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The Caledonian Sleepers

This service runs between various Scottish stations and London Euston. Sleeper services operate 6 nights a week - Monday to Friday and Sunday. The service is greatly reduced from former times when sleeper services ran down the East and West Coast mainlines, as well as to the West Country and even some internal Scottish services.

Services now operate to and from Edinburgh and Glasgow (the Lowland sleepers) and Aberdeen/Fort William/Inverness (the Highland sleepers). These services all ran as individual trains until the late 1990s but are now operated as seperate portions. The Glasgow and Edinburgh services combine and split at Carstairs while the Aberdeen and Fort William portions meet and divide with the Inverness service at Edinburgh Waverly.




From 1997 to 2015, the Caledonian Sleepers were part of the ScotRail franchise.


In 2013 Transport Scotland announced their intention to seperate the Caledonian Sleeper operation from the main Scotrail franchise as a stand-alone 15 year franchise. During the tendering process three bidders emerged for the sleeper franchise - First Group, Arriva Night Trains and Serco. It was announced on 28th May 2014 that Serco were the winning bidder.

A franchise commenced on 1st April 2015 and continued to be branded as "Caledonian Sleeper". Serco was responsible for operating all aspects of the Caledonian Sleeper including marketing, sales, passenger services, station facilities and fleet maintenance (though the latter will be contracted to Alstom Ltd). To meet Transport Scotland's aim of transforming the service, over £100m will be invested in new rolling stock. This new fleet was expected to be introduced by the summer of 2018, built by CAF, the Spanish rolling stock manufacturer. Class 73s and 92s are used to haul the lowland and highland portions

Traction

Until 2015 DB Schenker owned class 90 electric locomotives hauled the Highland sleepers between Edinburgh and Euston the Lowland sleepers throughout. The Highland sleeper portions are hauled North of Edinburgh by DB Schenker owned class 67 diesel locomotives.

The Rolling stock

The Caledonian Sleeper fleet is made up of 75 coaches.
Until 2019 the train were formed of BREL built sleeper stock.
Since 2019 CAF built Mk5 Sleeper stock has been used.

Sets

The coaches are formed into 8 coach sets. To allow maintenance at Inverness, each individual set follows a strict 8 day rotation of workings as follows:

Day	Headcode	Working	See Note
1	1M16	Inverness - Euston
2	1S26	Euston - Glasgow	A
3	1C11/1M11	Edinburgh - Euston	A
4	1S25/1Y11/1A25	Euston - Fort William or Aberdeen	B
5	1B01/1B16/1M16	Fort William or Aberdeen - Euston	B
6	1S26/1B26	Euston - Edinburgh	A
7	1M11	Glasgow - Euston	A
8	1S25	Euston - Inverness

Notes

A - On arrival at Glasgow, the coaches are cleaned and serviced at Polmadie depot. The set then works empty to Edinburgh to form that portion of the sleeper. Coaches arriving in Edinburgh in the morning are taken to Polmadie for cleaning and servicing them form the Glasgow portion of the sleeper that night.

B - The Fort William and Aberdeen sets are formed slightly differently. 2 sleeper coaches are taken to Fort William, 4 to Aberdeen. A pair of lounge and brake coaches work through from London to Aberdeen while the Fort William pair stay at Edinburgh overnight.

See Also

• Class 73
• Class 92
• CAF Mk5 Sleeper
• BREL built Sleeper Stock

External websites:

• Caledonian Sleeper website
• Wikipedia - Caledonian Sleeper