LMS design Sleeper for scrap

deleted

 

I've often felt that an overnight diner with sleeping cars could be a real money spinner for the line prepared to risk it, but it would require dedicated paid staff and one heck of an up front investment which would only be possible with grant or lottery funding. As things stand I suspect that the only currently unrestored sleeping car which is ever likely to run in traffic is the NYMR-based Gresley day sleeper No.1299, which is essentially a TK with folding top bunks.

 

I've always wanted, when the lottery win comes in of course, to restore a short-ish rake of sleeping coaches and get them mainline registered. Then I'd transport them to various preserved lines to be hired out as a rolling hotel for galas, the SVR being the perfect one as they could be attached to the back of a overnight service train.

 

I can't imagine the people who fork out good money for a meal on the luxury dining train then wanting to spend the night in a bunk bed.

 

deleted

 

I sleep in canal boats and b&b but I've never fancied a dining train so I'm not sure the market is the same. I think a sleeper makes sense only on a long overnight journey, I don't see how a preserved railway could market such an uncomfortable way to spend the night at a price which would make enough money to be worth the effort.

 

The only way I think it would be viable is if someone like the SVR put one sleeper on their night trains and charged a few quid extra rather than having to slum it in an open coach.

 

I always imagine this with the two Hawksworth sleepers we have but I can't imagine it actually happening.

 

Are you going to turf out the residents of Arley and kidder staff that use the sleepers as overnight accomodation? Its a nice pipe dream. It would be nice to see the 2 LMS sleepers at Horsted Keynes given a lick of paint.

 

I said it was just imaginations did I?

 

They're looking very rough, as is the Night Ferry sleeper at Park. Are they any better inside?

 

deleted

 

Well quite. If you could offer a posh Pullman meal (and I'll lay odds that a lot of evening diner passengers spend the night in local hotels) followed by a night in a 'heritage' sleeping car, followed by waking up to birdsong and a full English in Horsted Keynes or Levisham or Highley then you'd be offering a very marketable package. But there's only one way to find out, and it would be a hell of a commercial risk.

 

How many lines have the spare siding capacity to cope with that ?

 

And it's that commercial risk that makes it a non-starter. For a railway with lines of unrestored carriages waiting their turn, which would you choose as the next to enter the works - the sleeper or a carriage that could be used in day-in, day-out revenue traffic?

The other issue is what you do with your overnight passengers when they awake early the next morning in HK or Levisham, bleary eyed, and want some breakfast with your catering facilities miles away in Sheffield Park or Pickering and no train due until late morning?

I've travelled on real sleepers in the past (on the continent) and part of the magic is going to sleep in, say, Toulouse, and waking up in Paris; or climbing on in Dunkirk and being half aware of prolonged shunting as you swap trains in Cologne before eventually waking up the next morning in Munich. But you couldn't really recreate that on a heritage line; if you just berth the vehicle at a station, all you really have is a slightly uncomfortable night in a vehicle with cramped facilities. I think there is far more possibilities for dining passengers to create a tie-in with a local country hotel or B&B, and sell a complete package of meal on dining train + B&B with all transfers thrown in.

Tom

 

Fall asleep at Dinas, wake up at Dduallt.....

 

I think it is an idea with some potential.

The SVR has had an intention for a corporate/luxury dining train for some time, utilising the Gresley kitchen composite and 7511 the lms open first, and the stove R as a reception /brake vehicle..

Perhaps if the obbo is added as a post dinner bar vehicle and one of the Hawksworth sleepers for its intended purpose completes the set you could have a marketable function train. I take the point of the joy of sleeping on the move, but I think that could be satisfied by a late night journey along the valley once the customers have retired to the sleeper. You'd be looking at 2 or 2 and a half round trips along the SVR over the course of the evening...stable the set at Bridgnorth overnight from say, 1am with the light engine off Bridgnorth taking the set with it whilst the guests are served breakfast.

I'm fully aware with regards the Hawksworth's that they're both used for volunteers accommodation, but in terms of reducing capital expenditure when investigating if there is a viable business plan it would make sense to use a fit for purpose vehicle as a temporary measure.

And yes, I know, pie in the sky, flying pigs etc.

 

Where would the crew sleep?

 

In the staff accommodation at Bridgnorth or anywhere else that is convenient on the line, if indeed they want to stay on the line. The demand in terms of loco crew wouldnt be significantly greater than when running the normal evening diner, just a later finish.

 

In addition to the huge outlay which restoring a rake of three or four sleeping cars would entail, the operational problems as it see it are as follows: providing breakfast would like as not entail keeping the catering staff on or near the train, so they'd need dedicated accommodation and, being paid staff, would not be prepared to tolerate the Heath Robinson conditions of a lot of volunteer accommodation. You'd also need to have sleeping car stewards on call overnight, which means more paid staff, and in order to heat the train on cold nights you'd need a loco and crew. You'd need a shore electricity supply too. And then there's the fact that a set of, say, four sleepers plus diner set would be very heavy train by preserved railway standards and would require a big engine. None of this is impossible, but you'd need to be able to charge very high fares in order to do it and that would entail offering the very highest quality of service and food in order to provide an alternative to the mostly much cheaper local hotels. As an example, a couple dining on the NYMR's Pullman might then spend the night in a fancy hotel such as the Talbot in Malton, where they'd pay two hundred pounds per room per night for the cheapest room - a room considerably more luxurious than a couple of bunk beds in a small compartment - and then have breakfast in a restaurant run by James Martin. Somebody asked upthread how the Royal Scotsman manages: well, it manages by charging the best part of a grand per person per night. Obviously that also covers the cost of long distance main line running but even taking that into account it's still a great deal more than I suspect most people would be prepared to pay for a couple of ten mile round trips and a night in a siding, and unlike Belmond no heritage railway would have a captive clientele of rich American dentists. If you could use volunteers and keep the paid staff to a minimum (and remember that you're going to need to find volunteers who can equal the professional standards of the best hotels), if you could obtain the funding to restore the stock, and if you could solve the heating problem then the idea might have legs, but it would be a brave railway which attempted it.

A chap can dream though, and Andy2857's idea of a charter function train consisting of saloon, kitchen, and a single sleeper might have legs.