One of the most surprising developments on European railways in recent years has been the renaissance of night trains.
A decade ago, they were seen as being in terminal decline. But in Britain, new stock has been provided for the Caledonian Sleeper, and demand for the three routes has remained buoyant with trains booking out weeks (even months) in advance.
Fully commercial Sleeper services have been part of the British railway scene since 1873, when the North British Railway introduced a Sleeper between London King’s Cross, Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Queen Street.
From the beginning, the challenges of making a profit were evident: Sleeper cars are bespoke and heavy vehicles; they can be used only once a day; they are operationally complex with more plumbing to maintain and linen to process; and the staff and material costs are significant.
No evidence survives that tells us about the economics of pre-nationalisation Sleeper services. The low prices offered suggest they were seen as something of a public service, and competition on some routes kept the supplement over the normal fare at a lower level than on the continent. One historian has given the cost of using a Sleeper car between Paris and Marseille as 24 times higher than the Edwardian equivalent in Britain.
That fundamental aspect of Sleeper trains in Britain has continued, with per passenger subsidy to the Caledonian Sleeper the highest of any train operating company (TOC). It has also experienced the highest number of complaints of any TOC per 100,000 passengers (395). And although it is a politically indispensable part of Scotland’s transport, its operator (and perhaps operations) look set to change within months, following the decision by Scottish ministers to terminate the franchise on June 25 2023.
Caledonian Sleeper services - from London to Edinburgh and Glasgow on its Lowland Route, and London to Fort William, Inverness and Aberdeen on its Highland Route - were part of ScotRail until April 2015, when the franchise was handed to Serco. Even with the subsidy, Serco’s bid was too low for it to make any money.
In March 2022, Scottish ministers extended the Temporary Measures Agreement (TMA) for a year until March 31 2023, but in October decided to terminate it. Folding the Caledonian Sleeper into ScotRail is something the RMT union has campaigned for, bringing it in line with the rest of ScotRail, which transferred from Abellio to Scottish Rail Holdings on April 1 2022.
As Mark Smith, the Man in Seat 61, says: “The rationale for awarding the Caledonian Sleeper as a separate contract was to focus management attention on it, otherwise it is just a niche product within ScotRail that no one pays any attention to or is delegated to a junior manager. That’s the biggest risk of it going back into ScotRail.”
Britain’s other Sleeper service is the Night Riviera, operated by Great Western Railway (GWR) between London Paddington and Penzance, and which has been running (at least as far as Plymouth) since 1877.
There was some doubt over its continuation at privatisation, but Smith recalls that withdrawal of the separate Plymouth portion made the necessary cost saving - the full cost of a Class 08 shunter to detach the Plymouth coaches had been charged to the service.
The service remains popular, and GWR reports that “over Easter and during the summer holidays, we regularly hit 100% passenger loadings from London Paddington on a Thursday/Friday, and from Penzance on a Sunday/Monday”.
What lessons about night-train operations can be learned from across the Channel, where the unpredicted and remarkable revival of Sleeper services has been largely under the auspices of Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB)?
Continental revival
In recent decades, a whole range of factors has worked against the success of Sleeper trains on the continent: budget airlines, motorway construction, high-speed trains, an unequal competitive framework, tired trains, and rising expectations of privacy and comfort.
Many had expected Sleeper services to disappear altogether - and in some countries they have (Spain) or almost have (France).
Kurt Bauer, head of long-distance transport and new rail business at ÖBB, says: “Where night trains exist, there is in most cases the political will to do so as PSO services in Italy, Scandinavia and in Austria, because policy-makers think Sleeper trains should be publicly procured.
“We have always had very good partnerships with neighbours, and especially Swiss Railways, and they became the most important partners when we established a Nightjet network in 2015-16. Also, with Trenitalia for trains to Rome and Milan.
“Germany had other priorities at the time. To address the huge backlog in investment in all rolling stock, it adopted a focus on high-speed trains.
“In Austria, we had a good fleet of Railjets , but we lacked Sleeper coaches. DB decided to disinvest in night trains so we had the chance to procure 42 Siemens sleeper coaches. However, DB remained the operator of Nightjet in Germany.
“It is interesting to see how high-speed can kill Sleeper trains - it happened in Spain, France and Germany, but not in Italy because high-speed served only half of a long country, and it had political will to support Sleeper trains. Austria is far from the high-speed network and we need good connections with western Europe.
