I've heard a lot of things about sleeper trains so I wanted to try them out for myself and see if it's really as glamorous as it looks... would you use one?
Omg I cried 😂laughing at your shaving in the window. We recently took a sleeper from Nuremberg to Brussels. We pulled in to a random station on the way to Brussels, I woke up, sat up in bed and ate my brekkie in a bag . My son unhooked the blind and there was everyone on the platform watching me in my nightie, croissant crumbs everywhere , bed hair , eating my brekkie…I gave them a little wave ….lol
Just to let you know Carstairs is where they uncouple the trains. Part of the train goes to glasgow, part of the train goes to Edinburgh so they have to split the train and put a new engine on one side to be able to make the journey. From someone who lives in that area and has been on the Cali sleeper.
You’re on no the Lowland Sleeper. I live in Aberdeen so we get the Highland. On that one going down to London we get joined by the Inverness portion of the train.
No, and you're not wrong to expect more. The Caledonian Sleeper is now the biggest railway rip-off in Europe. They justify their prices by saying they're comparable to London and (in season) Edinburgh hotel prices - but there the similarity ends. Even a Continental Breakfast in a hotel would offer cereal, croissants, yogurts, fruit, pastries and much more! The showers are much more spacious and normally run at a reasonable temperature - and you don 't get kicked out before ten, either - meaning that even if you didn't sleep much in the night, you could top-up in the morning! I believe GWR manage to offer a better, more comfortable service using older trains on their London - Penzance service, so CS have no excuse, given the higher demand for their multi-portioned services. I mean, when you consider that b efore the railways were privatised, they were able to sell "spare capacity" at as little as £19 one way - which included travel; you really do have to ask these questions!
I wonder how many larger Americans booked that journey not realising with that super thin corridor they could never get to their room? Let alone the restaurant, great sense of humour as always Ed 👍👍
Showers 2 - 0 Ed. The sleeper is great in my experience, used it a few times. If you were in a club room; you could have used the club lounge at the stations and on the train.
Try the Riviera Express for a much better experience. Cheaper, the track is much smoother and quieter, we had a great night's sleep and used the 1st class lounge at Paddington for pre departure snacks and drinks and the lounge at Penzance for a hot shower upon arrival.
The Paddington-Penzance train is made up of fully refurbished Mk 3 coaches, unlike the Caledonian sleeper which use Mk5 coaches built by a Spanish company with no real history of train building, these coaches have been problematic from the beginning. I travelled from London to Inverness on the previous un-refurbished Mk3 stock, a trip I thoroughly enjoyed and would do again.
Why travel on the sleeper to Edinburgh you only travel on it if your going to aberdeen or Inverness where it arrives at a reasonable time. Theres a LNER train from London to Edinburgh it takes 4 hours in the daytime and way cheaper or lumo only £18 when starting price for Caledonian sleeper with room is £100+ might aswell stay in hotel premier inn it cheaper😅
I think it's aimed more at business people and commuters than tourists, as it gets you in just before the start of the working day! Probably good for meetings, and you don't have to miss any time the day before travelling up.
Don’t worry mate in a few months, a year you’ll be reviewing 1st class flights to Dubai! From delivering take aways to taking 1st class flights away to foreign lands. The life of a successful RU-vidr
You should have gone for the seated carriages they are so much more comfy than the beds and only £70 last time i used it... the seats are made super comfy for sleeping.
I think that the problem is that the UK isn't really big enough to justify sleeper services. The distances between the major cities isn't long enough to give you enough time for (what I would consider to be) a good night's sleep and enjoy the experience. An ideal sleeper service would depart about 6pm, give you an hour to get settled before serving dinner. Breakfast would start at 6am before getting into the station at about 7.30 to 8am, giving enough time for business commuters to get to the office for 9am. But in the UK you need to go to bed pretty much immediately to have any hope of a decent night's sleep before you arrive.
@@everchangingskies I don't know any names off the top of my head, there's people in for cannibalism, murdering prison officers etc, but one story I remember was there were 2 guys who escaped in the 70s or 80s who murdered other inmates a nurse and some police with axes. Dunno how they got the axes, and I only know some details it happened a long time before I was born, I think it's real name is state hospital, but everyone just knows it as Carstairs. Edit: I looked up the escape, and it was in 1976, by Robert Mone and Thomas McCulloch. If you Google the story you'll see how crazy they were, probably too graphic to comment on RU-vid exact details. McCulloch is now free believe it or not!
Reminds me of going to Edinburgh from airport by my house (Southend Airport). Flew to Edinburgh for no particular reason, spent the day there then flew back. Didn't get free chocolate on the plane though lol
My wife and I used the Calidonian overnight a couple of times travelling to Arran. I never slept a wink, but then I knew I wouldn't. The air con was on extra cold and non adjustable; most unpleasent The bogie below our cabin had a wheel with a 'flat' on the tyer; it sounded like a Harley Davidson escort! Weeks later a friend used the sevice and reported that the wheel still hadn't been changed. Returned to london during the day....much more enjoyable and a good deal cheaper.
I used sleepers in the '70s when the journey to Scotland was about 10 hours. Being able to lie down for 10 hours was certainly preferable to sitting in a seat & trying to sleep, with your head banging off the window, so the sleeper was a good alternative. It was considerably cheaper in those days too! Enjoyed the video & have subscribed!
Simon Wilson done this a few months ago but he went from Edinburgh to Euston. Just watched his video again and definitely didn't see him getting free chocolate 😂
I have watched hundreds of train/plane journey videos, but yours is wonderful. Interesting, informative and amusing commentary. Very good voice for narration, holding my attention. Can't wait to watch your other vids. 😀
£215 for that is a rip off. If I had to travel on business - a working day in London followed by meetings in Edinburgh / Glasgow / Aberdeen the following morning, I'd rather take a flight and stay in an airport hotel. Then take a train / bus into the city centre the following morning. Most budget hotels serve a decent breakfast, you are guaranteed to get more than 8 hours of sleep, and it will actually cost less.
I took the Inverness - London route a few years ago, the bed is the disabled room, the mattress was worse than a futon mattress. No sleep the whole night. It’s overpriced for what it is. A travel lodge bed is better
Mackies chocolate is pants, but their crisps are class. Haggis and black pepper are the best. Don't taste like haggis, and aren't made from sheep guts, but they are good 😂
@EdChapman23 oh you replied made my day that haha, I am disabled and I am in bed all day due to my spinal cord and spine so I have a lot of time on my hands
Traveled from Glasgow Central to Euston on a sleeper back in the seventies . There had been a fire on a sleeper a few years before and some passengers were trapped by locked doors . My boyfriend was a British Rail guard . He brought his railway keys incase we needed to get out .
If we had a high speed rail tunnel under the Irish Sea from Holyhead to Dublin Connolly, starting from Hull via Leeds and Manchester Victoria, this would be an excellent way to get the overnight train from Manchester to Dublin or from London to Dublin, in a similar way to the Eurostar Channel Tunnel
Shaving at night is where it’s at! Your natural oil and grease will come out as you sleep! No aftershave required! Practical, efficient and penny smart!
No, the best Sleeper in Britain is by far the GWR Night Riviera. It's quieter and smoother and stops less (apart from the all stops run at the far west)
16 mins 47 seconds of Ed once a week is just not enough. Call me demanding, but I want more and longer! 😂......Will we be seeing Ed at the Euros next? ⚽
The weird thing is I've very nearly fallen asleep whilst sat on a regular train, but a bed on a train looks awful. I'll stick to LNER if I want to go to Edinburgh!
The day trains London to Glasgow or Edinburgh take less than 5 hours (or should do) so there's not a great need really for a night sleeper, and getting disgorged on arrival at some ridiculously early hour in the morning when everything is closed doesn't help.
The sleeper to me is a great thing if you want to be in Glasgow or London early but don't want to spend an extra day or extra money on a hotel room. Yeah the getting there incredibly early is not fun but that's why you buy a shower token and get fresh from your journey and waste some time getting ready until the shops open
Claustrophobics avoid! Yes, I also gave up on the shower in the 'Club' cabin - it was designed only for contortionists and seemed to risk getting everything wet.
