Last night’s Lowlander service to London Euston from Glasgow/Edinburgh had to be cancelled at Preston.

The service from both cities (the train is linked at Carstairs) failed at Preston early this morning according to The Scotsman.

As we have reported in recent weeks the sleeper service has suffered a number of technical failures.

Last night’s incident probably caused the most inconvenience to date with bleary-eyed passengers being informed that they would have to buy new rail tickets themselves and claim reimbursement later unless they would be willing to wait for alternative bus transport.

Caledonian Sleeper said it had been unable to obtain ticket acceptance with other rail firms, so customers were faced with a wait of several hours for bus transfers to the capital.

The operator tweeted that the bus transfers  were not expected to reach Preston until between 0830 and 0900.

In which case, at the time of writing in mid-morning, passengers would still not have reached London.

Some travellers have called for the return of the 40-year old BR rolling stock in place of the new CAF trains.

However some of the old coaches have already gone for scrap and it’s not clear whether there would be sufficient available.

As yet no information has been made available as to why the train failed.

Neither is there as yet any information as to whether tonight’s northbound Lowlander will be affected.

sleeper.scot