Tbh if you were doing this you'd have 8/9pm departures from the ECML given the travel times, Hour needed at St Pancras/Stratford, and need to clear HS1 before overnight maintenance shutdown.
And how many people use it?
Something akin to Amtracks multi-day trains would be cool although definitely not practical going to bed in Edinburgh and waking and alighting by the Mediterranean would definitely be clasier than ryanair, although a sleeper doesn't have to be tied to HS1, more a Railtour concept than a regular journey such as the Night Rivera or Cally sleeper,
And more to the point what do they use it for? I'd imagine few buy a sleeping berth.
Wasn't there a plan for this originally when the tunnel opened?
Indeed. I can imagine that people might find it useful if they want to go to a London concert/ theatre then doze on the train, get to bed by four and sleep through to lunchtime. But a very small market which can add a little bit of income on a train that's running anyway, but certainly wouldn't justify adding a service.
Something like that and HS2 was meant to link to HS1 at one stage,
Nightstar actually got as far as building trains, before low cost airlines killed the market. Also the breakup of British Rail had impacts. A link between HS1 and HS2 was explored in the early stages, and at least one report recommended it be built (although I'm not sure if that was a 'if you had to build it, this is the option' type answer, rather than 'building it is a good idea'). Needless to say, it was one of the earliest parts to be dropped from the design as it added vast costs for very little benefits given the completely different purposes of HS1 and HS2.
Planned to be fully electrified but failing that class 93s. The gap is only 11 miles as from this Christmas.
yea seems i messed up the maths with beds but not the 220 beds with 60 seats is 280 so close and either way not the point i was making
That's what I have been proposing, have a couple seating carriages for these stations.
Obviously someone does.
Yes, and what has been said back is that providing some seats at intermediate stations doesn't justify diversion of the train away from its existing route and primary purpose.
I will shoot it down due to the amount of operational, performace risk and massive increase in staff and facilities to run it. We are back to who is subsidising all this for a handful of passengers at Newcastle and Leeds.
Im old enough to have been sent on the Plymouth to Edinburgh Sleeper several times when I first joined the Navy. It was a real party train but non MOD useage was close to zero. The route was closed within 6 months of Rosyth closing as a Naval Base. I believe it has been revived once since with a portion to Poole thrown in for one season. Carried air around plus a few train enthusiasts and then was withdrawn again.
I would explore the idea of NJ pods in the UK - but would give them a couple of years to prove themselves.
I do like the idea of ForumRail plc…
A possible motto, “To boldly go where even Ian Yeowart wouldn’t bother”…What do you do when one of them is closed? The current setup can adapt and use the open route.
Not if the service was running through the station, say an ECML sleeper could stop at Newcastle or York as it runs through.
We have services to the two only locations which are 1) far enough and 2) appealing enough. And I don’t even rate Cornwall especially but I know others do.
Invent a service that makes using the tunnel an easy next step. A sleeper from Fishguard via Cardiff and Bristol Parkway or Glasgow via Edinburgh and Newcastle, to Folkestone. In the morning everyone goes through the customs and the tunnel on a coach to Calais-Frethurn in time for a Paris bound LGV. I still don’t think that would be popular.
Ive done the overnight coach to/from the north east for football on several occasions.
The size of the UK being an issue was the conclusion I think we all came to in a thread I started at the start of the year (here if anyone wants to read it)
Even in the middle of the night?
