People should avoid domestic flights (comparison with Caledonian Sleeper)

[Peter Sarf]

I've only taken the Caledonian Sleeper once, and vowed never to do so again. First, there was no catering due to a technical issue, which I didn't know about in advance. No apology from the staff of course. Then, when we were being shunted, the staff were all loudly shouting instructions to each other down the platform, waking everyone up - why they couldn't use walkie talkies I don't know. Then the people in the adjoining room had a very loud conversation well into the early hours of the morning, which carried straight through the walls. I got no sleep at all.

I've flown every time since, for significantly less money too. If we want to make people choose the railway as the environmentally friendly option, then we've got to put a bit of effort in and not provide the absolute minimum service levels. It should feel like a hotel on wheels, not a prison cell on wheels. Airlines get that's its partly about psychology, thats why they offer airmiles, lounges, status for frequent flyers, snacks etc, it's all things to make people think they're valued.

Also, regarding the comparison with day trains, I suspect that one reason that the sleeper fares so well on emissions is because it is travelling at a slower speed which is probably more efficient. Things like air resistance and friction don't go up linearly with speed.

I avoid reliance on railway catering. This was after we changed our plans and dashed for an earlier intercity Manchester to London service that had a buffet advertised on the departure boards minutes before departure. By Stockport it was announced there would be no buffet. We could have bought food off the concourse. We spent much journey debating if the food would have been cheaper from the concourse anyway. In the end I vowed to NEVER buy BR food again and that includes inflated prices within the station. Since then I always pack sandwiches or the raw materials to make them - far cheaper and 100% reliable.

Advantage of an airline short haul is it is often quicker than the sleeper so less time going without food and drink. I have not flown often but I have never been let down by catering on a plane anyway.

 

[Starmill]

Me too.




I have, most recently last week. Over the years I have had staff entering the room uninvited and unannouced, staff making a racket outside, and other guests making rackets ranging from drunk perambulation bouncing off walls and my door (as happened last week) to “discussing the situation in Uganda”*, sometimes quite vigourously, and in one memorable occaison literally all night. (When the “discussions” concluded, I gave them a very loud round of applause).




I have had four hotel stays in the last decade with fire alarms going off, 2 in the middle of the night, another just after I had woken, and one very inconveniently as I was halfway through a shower.

Meanwhile on my 30 or so trips on the sleepers I have never had any of that. I don’t sleep well on the sleepers (or sometimes, at all) simply because the beds are too small for me and I am sensitive to movement. Despite being able to use them at ‘staff rates‘ I will always avoid them unless there is no other option for the journey / timing I need to make. But it is not because of unreliability of their offer.

I suppose the point is that expereinces vary.


* see Private Eye for definition.

I'm astonished you were willing to pay for a night in a hotel where you received little sleep? Surely nobody does that? If it's too noisy for you to sleep you raise the issue at the time, if it can't be solved, you shouldn't be being billed for the night? Invariably such issues aren't impossible to solve, unless you're staying at Easyhotel or budget independents. Same goes for a night time evacuation, free night as an absolute minimum surely? To give an example, if you were staying at a Premier Inn property, their conditions of contract would actually guarantee that your night were free if what you describe happened. Sometimes I admit that the hotel staff themselves will politely deflect you on sorting the matter out or refunding you, but in these circumstances you simply politely drop it and raise a complaint through the usual channels.

At the end of the day though if you compare the sleeper to the price of hotels minus the daytime train rate you won't be staying in the Travelodge or Easyhotel as you can easily afford a £200 room.

The Stena Brittanica and Hollandica have the same pokey beds and very tightly spaced the trains do, but they're also substantially cheaper and are very reliable in their onboard product.

 

[Bald Rick]

I'm astonished you were willing to pay for a night in a hotel where you received little sleep?

Well most of the time it’s not me paying. But there have been conversations post event!

 

[Starmill]

Well most of the time it’s not me paying. But there have been conversations post event!

Goodness me. One of the reasons I always think the most stingy company travel policies are a false economy. You need somewhere you sleep well enough to work at your best in the morning. At least CS is too expensive for most such policies.

 

[Bald Rick]

Goodness me. One of the reasons I always think the most stingy company travel policies are a false economy. You need somewhere you sleep well enough to work at your best in the morning. At least CS is too expensive for most such policies.

All these events have been at decent hotels, ie at least a grade above Travelodge. These things happen anywhere!

 

[Starmill]

All these events have been at decent hotels, ie at least a grade above Travelodge. These things happen anywhere!

That would imply that either my several hundred stays were all unusually lucky, or that various yours were unusually unlucky. Somehow I find it extremely difficult to believe I've been so lucky. Alternatively perhaps you experienced serious issues with your sleep and chose for your own reasons not to speak to a member of staff about it? Regardless of all of the above, if one had that experience at a hotel in the price band of CS (minus daytime train fare) I think one can be entirely confident of a resolution or, in the last resort, a rate reduction or refund. You have pretty much zero chance of a refund on CS just for having noisy surroundings and poor sleep. If you reported to the staff at the time that you could hear noise in your cabin they would probably look at you blankly, they certainly wouldn't try to do anything about it.

 

[Bald Rick]

That would imply that either my several hundred stays were all unusually lucky, or that various yours were unusually unlucky. Somehow I find it extremely difficult to believe I've been so lucky.

Perhaps I’ve been unlucky. Two of the four fire alarms were actually fires!

 

[BlueLeanie]

BA will let me book a flight 350+ days in advance. It's not unusual that I can't be confident that a GWR/Chiltern, Avanti/Lumo/LNER, or Scotrail would definitely all be running on the same weekend within the next 90 days let alone 350 days.

My flight price is locked in almost a year in advance. Nobody knows what the availability, timetable, or price will be for the rail journey next March.

Then we've got the more basic stuff, ZEZ, LEZ, LTNs all make the centre of Glasgow or Edinburgh toxic to be picked up from later in the evening.or early morning. 30 minutes free pick up in the long stay at EDI makes things easy.

More importantly, I don't want to be trekking into London late at night to hang around Euston waiting for a sleeper, sleep in anything smaller than a king size, arrive in Scotland at stupid o'clock. Leave Scotland around midnight, get dumped in central London at 07:00, then have to pay a peak single to get home.

I can leave EDI at 20:xx, be at Heathrow by 21:xx, and in my own bed by 23:00.

 

[enginedin]

Then we've got the more basic stuff, ZEZ, LEZ, LTNs all make the centre of Glasgow or Edinburgh toxic to be picked up from later in the evening.or early morning. 30 minutes free pick up in the long stay at EDI makes things better easy.

I'd say you're being a little unfair here: the LEZs actually affect a relatively small number of vehicles - petrol cars now have to be 19 years old to not be compliant.

On the flip side, the Edinburgh Airport public transport "tax" makes it a pretty unappealing place to travel to by tram or bus given other options

 

[BlueLeanie]

On the flip side, the Edinburgh Airport public transport "tax" makes it a pretty unappealing place to travel to by tram or bus given other options

I'm sure it's just a standard single fare on the No18 from South Gyle Crescent to EDI.

 

[enginedin]

I'm sure it's just a standard single fare on the No18 from South Gyle Crescent to EDI.

oh yeh, sorry - it changed a couple of weeks ago so that 2 services now have regular fares

Fares revision on Lothian network - Lothian Buses

Changes to Lothian Buses’ network will take effect from Sunday 10 September in response to customer feedback, improving reliability and connectivity and increasing services for returning students.

www.lothianbuses.com

 

[Calthrop]

I'm astonished you were willing to pay for a night in a hotel where you received little sleep? Surely nobody does that? If it's too noisy for you to sleep you raise the issue at the time, if it can't be solved, you shouldn't be being billed for the night? Invariably such issues aren't impossible to solve, unless you're staying at Easyhotel or budget independents. Same goes for a night time evacuation, free night as an absolute minimum surely? To give an example, if you were staying at a Premier Inn property, their conditions of contract would actually guarantee that your night were free if what you describe happened. Sometimes I admit that the hotel staff themselves will politely deflect you on sorting the matter out or refunding you, but in these circumstances you simply politely drop it and raise a complaint through the usual channels.

At the end of the day though if you compare the sleeper to the price of hotels minus the daytime train rate you won't be staying in the Travelodge or Easyhotel as you can easily afford a £200 room.

The Stena Brittanica and Hollandica have the same pokey beds and very tightly spaced the trains do, but they're also substantially cheaper and are very reliable in their onboard product.

That would imply that either my several hundred stays were all unusually lucky, or that various yours were unusually unlucky. Somehow I find it extremely difficult to believe I've been so lucky. Alternatively perhaps you experienced serious issues with your sleep and chose for your own reasons not to speak to a member of staff about it? Regardless of all of the above, if one had that experience at a hotel in the price band of CS (minus daytime train fare) I think one can be entirely confident of a resolution or, in the last resort, a rate reduction or refund. You have pretty much zero chance of a refund on CS just for having noisy surroundings and poor sleep. If you reported to the staff at the time that you could hear noise in your cabin they would probably look at you blankly, they certainly wouldn't try to do anything about it.

A bit of topic-drifting, but one which I find irresistible -- a quotation, on which I initiated a thread on the "History and Nostalgia" sub-forum some years ago. A sentence in a book by the late travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor; telling of a journey from Paris to rural Normandy, circa 1950. "I had spent an abominable night in Rouen in a small hotel near the station, wherein a procession of nightmares had been punctuated by the noise of trains arriving and leaving with a crashing and whistling and an escape of steam and smoke which, after a week's noctambulism in Paris, turned my night into a period of acute and apparently interminable agony." (An experience which would, for many of "the likes of us", be blissful rather than hellish; and which is totally no longer to be had -- with steam -- as something ordinary, everyday, and "incidental": anywhere on earth; but that's by the way.)

The author does not mention making any complaint, or seeking a financial reduction or refund. It is to be suspected that if one attempted such a ploy in France a lifetime ago, one would be instructed to go forth and multiply.