There is a legend that the details of Scottish devolution were thrashed out in the lounge car of the overnight sleeper from London Euston to Edinburgh.
These were the days when the late John Smith and Donald Dewar, Labour giants of their day and a whole coterie of Scottish MPs were frequent users. BBC Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark, also a regular user, claims you could learn far more about what was happening in Scotland sitting in that lounge than anywhere else.
First ScotRail’s sleeper services to Glasgow, Edinburgh and onto Inverness, Aberdeen and Fort William are still a popular nightly service used by both business and leisure travellers. As is the London Paddington to Penzance service. Ten of thousands of people use this service every year and First Great Western, the operator, has put extra coaches for part of the year to cope with demand. Again local industries, backed by West Country MPs, regard it is vital to the community.
But somehow the UK seems to have fallen behind the expanding rail sleeper services on the continent. While there is a well worn, even dowdy, air on the services to and from Scotland, those on the continent are more modern.
Elipsos, the night service run jointly by SNCF and RENFE, respectively the French and Spanish rail networks, calls itself a trainhotel. On services from Madrid and Barcelona to France, Italy and Switzerland, its Grand Class provides a welcome welcome drink, dinner and breakfast as well as compartment with a shower and toilet. It is the private shower and toilet that are the crucial difference.
Other continental services like Artesia which runs from Paris to Italy and Deutsche Bahn’s (DB) City Night Line also provide that extra. None of the UK services does so, although it is possible for first class passengers to have a shower on arrival at ScotRail’s Euston lounge.
Oliver Ueck, DB’s marketing manager for the UK, said that about 760,000 people use the Night Line service each year, with up to 20% travelling on business. The service links major cities in Germany, Switzerland and Germany with a new one, from Copenhagen to Basle, starting in March.
But the service has been under great challenge from Germany’s growing network of low cost air services. It was these that forced DB to close its Hamburg-Stuttgart Night Line two year back in the face of more than 20 flights a day between the two cities.
With a distinct eye on the business traveller, Night Line says its trains arrive in cities before the first flight of the morning. The early arrival after a night’s sleep is among the main appeal of the sleepers to the business traveller.
Tamsin Loveless, head of communications for the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth, said designers, journalists and exhibition managers make regular use of the service – up to 50 journeys a year – to visit the museum.
“The service helps people who have to come down to see us to use their time more effectively. They travel overnight form London, save the hotel bill, do their day’s work and go back in the evening. It’s a good service for us and we have no absolutely no complaints,” she said.
Berths on the Penzance service have been recently re-furbished and ScotRail has just signed a contract for the re-furbishment of its sleeper cars as part of a £1m upgrade of the service. This included refurbishment of both the compartments, toilets and the lounge car to meet the demands of the increasing numbers using the service. But there will be no individual showers or toilets. It all boils down to economics and practicality. Putting in these extras would mean fewer compartments so either train operators would have to run the service on reduced revenue or run longer trains.
With sleeper trains already 16 coaches long, there are few platforms in the UK able to handle longer trains. Such coaches with individual facilities were made for Britain but never put into use. They are now used on sleeper services in Eastern Canada.
