Did you know? The first Virgin Train of the day, the 05:26 to Liverpool, is the hardest working train in Britain! It does the 04:22 ECS from Wembley, 05:26 to Liverpool, 08:47 from Liverpool, 11:30 to Glasgow and the 16:40 back, then it's 23:00 to Manchester, and then arrives at Longsight at 02:28 the following day. 1,383 miles altogether
Fantastic video, well shot. Gave me good memories of the half dozen or so trips I made on the Sleeper between 2008 and 2011 when I lived in the UK. It was always expensive and there were times I found flying from London up to Inverness cheaper. Thank you.
Great Video I really enjoyed this thought I would watch it for a couple of mins then switch off, watched it all, used to drive Scottish Citylink Coaches to Inverness and back to Glasgow, Edinburgh would have swapped for the train journey any day!! also remember the line crisscrossing the A9. Some Citylinks wen`t through Kingussie and Newtonmore and I remember the line there too. Been to Fort William and Oban within the last year saw the sleeper leaving Fort William and arriving. The trains to Fort William and Oban are joined together then split at Crianlarich, now I realise they do the same with the Caledonian Sleepers at Edinburgh to make one massive train, makes sense really
What a life you have Matt! Visiting all these airports and on planes, and then seemingly every train journey and station possible (although weren't you bored at Inverness station? lol). I envy you! I always look forward to your new videos - please keep them coming! Thanks.
your landscape is fantastic. Amtrak has many similar routes. Lakeshore Limited is one of them. upper beds are premade when you lower or unfold them from the ceiling/wall. just unfold the sheets. wow low light at 2330 is different. very early sunrise also.
Great video. I admire your stamina hanging out of the window for so long. Great view to Edinburgh at 1st coach then great view from Edinburgh as last coach. I counted 15 maybe 16 coaches, now thats a real train. Well done its very interesting. Did it last year in October and doing it again this August, looking forward to the brightness this time. Thanks, John Inverness.
Another very good video. What a train this is i've only done the sleeper northbound then to Fort William to catch the Jacobite, i had 036 for haulage too. I should think you were shattered after being up most of the night.
Cracking video; enjoyed it very much. Thanks for sharing. What's the arrangement at Waverley? The Aberdeen and Fort William portions are already there? Presumably the Inverness portion reverses onto them from the east?
This is just before Serco took over from Scotrail for the Caledonian Sleeper and GBRF won the contract from DB Shenker to haul it and the rebuilt Class 73/9s were introduced to replace the Class 67s to be transferred to DB Cargo UK and some GBRF Class 66s helped out on some Caledonian Sleeper services in Scotland to assist the Class 73/9s on the Highland and lowland sleepers and Class 92s came out of storage and took over from Class 90s from Glasgow and Edinburgh to London Euston
Now that the service is run by Serco, do they still use Scotrail carriages or only Serco carriages? What happens to all the old Scotrail carriages if they dont use them? Do they recycle them somewhere else on the network?
Hi I would love to do this journey some time next year do you need two tickets to travel on it or just the one if your travelling all the way down to London as the Caledonian website says 1 ticket and if you ask anywhere else they say you have to have 2 tickets so confusing
Great trip/ video thanks for sharing! Northbound would be awesome too! :D Did you purposely asked for the last sleeper knowing it would be on the end of the train after they were coupled in Edinburgh? Thanks...
Excellent video a couple of points though. If nothing much is happening audio wise think about switching off mic. Wind noise is a bit annoying . Next my I suggest please show the platform side during station stops. Otherwise enjoyed very much thank you.
I'm just gonna upload the video with huge parts in silence I'm afraid. And if I have my head out the window on the side of the platforms the staff will spot me and ask me to get my head in. On the sleeper there is no dispatchers on the platforms so the driver has to get out and flash a green light at the guard, I don't want to be in the way of that.
rachaelmatt I don't know if you've heard (though judging by how often you travel on it, you probably have), but the Caledonian Sleeper is going to be a separate franchise to the main Scotrail one from next year. It's been awarded to Serco and they're planning to bring in new rolling stock from 2018 - I don't know whether the windows on that will open or whether it'll be air conditioned
Actually this is the other way round! 67s can go 125 but 90s can only go 110 so it's best if a class 90 went from Inverness to Edinburgh for the 67 from Edinburgh to London!
But a class 90 cant do Inverness to Edinburgh because its electric and 67's can only do 125 on HST routes not EPS routes like pendolinos and they will never operate a sleeper train at over 100mph.
Edinburgh Waverlay station 01;14 to collect the Edinburgh to London section of the train, 15 mins in Edinburgh to back up, hook up and continue to London
It is an ex LMS 1930s design, Mixed Traffic "Black 5" (4-6-0 wheel arrangement), in post 1957 British Railways livery. Cannot see the number but a handful of these useful locomotives are privately preserved by various groups in working order, some being authorised to run on the mainline national network.
As the train was entering Kingussie, it came very close to scraping on bushes. I wonder if it could be expedient to Scotrail to install an "automated machete" on the side of the engine to keep that stuff under control as they run past! (It might also be necessary to install a brush deflector behind that to insure that the cut brush was thrown well away from the train as it all went by! Kill 2 birds with one stone?
...continued 2: As the train gets to Perth it becomes obvious my previous assessment was wrong. there I see you posted the time of day as close to midnight, and it was dark.
Footage is great but the audio is shite, invest in a better windsock for your micrphone, if you haven't an external microphone then invest in one which will make your video's much better
Interesting, but the question is: Why does the electric locomotive (90036) bear the logo of the "Deutsche Bahn" (DB), German National Railways. This implies that the British Taxpayer is now helping to fund the German State Railways, something I feel is at the very least ethically incorrect !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Theduke71000 I'm sure you're aware that Arriva, that operates train lines in Britain, is owned by DB. In addition, other rail companies in Britain, such as Abellio that now operates the former Scotrail lines except the sleeper, are owned by Nederlandse Spoorwegen, (NS) the government owned railway of the Netherlands.
Indeed, so we have to ask the question. Why are Nationalised Railways of other countries operating bits of the British network? Presumably to reduce their taxpayers costs and keep their fares lower.So the British public is now subsidising other EU countries !
Because there are 3 different portions of the train. One portion comes from Inverness, one portion comes from Fort William and the other portion comes from Aberdeen. They all join up at Edinburgh Waverley for the journey to London with the power of a electrified train at front instead of diesel.
SupaHotFire The diesel loco is powerful enough to take the entire train, but its not needed, when theres overhead wires so an electric loco can take it which is more efficient.
howardkevinm Howard. In this particular case the class 67 diesel has a designed maximum speed of 125mph with 3,300hp (Built around 1995). The class 90 Electric loco is designed for 110mph with 5,000hp (Built around 1984). In both cases these locos were primarily designed for express passenger work. Your idea of horsepower is based on the unusual situation appertaining to the US Railroads, which have had little need since the 1950s of anything but freight locos. Diesels suit the US freight business very well, as Diesels by their nature obtain higher Tractive Efforts per horsepower than equivilant electric locos, and freight trains need Tractive Effort. The advantage of electric locos really shows in acceleration and high speeds, (neither feature needed by freight) so by default electric locos tend to be higher power !
Angrythomasfan3210 0 Must be summer up north nearer the circle. Above the circle there is daylight all day, the sun never sets. On the other hand during the winter it turns dark much earlier.
