I would first like to say that all my thoughts are with those affected by the Stonehaven Derailment and for that reason I would like to dedicate my blog to Brett McCullough, Donald Dinnie, Christopher Stuchbury, ScotRail and all those affected by the incident.
For those of you who haven’t followed my travels before, I am a 13 year old railway enthusiast who suffers with severe anxiety, and has the ambition to travel the entire UK railway network.
My “Journey of a Night Time” courtesy of Caledonian Sleeper!
During lockdown my plans to travel the UK railways came to a very sudden halt. I resorted to watching train trip reviews on the internet and came across the Scottish Highlands. Although I had always wanted to go to the Highlands being stuck inside with very little to do, it made me want to go even more. I started to look at ways to get up to the Highlands, after I had done the GWR’s Night Riviera a couple of months before lockdown and really enjoyed it, I thought I would have a look at the Caledonian Sleeper.
This is where the adventure started. I decided to contact the charities team at Caledonian Sleeper back in July. I was looking for advice on the best time to travel on the sleeper, but I never expected the amazing reply I got! Unbelievably they offered me the brilliant opportunity to travel on the sleeper during the summer holidays. I cannot begin to tell you how excited I was, after being confined to my local area for so long, to get away for a couple of days would be the best thing ever at the moment. A few days later it was all arranged and I was booked on the sleeper to Fort William and then returning from Inverness. I really can’t thank Caledonian Sleeper enough for giving me this amazing trip.
As the days went by, I was however getting more and more nervous about not being able to go as more cities and towns were going into “local lockdowns” I was panicking that Fort William or Inverness were going to be next. Also a few days before I was due to go on the sleeper I went out for lunch, the first time since lockdown ended. I did this to be able to prepare me for having to eat out when I got to Scotland. I have been unable to do even simple things like this due to my anxiety issues. Ever since I ate out though, I was in a relentless panic that “Track and Trace” were going to call and I wouldn’t be able to go. As the day approached, I was still panicking about a million and one things that could go wrong.
The day was now here! I was still constantly worrying about “Track and Trace” phoning and not being able to go but my mum just kept trying to reassure me that it wasn’t very likely. For me to settle that day was impossible and I was feeling really restless. Now I was worried about what to take with me as I struggle with not knowing what I might need, and then I get obsessed about the smallest of things and I had to constantly try and put it out of my mind. I lost track of how many times I emptied out my rucksack, checked whether I had everything and then decided I needed something else so had to start the checking again.
Getting ready to leave, we put our rucksacks in the car, as my dad very kindly offered to drive me and my mum to Birmingham New Street. It was absolutely boiling 30o but at least the car was nice and cool as I really struggle with the heat. We had our dog with us too, this was going to be the first time were going to leave her with my dad overnight. We found a lovely reservoir en-route to the station and stopped off there to let my dog and us stretch our legs. We got back in the car and drove the rest of the way to New Street. Feeling very nervous now about being in Birmingham, I got out the car, left my dad and my dog and walked into the station. I was on super high alert now, constantly thinking that something was going to happen to one of us. We were approached by two people straight away who were asking for money, we didn’t have any change on us, but this made me very nervous because my mum was speaking to someone I didn’t know. We had our packed lunch, or should I say packed tea, sat outside the station in the shade. I wasn’t feeling very hungry though so I only had a little bit to eat and then we went back inside of the station.
We went through the gate line at New Street and went to the toilet. There was a bit of an incident in the toilet, someone kicked the door in on my cubicle, this really stressed me out and I came out crying. I felt like I couldn’t go to Scotland now and I just wanted to go home. Me and my mum went and sat down and she tried to calm me down. Luckily there was a member of station staff who pointed us to the Accessibility Lounge. That was amazing because of how quiet it was and the member of staff in there was lovely and got me a cold bottle of water to try and help calm me down a bit. My mum persuaded me to try and get on the train even if it was only one stop to Birmingham International.
We went down to the platform and I had a photo taken in front of the train and then got on board. The seats we had booked were taken by a group of people and that really stressed me out so we went down and saw the train manager. My mum was happy to pay to upgrade to First Class but the lovely train manger on the 1B47, the 17:47 Birmingham New Street to London Euston, let us sit in coach C (The Shop on Pendolino trains) where no one else could sit because it was reserved for staff only. This really helped and I could begin to relax a little. I decided to eat the rest of my tea onboard the train and I felt a lot better.
We left on time and headed towards London Euston, I loved going through the neutral sections as you can hear the pantograph drop right above your head in coach C. As we approached Birmingham International; we saw the airport which had quite a few planes in. By this point I felt more relaxed and didn’t want to get off the train as much. We stopped at Coventry and then Rugby. At this point we were pretty much on time and headed towards London Euston. As we passed Wolverton, we saw a Class 720 but I am unsure of the number as there were quite a few there at the moment. My mum tweeted London Euston to see if they had an Accessibility Lounge like at New Street, they replied shortly and confirmed that they did have one which settled me a little bit more. Not much happened for the rest of the Avanti journey apart from going past Wembley and seeing the Grand Central Class 90 sets which did look very good. We got all our items together and got ready to leave the train. We waited in the vestibule until the door open lights lit up and then we opened the doors, as it opened it felt like stepping out into another country as it was still about 30o outside and the train was fully air-conditioned. I have never been abroad on a plane before but my mum told me that it is what it feels like to step off a plane in a hot country.
We walked down towards the concourse at Euston. I had the same super high alert feeling in London as I had in Birmingham. We walked out of the station and headed to Sainsburys to buy some snacks for the journey on the sleeper. As we came out of the Sainsburys we thought we would go and try and find my poster that I designed, as part of a competition I entered during lockdown. We managed to find it right by the west side entrance to the station. I had my photo taken with the poster, it felt strange to know that potentially thousands of people see the set of posters every day.
I was still feeling anxious, so as it was now just over two hours until boarding, we decided to go and see if we could go in the “Avanti West Coast First Class Lounge” a little early. Kindly they let us into the lounge, we had to give our phone number and name for “Track and Trace” purposes. It is currently table service only in the first-class lounge, so they showed us to our seat and we waited to be served. The lovely member of staff in the lounge came over and took our order of tea and lemonade which came with some snacks as well. It was quieter in the lounge than it was on the concourse which I liked; also, social distancing was abided by very well in the lounge. As time went by, our train appeared on the last page of the departure board – the 21:15 Caledonian Sleeper service to Inverness and Fort William, the Aberdeen portion hasn’t been running during the coronavirus period. The toilets in the First-Class lounge are very clean, when I am nervous, I need the toilet a lot more I don’t know why. I was watching our train on realtimetrains.co.uk and noticed it hadn’t left Wembley Inter City Depot so was nervous about what was happening. There was an announcement saying that the sleeper was delayed leaving the depot, this wouldn’t be my only delay on the journey tonight.
The board then updated and said the new departure time was going to be 22:00. We had another drink and waited for another update on the sleeper, I was still tracking our train on Real Time Trains. Suddenly, I noticed that I had received two more donations on my Crowdfunding which I am so grateful for and made the trip even better, thank you to everyone who has donated to my campaign and for all your support on Twitter. I spotted our train coming out of the depot as 5S95 at 20:24, the scheduled departure time from the depot was 19:05. GBRf, who operate the Caledonian Sleeper, now give train allocations (train numbers) on Real Time Trains – I could see our train was being operated by 92 023 and 92 020 on the rear (which was uncoupled before we left). We discovered that our train would have quite a few dogs onboard, one of them being a guide dog. It was nice to see the dogs in the lounge as I was missing my dog now. Train 1S25, to Inverness and Edinburgh Waverley, then 1Y11, to Fort William after being uncoupled at Edinburgh Waverly, was now ready for boarding. We got another snack and drink and then walked down to the train. Leaving the first-class lounge, we headed down for the platform and I was feeling quite nervous but really excited at the same time.
Euston looked so strange being so quiet with only a few people on the concourse. Heading down for platform one we walked past all the deserted shops which had closed because of how late it was. It must have still been about 30o outside as it once again felt so hot after being in an air-conditioned first-class lounge. We waited in a queue to board the train, there were quite a few people waiting to get on. We got told to walk down to the Fort William boarding team who would “check us in”. We showed them our ticket and boarded the train, we had room E03 which is a Club Room, this meant our room had an en-suite which toilet and shower. We dropped our bags off and then went back out onto the platform. My mum asked if I could go down to the front of the train to take a photo, the lady said yes as long as I was quick. I walked very quickly down the platform to take a photo of our leading locomotive 92 023 which was taking us as far as Edinburgh. As I walked back to our coach, a man wearing a Caledonian Sleeper Hi-Viz stopped us and took me aside. He told us he was the “Caledonian Sleeper Station Manager at London Euston”, I think, he welcomed me to the train and gave me a bag of sleeper goodies and took me up to the rear locomotive. He invited me into the cab with our train manager. He explained all the controls in the cab including the ones especially for the Caledonian Sleeper – fire alarm in the coaches and the system to give power to the coaches. He told me the delay to the sleeper was to do with the class 92 locomotives that can be a little temperamental. He even let me have a little toot of the horn. We headed off the train as the dispatchers were ready to go. On the way back the staff onboard checked whether we would like a bacon roll in morning, we said yes. We were only expecting a continental breakfast so it was a nice surprise to be offered a bacon roll. We got back on board the train and went back to our berth. I was now really excited for the journey, but still a bit nervous that something bad was going to happen. A few minutes after getting back to our cabin the train was in motion, we left 25 minutes left which wasn’t too bad in the end.
We settled into our cabin, and then put my pyjamas on as we went through Wembley. I gave my Nanna and Grandad a video call as they really wanted to see our room, sadly my Grandad is quite ill but he enjoyed seeing the room. I then gave my dad a call to check on my dog, Bella, and him. Bella had apparently been crying a lot and was just sat by the front door hoping we would come home. I really liked our room, although they are small, it had everything we needed. I got my laptop out and tracked our train using railcam.uk diagrams. I think I managed to get some sleep once we went past Lichfield Trent Valley and woke up again as we were pulling into Crewe. There were quite a few passengers at Crewe that got onboard. I didn’t manage to get anymore sleep for a while because of the massive thunder and lightning storm, I am not a big fan of storms they make me nervous. I was on the bottom bunk so my mum came and lay with me on the bottom bunk and I managed to get some sleep until just outside Carstairs, my mum went back to the top bunk after I went to sleep.
When I woke up at Carstairs I checked my phone and saw we were about 85 minutes late as it was 05:06 at this point we should be on our way to Glasgow heading for Fort William. We were held up at Carlisle for 80 minute and got stopped at Carstairs for about 10 minutes to let another train go past. As we started to pick up speed again, I started to panic that we may miss our bus connection at Fort William. We needed to get to Inverness to catch the sleeper home. I saw a picture of the floods outside of Glasgow and I wasn’t sure now if were actually going to make it as far as Fort William. I was getting more and more nervous now. We had a knock on the door, the train manager said that we would only be going as far as Edinburgh as the line was flooded. I was starting to get a bit upset, my mum reassured me that everything would be ok. A few minutes went by and then we had another knock on the door to say he had got the wrong coach and we were still going to go to Fort William. I looked back on my phone and saw that Perth station was underwater, Perth is on the line back from Inverness, so then wasn’t sure if the sleeper for Inverness would to run back to London tonight.
Coming into Haymarket we came to a stop in front of a junction, this was to let another train pass first. At this point it was about 05:40 and we were now running 100 minutes late and by the time we went through Haymarket the train was now running 110 minutes behind schedule. We went straight into darkness as we went into Haymarket Tunnels and then a few minutes later we were approaching Edinburgh Waverley running some 112 minutes late. I then saw the two Class 73’s, I could see on RealTimeTrains that the 73’s were 73 969 and 73 970, stabled next to us on platform 20. They were the trains that would hopefully haul us up to Fort William. We arrived into platform 19 and then the uncoupling procedure took place and the train split in half. Soon we figured out that the Inverness portion of the train had been cancelled and had terminated at Edinburgh, this was because of flooding. I had only been to Edinburgh once a good few years ago so it was nice to see the station again
We made up a bit of time as we left Edinburgh, now 93 minutes late. We had a quick wash and got dressed. We sat back down on the bed, on the bottom bunk you can quite easily sit up and it has a nice head/back rest, the same as the ones in the club car. Now we were outside of Bathgate station; we came to a stop and I could see on the Rail Cam diagram we were in a queue of five trains. In front of 5E51, which was in the front of the queue, there was a flood. At the back of the queue was us 1Y11, I suppose you could say we were in a train “jam”. As we started to move again, I could see we were running about 145 minutes late now, so if we didn’t make up time, we would miss our bus connection to Inverness. The floods weren’t subsiding at Perth and then we heard the news that the return sleeper was cancelled and would start at Edinburgh and there would be a bus replacement instead. I wasn’t very comfortable about getting a bus from Inverness back down to Edinburgh. We came into Glasgow Queen Street Low Level platform 8. I was still quite tired after only having a few hours’ sleep the night before. As we left Glasgow, we were running 155 minutes late and had most definitely missed our bus connection. The single line on the West Highland Line meant we would have to stop to pass trains we wouldn’t usually have to. Stopping at Dalmuir at 08:51 – we should have been there at 06:05 – so now were running 168 minutes late. I was nervous about what we were going to do when we got to Fort William, as we were definitely going to miss our bus connection.
I continued to worry and my mum just kept reassuring me that everything would sort itself out. Before I knew it, we got a knock on the door and our bacon roll, muffin and orange juice arrived in a little paper bag. It looked very nice. We asked the host what we should do about our missed connection to Inverness. He said that he would speak to the train manager but not to worry. That reassured me a bit and I ate my bacon roll. It was very tasty and I really enjoyed it. Next there was an announcement that said that we were due into Fort William at around 12:30, we should have been there at 10:00.
The train manger, Barry, came and knocked on our cabin door and explained our options. He said that he could organise road transport to Inverness and then the bus replacement to Edinburgh or we could return on the Fort William service tonight back to London. As my mum had already talked through various options with me we asked if he could organise the return on the Fort William sleeper. On our journey we took lots of photos. The scenery in Scotland is beautiful and I would love to have a holiday there, my favourite bits are the lochs as I love the look of how calm the water is. I suddenly got the news about the train derailment at Stonehaven and I was so upset and nervous about it and I couldn’t settle for rest of journey and cried for a bit. We didn’t stop at Corrour but we saw it go past, I love Corrour although I have never been there, I have only seen it on All The Stations videos. Another knock on the door and Barry came and told us he had got in contact with control and they were going to drop us a text and let us know what room we were going to be in tonight.
We arrived at Fort William and as the doors opened, we stepped out onto the platform, the first time we had fresh air in over 12 hours. It was about 25o and once again felt really hot after being in a very well air-conditioned train. I took a quick photo of the Class 73’s at the front and then walked towards the station exit, we saw the Caledonian Sleeper lounge it did look very nice, shame it wasn’t open. We headed for tourist information to ask them if they had any recommendations of things to do as we hadn’t planned to be in Fort William. They suggested that we went on a boat trip and we asked if there is anywhere to leave our bags. They told us to go to the station as they had some lockers. We walked back to the station and they said the lockers were closed so we had to carry our bags for the whole day. Then we went to Morrisons to get something to eat and used the “Eat Out To Help Out” scheme. I had a ham and cheese toasted sandwich and chips the same as my mum. We finished our lunch and asked a taxi driver how to get to the waterfront he suggested we walked 10-15 minutes to get to the pier for the boat. We got to the boat booking office for Crannog Cruises and said they only had one space on the boat, we explained what had happened and the lovely Captain said he would let us on board even though the boat was technically full. The boat trip was lovely, we saw salmon, seals and mountains! I was still so upset about the incident and didn’t feel like getting back on the train but I got some lovely messages from people in the railway family reassuring me that incidents like that are rare. I got on the boat and felt a bit sick but after listening to the commentary I felt a bit better. We came back to shore after a lovely cruise around Loch Linnhe. At this point it was 16:30 and we went to try and find somewhere to eat. We couldn’t find anywhere that I felt happy to eat in, I struggle with new places, so went back to Morrisons and had fish and chips. I could see the Caledonian Sleeper being cleaned and then saw it leave Fort William Station Sidings to head towards the station by stopping at Fort William Signal 33 and reversing to head to the station as 5B01. We did a bit of shopping in Morrisons ready for the return journey. We walked around Fort William a bit more and found an estate agent and I looked at some houses in the window. Next, we walked back to the station and sat down on the benches.
A lady from Caledonian Sleeper (Carol) came over and asked if my name was Sam Smith. I said yes and she took me to the front of the train and I met the driver (John) who let me in the cab and I had my photo taken he also explained a bit about the RETB (Radio Electronic Token Block Signalling) the West Highland Line is one of the only lines to have the signalling system. He also explained to me that train accidents are rare and the last time a fatal accident happened was thirteen years ago. So there hadn’t been one in my lifetime as I am thirteen. Carol took me back to the other end of the train and I met the train manager (Neil) and he showed me the guard’s compartment which was very interesting. Yet again Caledonian Sleeper made me feel like a VIP.
We went to our room E 01 and settled down for the evening. One thing to note is that the two end rooms have a transfer over the window so you can’t really take photos out of the window. It didn’t really matter though as I was quite tired. We went to sleep at about 22:45 and woke up at Preston at 04:49. I checked RealTimeTrains and saw we were running about 10 minutes late which wasn’t too bad and our train was now being hauled by 92 023 back to London Euston. I went straight back to sleep and woke up again just before Euston. I was worried we had missed breakfast but we had some snacks with us so it didn’t really matter. We had a wash and had a few bits to eat but then we got a knock on the door – we hadn’t missed breakfast at all which was good. So, I had another bacon roll, muffin and orange juice. Which I again really enjoyed. By the time I had finished my breakfast, we were just outside Watford and were on time. We went and stood in the vestibule and before we knew it, we were pulling into Euston.
We got off the train and walked up to the concourse, and I started to panic that I left something on board the train, which I did, but at the time my mum said I hadn’t because she checked. Then I asked if she checked the phone holder by my bed, silence, she hadn’t and I realised I left my headphones in there. We went to Café Nero for something to drink, I was still panicking about my headphones. We had quite a long time before our train home and I didn’t want to go anywhere because I was feeling so stressed. Mum suggested that we find the assistance lounge and sit in there. It was lovely and quiet and while we were sat there my mum got a message from the lady that organised the trip for us, she had managed to contact the depot and they had found them. Soon it was time to board the penultimate train of the trip 9G13 forming the 10:03 London Euston to Birmingham New Street arriving onto New Street at 11:24. We went down to the platform and saw it was a double Class 221 (Voyager). Similar to the Pendolino trains, the Voyagers tilt which you can really feel on the journey out of London to Birmingham. Due to this the trains with tilting action can travel at Enhanced Permissible Speeds (EPS). I felt more relaxed boarding this train as we could sit in our reserved seats – Quiet Coach A08 and A13.
I saw Wembley depot and then just watched the world go by until our first stop which was Rugby, it started to pour down with rain and there was a bit of thunder. I was still upset about yesterday’s accident and was nervous that our train was going to crash. I managed to calm my nerves by listening to some music and then settled back down for the rest of the journey to New Street. Before I knew it, I was in Birmingham. As soon as I got off the train, I spotted the Pendolino with the mask on, 390 042, it looked really good. We headed back up to the concourse and went to WHSmith’s and bought a “meal deal”, chicken and bacon sandwich, juice and an apricot and almond yogurt bar. I looked at the departure board and saw we had about an hour till our train back to Gloucester, the CrossCountry 1V08 1107 Nottingham to Cardiff Central. I was still on super high alert being in a reasonably busy train station but managed to find a quiet spot to sit and eat our lunch.
We went down to platform 11 at about 12:20 as our train arrived early. We found an available seat and sat down. It was quite a busy train and I didn’t really like it. I managed to try and ignore how busy the train was and relax a bit. The next thing I knew I was back at Gloucester and my dad was waiting to pick us up. Bella my dog went mad when she saw us and I was really pleased to see her again.
By the time I got home I was exhausted and didn’t really know what to do with myself. I had made it to Scotland and back though and the scenery was everything I had hoped for and more! It took me quite a few days to recover from the journey and everything I had experienced. I am beginning to understand how much new things, uncertainty, panic and stress takes out of me and my two nights away had a lot of all of these things. However, it was all worth it for the amount of memories I made and for the amazing experience of travelling on the Caledonian Sleeper.
Thank you to Caledonian Sleeper for the great customer service that we received and a special thank you to Anne for making this adventure possible. Also thank you to all the lovely people in the Railway Family who helped me out on this adventure.
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