly changed and surely they can just sell one berth per person or for people in the same bubble? Caledonian Sleeper seem to manage just fine.

I just get the impression that some operators aren't interested in attracting passengers back to the railways at all.

Are people still expected to share cabins with strangers on the sleeper?

No, not a requirement. Night Rivera always allowed single occupancy.

Closure by stealth.
GWR can not drop the sleeper on a whim as it is a franchise requirement. However frequent closures, part closures and downgrades will help by reducing patronage to the point where dropping it is easier to justify.

And when it does run, making it a connecting service via Reading does not help either.

Surveys will show that;

1) Only a small percentage of passengers use it.
2) Most customers would prefer something else.
3) An at seat sleeping arrangement would be preferable.

The survey may have already been done.

When over Christmas are you looking at? From what I remember the sleeper always stops running over Christmas. This year it's not running from 24th December to 2nd January.

If it's before the 24th December, you should still be able to book over the phone via an amended booking system that's been put in place due to an issue with the existing system (so can't be done online or ticket offices at the moment).

I was looking at the 22nd, which still shows up on journey planner, realtimetrains, etc, and you can in theory purchase a ticket for it it looks like, but on phoning gwr i'm told its seated only with no sleeper berths available.
The night riveria page says to phone to book berths. I can't find any mention of it on the "paper" timetables page, (or indeed any dedicated london to cornwall paper timetable any more??)
The engineering works page says nothing about it stopping, nor does the coronavirus page.

I tend to agree with broadgage, closure by stealth. maybe it only serves GWR to run it in peak summer holiday season to catch the holiday crowds now? Whats next, overnight bus replacement service from cornwall to london? >:(

When GWR say "due to a problem with our reservations system" I'd love to know what that actually means. And when the advisor said to me the cancellation has "only just happened", I wonder when exactly management decided this...

I have done a bit of investigation and been told the suspension is not virus related but due to a problem with the national reservation system.  It is certainly the intention to have reservations available for pre-Christmas services but when they will be on-sale is not known yet.

I would have thought that most people will have made their Christmas plans by now ... and it's a bit late to start advertising / booking a sleeper service, even if it's in the next few days.  On a local level, we have noted that if a train is flagged up as "not running" but never the less turns up, it typically conveys few passengers.  Not clever, especially if people are being told "no" as told to lj3 ... even if the answer should really be "not yet" as told to bobm.

I think it was possible to book the sleeper for pre-Christmas journeys until around a week ago so some may have already been able to complete their travel plans.

The issue with the booking system has now been fixed and berths can be booked through the usual channels again.

What have the sleepers loadings been like in recent months?

Less than dozen  per train, one of those lovely new purpose designed modern Hitachi trains could carry many times that figure.

(the sleeper has a maximum capacity of 60 during the week, sometimes increasing to 75 at weekends, the "real, representative average is reportedly about 40 passengers. "less than a dozen on average" sounds better when trying to withdraw the service. "less than a dozen" is absolutely true provided that the average incudes enough days on which the service was not available and therefore carried no one.)

With franchising now dead, any decision on whether it should continue of not will be in the hands of the DfT (or their successor in the form of some kind of national rail body that's being mooted) and within the management contracts they prescribe.

Trying to book for early February, and struggling. 

GWR claim the sleeper is running and bookable again, but the daily journeycheck advice says that the sleeper will be replaced by a """high"" speed" train each day. so they are continuing to let people book sleeper berths with no intention of actually running the sleeper train?
I wonder what its like trying to sleep on a BRIGHT hitachi train? do the lights even dim or turn off?  ???

But the sleeper was a "franchise" requirement - in the SLC - so it always was a DfT decision. That may have resulted from discussions with the TOC, but no doubt the controller within DfT (of whatever shape) is still likely to consult within the industry before setting the service for future contracts.

Is it every night or just tonight it is replaced?  I cannot see anything about other days only today.