The Caledonian Sleeper Experience

Last month a friend got married in Slough, and we decided we'd make it a long weekend break in London too.

So, what is the best way for a family of four to travel from Ayrshire to London?

Car? You must be joking. It must be 10 hours on the road, and then once you are in London you have a car, which is an expensive liability down there.

Plane? Maybe. The flight takes about an hour, and is pretty cheap if you go at the right time. But flight time does not equal travel time. You have to get to the airport in Scotland, which is actually pretty easy from our house, £20 in a taxi. But then you have to wait to get on the plane, and you end up in Luton or Stanstead, which despite reports to the contrary from plane operators, are not actually in London. So then it is more messing about on trains, and if you are lucky you've actually finished the journey before the sun sets on the first day of your trip.

Train? Total travel time is probably similar to the flight. Cost is not too bad if you book in advance, but you still have to entertain the kids for hours. At least with the air journey, there is stuff to do, like watching planes at the airport, and any individual stage doesn't take that long.

But what if you travel on the sleeper train? It takes more than 8 hours, but I was going to be alseep anyway, so it is almost like teleportation. You have the full day in Scotland, working or whatever, you go to sleep, and wake up in London ready for the first day of your holiday. Cost is not inconsiderable. £289 return for a family of four. But if you count it as 2 nights' accomodation as well as the journey cost, it doesn't seem so bad.

So how did it work out? Well, we never factored in quite how exciting sleeping on a train is when you are 5 years old, or how disturbing it is when you are 2. We struggled to get Alex to sleep because she thought it was great. We struggled to get Akira to sleep because she wanted to be back in her own bed. But eventually they did go to sleep, and so did Seiko and I. We did wake up for our first day in London, which was somewhat strained because Seiko and the kids were sleep deprived (I function quite happily on 6 hours sleep so I was okay).

Coming home was better, the novelty was less, and the kids were really tired. In fact, we went home overnight on Sunday, and sent Alex to school as soon as we got in. It worked out okay, so she must have slept alright.

So would we do it again? Probably. I think we'd make some changes to the plan. We made a mistake on the outward journey of letting the kids sleep at their normal bedtimes, then getting them up and taking them to Glasgow to catch the train. I think it was harder to get them to sleep on the train because they'd already had a nap.

Also, the sleeper from Fort William leaves at about 8:30pm, rather than 11:30pm for the Glasgow sleeper. It would be tempting to drive north(!) to catch the earlier train, so the kids could be asleep longer and be better rested for the first day in London. That works in reverse too, the sleeper to Fort William leaves London at about 8:30pm.

Of course, in a few years the kids will be older and we won't have to worry so much about how they react. But even at their current ages, it is definitely a reasonably way to travel from Scotland to London (or visa versa if anyone reading this was thinking of coming to visit us!)