It’s widely believed that night trains are unprofitable for a variety of reasons.
But the news that Serco (the holder of the Caledonian Sleeper franchise) has made such losses – £69 million over seven years – comes as a shock.
It means that Serco is expected to lose the Caledonian Sleeper franchise this coming June unless it can agree a new contract with the Scottish government.
Already the latter has taken over Scotrail and now it appears it will also absorb Caledonian Sleeper.
Matters came to a head last October (such losses were not publicised at the time) when Serco and the Scottish government disputed the level of funding which would be required.
For its part Caledonian Sleeper reports an increase in passenger numbers and revenue after the pandemic (during which the night train’s operation was drastically cut back).
Losses at Caledonian Sleeper have been caused by a variety of issues.
As we have reported these range from issues with the latest CAF rolling stock, to industrial action by the onboard crew to operational issues over Network Rail.
See below for some of our reports:
- Caledonian Sleeper fails yet again
- Caledonian Sleeper admits cleaning failures
- Caledonian Sleeper suffers major delays
Perhaps more seriously was when one Caledonian Sleeper suffered brake failure and overshot Edinburgh Waverly.
The incidents involving Network Rail have been many and involve line closures owing to bad weather.
Only recently the service had to be suspended or rerouted via the East Coast Mainline (ECML) because its normal routing via the West Coast was closed for five days.
Whatever happens after July one would hope onboard service levels will be retained at their present level as Caledonian Sleeper is popular with visitors around the world.
