The Thoughts And Travels Of A Geezer On A Harley ……………………………………… Looking at the World Through Teenage Eyes, But With The Cunning, Guile and Wisdom That Comes With Age!
Well, my night on the Caledonian Sleeper is over, time to report on the experience.
As I said in my previous post, internally the train was spotless and my cabin, though a tad compact was very adequate. With two people in it though I feel that you would have to choreograph your moves as it really could be a bit cramped!
We departed Inverness bang on time and effortlessly slipped into the Highland darkness. The train follows the Highland Railway mainline through Aviemore to Perth, Gleneagles and Stirling before taking a left for Edinburgh, where the portions from Fort William and Aberdeen are attached. There were quite few station stops and as a result the ride was a bit jerky! Equally the attachment of extra carriages and a locomotive change at Edinburgh was, unavoidably a bit sleep interrupting!
The Mark 5 carriages rode well, very well in fact on the higher speed sections of line, particularly the West Coast Mainline South of Carstairs all the way to London Euston. On the Highland Mainline though they suffered with a lot of bogie noise and vibration. It does strike me these days that rolling stock design engineers seem to be able to manufacture vehicles that only do one thing well, but are incapable of coping with a variety of conditions…just a thought.
Inverness. Waiting departure.
The bad news was that due to signalling track circuit failures in the Partick area, our train was delayed by 95 minutes waiting for the Fort William portion; not a major issue for me for my onward journey, but I’m sure that some people might have been annoyed. On the plus side though, Caledonian Sleepers give a very generous refund for this inconvenience so I’m really not complaining and you can’t blame the train operator for the infrastructure owner’s shortcomings!
A point I made in my previous post about top speeds was quite pertinent and noticeable with our delay. By using a combination of stopwatch and GPS, I was able to see that we travelled along at a steady 87mph, the top speed of the locomotive. Now allowing that the Caledonian Sleeper is timed at 80mph, the maximum possible recovery of lost time in running can only be less than 10% with a 7mph excess over timing; I guess thats the price you pay for using a class 92 locomotive that was originally designed for freight work.
Journey’s end at Euston.
A light breakfast of coffee, fruit juice and a sausage bap was served to me in my cabin and was very enjoyable.
Yes arrival at Euston was late, but on the plus side avoided the infamous London “rush hour!”
A railway sleeper service has run between Scotland and England since February 1873. Sleeping cars were initially introduced on the East Coast Route via Edinburgh and York, with the rival West Coast catching up in October of the same year. The status quo remained pretty much the same until 1988 when services were withdrawn on the East Coast and trains consolidated on the West Coast.
Following the privatisation of rail operations in the UK during the 1990’s, like all other passenger trains the Anglo – Scottish sleepers passed into private hands.
It was not a stunning success!
True, new Mark 5 rolling stock was procured to run the trains, though it’s introduction was somewhat troubled and painful. The first run of the new carriages arrived at it’s destination hours late and received great derision from the media! Then there was a period of poor and deteriorating industrial relations that did little aid reliability nor reputation.
Finally in October 2022, the Scottish Government, possibly out of despair, announced that the franchise, then run by Serco, would be terminated and the operation taken over by Scottish Rail Holdings, a Government Owned Department from June 2023. Since then the service has stabilised and is beginning to rebuild it’s reputation.
The Mark 5 carriages are still a bit of a mixed bag and it is fair to say that they give the maintenance engineers headaches at time, but overall are settling into reliable performers.
Two trains are operated on six days each week. The “Highland Sleeper” is made up of three trains that depart from Inverness, Fort William and Aberdeen, then combine at Edinburgh and travel onward to London Euston as a 16 coach train. A “Lowland Sleeper” train has two portions serving Glasgow and Edinburgh, also to London.
The trains normally operate at a maximum speed of 80 mph (130 km/h), but are authorised to travel at 100 mph (160 km/h) where line speeds permit and if the train has been significantly delayed. Though as the locomotives used are not permitted to run any faster than 90mph, I find this to be a tad perplexing! It’s the old railway operator in me!
North of Edinburgh the trains are all hauled by diesel locomotives and South from there by electric traction.
My Inverness portion of the train tonight consists of six sleeper coaches, one seated carriage and one “club car” (lounge car). Up front we have two Class 73/9 Electro-Diesel locomotives, 73. 970 and 73 967, old friends from my days on the Southern Region, though unlike me, they has been through a complete rebuild and now boast a 1600hp V8 engine each, which is an improvement over it’s original 650hp one. So 3200hp for a load of 305tonnes should do the job!
I’ll check out the electric loco when we get to Euston, I’m not getting out of bed at Edinburgh just to see it!
My berth, a solo Club cabin, is well appointed with an ensuite toilet and shower adjacent to the bedroom. In the past, the old Mark 1 sleeping cars had lovely wide windows that you could open and enjoy the mountain air as the train traversed the Highland railways; sadly now that facility has gone, but the air conditioning is much nicer than the old draughty sleeping cars!
Cosy, clean and comfortable, all I need.
I enjoyed a relaxing hour in the Caledonian Sleeper Lounge at Inverness with complementary refreshments before wandering over to the platform and getting comfy in my cabin. I’m really looking forward to this trip, it must be nearly 30 years since I was on a sleeping train…
As regular Blogonaughts will know, railways have always played a big part in my life. I grew up with a railway engineer father and subsequently spent a long part of my working life running railways. More often than not, I’ve also lived within earshot of a railway line… except for the last twenty something years in Cornwall. New Dookes H.Q. here in Caithness has returned to the status quo; when the wind is right we can hear trains!
Now please don’t get to think that we are kept awake at night by endless trains pounding the steel rails. No, we live a couple of miles from the Far North Line; a wonderfully bucolic railway that gently meanders for 168 miles linking Inverness, the capital of the Highlands, to Wick and Thurso at the extreme Northern end of Scotland. As the name suggests, it is the most northern railway in the United Kingdom. It’s not so much “InterCity”, more “Inter Village” and pretty small ones at that! The line is totally single track, with numerous passing loops. Speeds are generally not high, due in part to the somewhat tortuous nature of the route and its lighter construction., but that’s ok, there is so much lovely scenery to enjoy!
The line was built in stages starting from Inverness to Ardgay in 1862, to Golspie in 1868, Helmsdale in 1870 and to Wick and Thurso in 1874 . Each section was constructed by different companies that each subsequently ceded operations to The Highland Railway. The line was built to generally avoid major civil engineering works; there are no tunnels and only a couple of large viaducts, for the most part the route traces the contours of the land and as a result takes a somewhat roundabout course to reach is destination. By road from Inverness to Thurso is 110 miles, the train takes an extra 50 miles! Prominent amongst the railway’s sponsors was the 3rd Duke of Sutherland, who not only had his own station at Dunrobin Castle, but his own private train that he apparently greatly enjoyed driving! He sounds like the sort of chap I would have got on well with!!
It is fair to say that the line has never been very profitable, indeed it has often be in danger of partial or total closure. Busy periods during the two World Wars saw heavy traffic to the Royal Navy bases in Northern Scotland whilst the boom in North Sea oil exploration in the 1970’s saw some increase in construction traffic to the deep water anchorage at Invergordon, along with a nearby aluminium smelter. Generally though freight has declined now to virtually nothing, whilst passenger traffic numbers are really sustained by tourists during the summer period. The stations between Dingwall and Inverness do however see some use by passengers commuting into Inverness. The line is today heavily supported by the Scottish Government who recognise its value to local communities.
I first rode the Far North Line over 40 years ago, in those days the service was provided by locomotive hauled trains and there was a lot of parcel and mail traffic that had to be manually loaded and unloaded at the various stations. Today the trains are diesel sprinter units solely dedicated to passengers as the mail and parcels have disappeared to road hauliers. To me the modern trains are not a great improvement as they are noisy, the seats lack comfort and the toilets are a tad smelly, but they are more economic to operate and maintain; if that helps to keep the line open, then I’m all for it!
I’m riding the whole length of the line today, from Wick to Inverness, taking in the short branch to Thurso. I’m in no rush, just as well, I leave Wick at 12:34 and arrive in Inverness at 17:08 with my onward sleeper connection to London leaving there at 20:45; this like so many of my trips is about the journey, not the arrival!
Both Wick and Thurso stations share a common and for a rural railway, an unusual feature, a rather delightful overall roof; though as each only cover around 80 feet of platform not many carriages can fit inside! At Wick the train generally has one vehicle under the roof, but at Thurso the train normally stops outside. Thurso is the most Northerly railway station in the UK.
Thurso
Eighteen miles from Wick the trains stop at Georgemas Junction where the short 6 mile branch diverges to Thurso. All trains go to Thurso. Georgemas also has a freight terminal where spent nuclear material form the decommisioned Dounreay Power Station is transhipped to for transport to Sellafield for processing.
Georgemas Junction and Nuclear Flask Train
The bit of railway from Georgemas to Thurso always reminds me of a model railway, it winds around a lot, crosses the river and finally climbs into the terminus almost in the heart of the town. The trains briefly pause whilst the driver changes ends and then we are off again back to the Junction. Another direction change at Georgemas and it’s Inverness here we come..in a few hours time!!
First we climb to the highest point of the route at County March Summit, where we cross from Caithness into Sutherland. It’s a bleak landscape here, crossing the famous Flow Country, the largest expanse of blanket bog in Europe, a peatland dotted with bog pools creating a priceless habitat for wildlife and special flora, covering about 1,500 square miles (4,000 km2). It’s not the place to be when the weather is bad or if you are ill equipped.
Snow fences in the Flow Country.
From the train we see the remains of old snow fences, built in an attempt to reduce the impact of the harsh Northern winters; tales of trains stranded in deep snow are legendary here!
Forsinard
From Forsinard through Kinbrace and the gorgeous Strath of Kildonan.
Strath of Kildonan
On towards Helmsdale, the line enjoys stunning mountain views, before hugging the North Sea coast to Golspie, where shortly after it takes a turn towards the West and begins a large loop inland through Lairg.
The railway covers 40 miles on this loop, with stations at Rogart, Lairg, Invershin, Culrain and Ardgay, reappearing next to the coast just North of Tain, amazingly only about 11 miles South of where it looped inland! There have been many attempts and suggestions to build a “cut off” line to avoid the inland route, but to date neither the money nor political will has been forthcoming.
For me the most interesting feature of the Lairg loop is Invershin Viaduct, which crosses the Shin river with a single 230 feet (70 m) span.
Invershin Viaduct. Photo courtesy Graeme Smith.
From Tain the line follows Cromarty Firth to Dingwall, junction for the line to Kyle of Lochalsh. Dingwall is easily the busiest station on the whole line, a busy market town, now quite a dormitory for Inverness.
Dingwall
Reopened stations at Beauly and Conon Bridge, either side of the passing station at Muir of Ord, point to a more progressive approach by the Scotttish Government to its rural rail services. Skirting Beauly Firth the line approaches Inverness and after crossing the Caledonian Canal at Clacknaharry Swing Bridge, then the River Ness viaduct it glides above the rooftops then arrives at the terminus at the capital of the Highlands, Inverness.
Journey’s end, Inverness.
The Far North Line is one that you don’t ride if you are in a hurry, but it is one to ride if you want to fill your soul with wonderful memories.
I’m off to grab a bite to eat, then overnight on the sleeper and wake up in another country! Catch you soon,
Hogrider Dookes 