Serco Caledonian Sleepers Tracking Order Status

Having been surprised at the rating rising on here from 1.9 to 3.9, reading the reviews reveals that the good reviews are mainly from Club Room customers, not us Proles who travel in the cramped Classic bunks. These are the cells, sorry, rooms (cells are bigger) with bunks that have immovable ladders with thin, square rungs (what you need without shoes) at the top of which you must try and manoeuvre yourself into the bed. Coming down is frankly quite dangerous. Two people in there means that one really needs to leave to enable the other to dress/undress. The ride is appalling, I mean, REALLY bad. Probably partly due to Network Rail’s poor infrastructure but mainly due to Spanish train manufacturer CAF building shocking trains (infamous for it in UK.) We find it virtually impossible to get more than an hour’s disrupted sleep on our 7.5hr journey. And all this for £280 each return.

Great experience but so expensive. Would be better if cost in line with other European sleeper train services.

When we arrived the in the lounge we were greeted with pleasure and smiles. A lovely member gave us a card and complimentary wine to celebrate our first trip on our honeymoon. Once boarded on the train, we were ready to settle down. We fell asleep for about 1 hour. Then it began. The noise and motion was awful! And the “night” staff were not kind. We had trouble sleeping and to be honest I was scared as we had never travelled like this before. so we took the advice of one the hosts from earlier on to grab and tea and coffee and sit in the club car. We found two men workers ( middle aged) to be sitting there on their phones. They looked at us as we explained we could not sleep. They asked us to take a seat at the other end of the carriage whilst dismissing what we had just said. We felt this was unnecessary as there was no one else on the carriage and we felt we wanted abit of normality/ comfort being around “ a professional crew” . We sat down at the other end for about 20 mins whilst they sat in their phones. We did not get offered a tea or coffee. We were let down completely by that point.

We love sleeper trains and use them all over Europe. We've used this service three times now, the first time back in 2019 then again a couple of weeks ago. The 2019 journey ended up with neither of us having any water in our cabins (we booked two club cabins as neither of us can manage the ladder). On this most recent journey, the outward trip to Inverness was OK but the cabins are ridiculously cramped even for one person - I can't imagine coping with two people in a cabin. An irritating ladder makes it almost impossible to get into the lower bunk. The included 'breakfast' which we went to the dining car for was absolutely appalling. Scottish it may be, edible it was not. A revolting 'egg muffin' thing, some cardboard bacon, shrivelled mushrooms, black pudding and baked beans supposedly make up a Scottish breakfast. I recommend just using decent ingredients, and cook and serve them with care. Homeward, we decided to just get a bacon roll delivered to our cabins. This was equally inedible with one slice of bacon cooked to dry cardboard, the other barely cooked at all. There was no heating in mine or my husband's cabin. When I complained about this on getting off the train, we were told we could have moved cabin had we asked. Well great, but actually once you realise the heating isn't working, you're probably in bed already bed and have your stuff scattered around the cabin so it would be a mission to move. The check in process in Inverness was ridiculous. They let everyone onto the platform, our carriage was far down the train. After walking there with our luggage, we then had to walk all the way back up the platform because staff had finally decided to 'set up shop' with the check in process at the beginning of the platform. Why not set up BEFORE you let passengers onto the platform? So very much needs to improve, and before we book again, I'll be looking at reviews with a fine-tooth comb because we've paid a lot of money for a very poor service three times now. One suggestion I'd like to make is to add an additional grade of cabin with a wider bed and a wider aisle between the bed and the shower room. We would happily pay a lot more for this additional space. But not so much as a double for each of us, that would be far too expensive.

The quality of sleep is down to the lottery of where your berth is. Outbound journey from Glasgow, it was disappointing that the lounge was closed well before boarding commenced, resulting to have to wait on a very cold platform. Travelled in N1 a club berth. Unfortunately got virtually no sleep as berth over bogie and in addition to bouncing up and down, we were also shaken side to side. Breakfast in the Club Car was good. Train arrived early, and we spent time in the Euston lounge which was very pleasant and staff good. Again waited in lounge before departure with some trepidation as we'd been allocated K1, same position different coach. Against lounge very pleasant and staff good. Unfortunately due to late departure of the highland service, the train was brought into platform 15, quite a walk on a stick. Due to a water fault we were allocated M4, a blessing as the ride quality was much better, and managed a reasonable sleep. Again breakfast in the he Club Car was good.