I would like to start a new thread on overnight sleeper trains from St Pancras International. I live and work in London, with frequent meetings on the Continent, and I am very weary of either a very late flight after work followed by a rip-off expensive hotel room I only use to crash out in, or a very early flight the morning of the meeting often requiring a 4.45 am start from home.
Why are there no sleeper trains from St Pancras using the Channel Tunnel? Frankfurt, Vienna, Zurich, Milan, Berlin - all should be within range of an 8-10 hour high speed train from London. Anyone who has tried the sleeper train ("tren-hotel") between Paris and Madrid for example knows it gives you a nice dinner, a comfortable bed, an acceptable breakfast and arrival in Madrid in time for a 9.00 meeting refreshed and ready. And at a lower price, both in money and stress, than the flight-plus-hotel option.
St Pancras is largely empty after 10.00 pm and has enough platforms to send a fleet of sleeper services to the Continent each night. What are the train operators waiting for?
A very interesting idea. I know that it has been looked into a few times
http://www.railwatch.org.uk/backtrack/rw098/rw098p10.pdf
ScottWilson - 17/06/2010 11:54 GMT
It is interesting, but I believe the limitations are:
- Current Eurostar monopoly on Channel passenger services (which ends shortly);
- Overnight usage of the Tunnel for freight and maintenance, but it does not appear to be severely capacity constrained;
- Sleepers have a utilisation problem in that they can't be used during daylight hours, sleeper catering is worse in that there is next to no demand for most of the trip but the train still has to carry the weight of the facilities (and the staff). Daylight trains tend to have regular patronage of shops;
- Sleepers are a poor use of carriage space and invariably lose money unless a high premium can be charged for that space and the servicing of it (compared to seats).
Having said that, if a positive business case can be made then bring it on. Note that all UK sleeper trains are heavily subsidised.
That is an interesting idea.
Perhaps the door is open for an enterprising operator to launch a sleeper service using open carriages and lie-flat seats like those found in business class aircraft cabins, thus making the carriages usable for daytime services such as VSOE style excursions as well. There is any number of practical problems but I think the idea might appeal to travellers making journeys of 6 - 10 hours.
NTarrant - 17/06/2010 18:59 GMT
It is a good idea Cedric and whilst the infrastructure is expensive, the suggestion by MichelAngelo is very sound. A two plus one facing and back would have some attraction or indeed a herringbone where everyone gets a window.
Having travelled EDI-Euston on overnight sleeper the service is not bad but lacks the appeal through poor check-in facilities
I’m quite intrigued by the thought of using airline seats which fold into a bed on trains. For airline travellers the general expectation for overnight travel is merely a flat bed in a common space, while for train travellers travelling overnight the general expectation is a separate compartment. I am sure this is a result of the fact that one is in an aeroplane for a maximum of 18 hours, while one can be in a train for several days.
I am not sure how the two cultures would mix and whether train travellers would accept the hugely reduced amenity of airline overnight accommodation if it were just for one short night. If it works it might solve many of the concerns, but it is a big if.
NTarrant - 18/06/2010 18:39 GMT
I don't think the Club World concept would work for journeys of a number of days Cedric. It would perhaps to places like Frankfurt, Luxembourg and other sightly further northern European cities.
If you think about it an evening meal could be taken in a lounge (al la BA Sleeper service) with an at seat breakfast service. A lounge at the other end for a shower.
Somehow I don't think that anyone will take the plunge, certainly not at present. But this idea does give the full use of the rolling stock day and night.
It would be interesting if sleeper trains adopted open airline-style seating just as airlines were putting first class passengers into individual cabins.
Two requirements are decent lounges at both ends (think 19th century railway hotel across the road, not a Virgin Trains coffee lounge) and security and service onboard (on bo.ard staff in every locked carriage and no intermediate stops in the middle of the night). The space and weight restrictions are an opportunity for innovations.
The 22.00 Yotel service to Frankfurt, anyone?
BABenji - 19/06/2010 15:04 GMT
I, for one, would certainly give such a service serious consideration. For me to get to my companies head office (Solothurn, Switzerland) takes about 7 hours door to door, meaning a very early start to get there for lunchtime and an overnight stay in order to make it worthwhile. Of course the early morning does no one any favours.
The opportunity set off late in the evening and wake up early morning in Zurich in time to catch a connecting train would be very welcome. It would also mean I could then fly home that evening on the last plane and pack in a full day in the office with minimal impact on the working week.
Is half a day of my time worth a couple of hundred pounds? Absolutely.
NTarrant - 19/06/2010 15:37 GMT
Interestingly, I had meetings in Edinburgh and wanted to catch up with a friend in the evening. If I flew back to LHR I would have had to say hello and good bye in about half an hour. I had a meeting in LON at 1000 next day.
The opportunity to have a meal and a drink and set off at 2340 was great. Combinations like that save time and money. Sadly no shower facilities in Edinburgh which takes the shine off doing it the otherway around.
mjxguerra - 21/06/2010 11:40 GMT
With apologies to John, to whom this was an emailed reply:
I spent 4 years (and a good deal of my own money) running a research project on exactly the same thing (the London Direct Sleeper Group). The project was wound up last year after we completed a business plan. I spent a good deal of time talking to everyone: UK and French government officials, EU bureaucrats, train manufacturers, security consultants, government security customs and immigration agencies etc. It was a tortuous process with no one wanting to give anything away. However we were able to come up with a business model that suited almost everyone.
First, the trains will need to be capable of 300km/h; this is because they need to run fast enough to only need one Eurostar path. As sleepers can only accommodate 20-30% of the numbers of passengers per unit length of train, compared with a day train, the units would have to be double-deck to be more cost-effective. The Nightstar service model was doomed before it turned a wheel because of the weight of the rolling stock, slowness and the requirement for external traction (sometimes double-headed). As they were also built to a minimum UK loading gauge they were very confined inside, in addition to all the extra equipment they needed inside. For that reason any night trains running from St Pancras will need to be high-speed multiple units, not loco-hauled stock. As multiple units running to a variety of destinations in Europe the trains would have to be fitted for at least 12 signalling systems and for running under 4 overhead voltages. This is a lot easier than it used to be. The also need to be certificated for long high-speed tunnels, which requires the fitment of all kinds of specialised safety equipment. Needless to say they would be very expensive trains. In short, you cannot use loco-hauled ex-Wagons Lits stock through the Channel Tunnel. But even with all that there is the fundamental issue of security.
Every man, woman and child travelling on a passenger train through the Channel Tunnel must past through airport style security (luggage irradiation & metal detector arch). So that if your sleeper was able to leave St Pancras it wouldn’t be able to return with any passengers unless the station they leave from has an equivalent security check to that at St Pancras, Paris Nord or Bruxelles Midi. This is a not inconsiderable infrastructure expense. We suggested running security checks from the train, but unless you were at a terminus station the platform dwells would have been far too long, we also looked into near-future scanning technology but that was not backed as ‘not being the same as’ the current Eurostar agreement. It became an impasse. Technologically nearly everything was possible today, but for the security arrangement. It is interesting that it is possible to ride trains from Stockholm to Sevilla without having to show your passport or having your baggage irradiated due to the Schengen Zone agreement, but as the UK is outside that anyone wanting to run a train through to the continent has to deal with Fortress Britain, which is very difficult to unpick. Paris and Bruxelles are too close to run night trains to, so our business plan is with DB, who might have the resources to build security infrastructure at Koln of Frankfurt, or Berlin. They are really the only active players looking at new services; however with the current economic crisis it is unlikely to happen very soon. But I live in hope.
As to your own research, I’m afraid that although there is ready market for such a service (however, you would have to run 70-80% full every night on 3% interest on around a 1bn Euro investment on 8 routes) you will probably come to the same conclusions. The security issue is the real difficulty, and I certainly spent too much time on that with absolutely no movement.
NTarrant - 21/06/2010 12:23 GMT
Many thanks for that information myxguerra, I assume that your reserach was carried out on the basis of sleepers in the sense of individual compartments.
What we have discussed here is the Club World style lie flat bed as used by BA, this gives the versitility of a luxury day seat (with the option to lie flat an have a sleep) and a bed during the night. There would be no reason why such a seat could not be fitted to a standard Eurostar carriage. In fact by using such stock would also allow for seated overnight accomodation as well. Therefore the issues regarding what stock to use or not is negated as you use the same stock as now except it is configured internall different to standard LON-PAR/BRU stock.
Clearly in our discussions above we have not considered the security implications. Frankly I would not want to see Fortress Britian unpicked at all and it is unlikley it would be anyway. But if there is a way to maintain the security and offer the service it would be appealing to many.
RichHI1 - 18/07/2011 18:00 GMT
I read in one of the Rail Trades back when the Eurostar was first developed some sleeper rolling stock was built. There were plans for both sleeper services and also through trains from other UK destinations. Both of these were killed of before launchf. Not sure which country bought the sleepers. Perhaps other members can help?
LondonCity - 18/07/2011 18:24 GMT
Canada.
Here's some info about "Nightstar" which never was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightstar_(train)
The fundamental flaw in the seat/bed concept, I'd have thought, is that while it may theoretically increase the possible day-long usability of the carriages, the over night capacity would be crucified - even if you downgraded the existing service levels by removing the generally-present washing facilities.
The already-limited profitability of overnight services depends on being able to get up to 6 berths in a standard height cabin (Artesia), stacked three high. There is no possible way that 6 Club World seats, with servicing space, would fit into the same footprint. In which case, as mjxguerra says above, you'd have to go double-decker - but you'd still get more passengers in on tiered bunks rather than converter seats.
This reality is probably what has lead Lufthansa to float the idea of bunks in Economy; the space utilisation is far superior to seat beds.
And, from a comfort point-of-view (especially when sharing a cabin with strangers) the psychological effect of having bunks promotes the idea that when you're in there, you should be sleeping. Fit converter seats and while some are trying to sleep (on what would have to be an inferior surface compared to a mattressed bunk), your immediate seat-mate is still up and about, eating, drinking, viewing and ballyhooing. Carriage lighting, if it is a thoroughfare, would have to be stonger than exisiting cabin nightlights, too.
Fundamentally though, whilst there may be examples of individual routes where the idea of a sleeper may seem to make sense, the reality is that even on trunk services, the commerciality of the proposition is questionable.
Taking the 5th October as an example, the cheapest one-way ticket in a shared four berth cabin on the Elipsos Trenhotel from Paris to Barcelona is £139. The journey takes 11h43m and that's about as far ahead as you may book thanks to the three month reservations horizon.
easyJet fly four times a day, taking 1h45m, for a maximum of £56.70 including a bag and all fees.
The latter therefore makes possible a day trip, avoiding any overnight costs and the need to share a sleeping cabin with strangers.
The former, meanwhile, appeals to InterRailers who can indeed amortise the cost of the sleeper reservation against the saving of an overnight in an expensive capital city, those who are (in general, though not always, as the Zurich example might show) not time-poor and those who are afraid of flying.
The rest, who are far more abundant and generally higher-spending, have been voting with their feet for 50 years and flying to minimise overnights away from home.
That said, I'm still an avowed sleeper fan - for leisure - and have no qualms whatsoever about the commercial prospects of long-distance touring train travel. Indeed, I'm quite sure that there is much more of a market to be exploited in the UK, never mind Europe.
Frequent sleepers targetted at the business market though? Only bookable three months out? Ten times the flying time? Often running horrendously late (the Florence-Paris regularly rolls in 2 hours behind time)? Sharing cabins? Cold, windy platforms? Lugging your own baggage and being responsible for its safety? I'm not spotting the opportunity there!
NTarrant - 19/07/2011 09:47 GMT
There are fundamental flaws in whatever method is or could be deployed. In the case of using Club World type seats, you would get more in than you would do in a carriage of individual compartments on a first class basis, probably equal on a standard class basis. There would be no need to "stack" and you would need to have overhead locker space for carry on luggage.
As your example shows there is really no contest on a nearly 12 hour train journey at £139 as opposed to around two hours for £56, unless you have a fear of flying or can't fly.
As I said before, no one will try it at present but there will probably come a time when the fare in your example will turn the other way due to increased fuel prices. Then you have a halfway house between a private berth and seated accomodation.
Your final point there is salient, NTarrant, as there must surely come a point in the next 50 years when fuel cost does indeed price aviation out of certain markets.
That seems to me to be the most compelling reason for early investment in rail infrastructure which has ever-lengthening lead times - particularly in the UK. I'm not an advocate of UK high speed rail though; with (if memory serves) an already greater than 80% rail market share Manchester-London with Virgin, and an existing fastest 2h37m journey time Newcastle-London with East Coast, judicious investment in the existing infrastructure would deliver solutions for the future which would almost certainly meet market and environmental demads.
Scandalous overcrowding on hideous Cross Country Voyagers and Super Voyagers and on three-carriage (but otherwise excellent Siemens Desiro) Transpennine services, unreliable overhead wiring on ECML and East Anglian routes, byzantine booking systems and advance purchase horizons, and recomissioning of diversionary and freight-only routes to clear express paths must surely be the priority - not HS2 and Eurosnoozeliners.
The recent Great Western announcement seems like a step in the right direction.
I'd commend to BT readers the book 'Eleven Minutes Late' by Matthew Engel, who argues therein that one of the strengths of the British 'web' of competing privately-established rail lines, pre-modernisation, was the 'resistance' of the network during WWII. He compares it to the largely militarily-planned trunk routes of Europe, which were comparatively easy to compromise with little bombing. In Blighty, there was always a cunning way around a damaged line.
Perhaps now is the time to identify the strength of that type of network in the war against rising oil prices, and ever-increasing passenger numbers?
RichHI1 - 19/07/2011 10:06 GMT
I wwould compare the Acela Express between Boston and NYC and the Eurostar between London and Paris. When the weather gets bad in NYC, the train is reliable (now the brakes are fixed) the planes are not. In contrast when the weather gets bad in UK or France both services go to hell in a hand basket. The infrastructure is affected by drifts and icing and the trains (though lesser the Hitachis) were stopped by the wrong sort of snow.
I think the infrastructure and the rolling stock should be hardened to make the train the reliable means of getting there.From that perspective together with enhanced accessability from regional stations, an enhanced service model might make sense.
My personal belief is the sleeper economic model is from a past generation and for many time is now money and as a consequence there is less demand to pay more to take longer, however much more pleasant it is until you reach the niche market such as the VSOE. Maybe for a corporation running a large event hiring such a train to use the journey as part of the event might make sense but this is really niche and makes the economic modeling and pricing a tad uncompetitive.
drflight - 19/07/2011 10:29 GMT
Sleeper trains were indeed to be part of the Channel Tunnel with the day services being 'Euorostar' and the sleeper trains 'Night Star' with routes not only from London but from Scotland and Northern England. A fleet of carriages was built in 1992 but by 1999 the scheme had been abandoned due to rising costs and competition from the newly developing low cost airlines.
The sleeping cars were sold off and some are, I believe, still running with Via Canada, the Canadian rail operators.
Mjxguerra's post (20/06/10 @11:40) interestingly explains the security and operational problems that would hinder such a service. I am quite sure if these problems could be overcome there would be sufficient demand. Some of us are old enough to remember when one could board the 'Night Ferry' Wagon Lit sleeper at Victoria and, providing one was a sound sleeper, waken up in Paris. Mind you, if not a sound sleeper it was a tiring, but interesting, journey as the carriage was shunted on and off a rail ferry for the channel crossing!
NTarrant - 19/07/2011 10:31 GMT
I quite agree CC regarding HS2, the money would be better spent on improvements to the existing nework and re-opening routes which have been severed that would ease congestion and create better journeys. As well as lengthing trains and improved signalling for capacity.
The weather argument is a bit of a red herring, there is this elf and safety culture which stops people trying to run a service (hence the silly announcements about slipping up). There are more journeys than 20 years ago and more frequent. You never hear of problems with the third rail back in the 30's and 40's. The hard fact is that we are not geared up for excessive weather and there has to be the balance between regular and occasional occurneces
