Nightstar (train)
Encyclopedia
The Nightstar was a proposed overnight sleeper service from various parts of Britain
to continental Europe
, via the Channel Tunnel
. To run alongside the Eurostar
and north of London day time Regional Eurostar
services, the Nightstar was the last part in a round the clock passenger train utilisation of the Channel Tunnel.
After rejection of various British ideas for the service that was to become the Eurostar train
, which eventually was created from the existing French TGV
scaled for a British loading gauge
, the Nightstar emerged as an individual locomotive-hauled passenger train.
coaches modified for long distance service, configured as a fifteen coach train as follows:
locomotives. These locomotives were built and designed as multipowered electric units for this role as well as hauling Channel Tunnel freight services.
locomotives, which would have come from a dedicated operational pool of twelve units (37601-37612). These diesel locomotives were modified during 1995 and 1996 at Doncaster Works
and fitted with through wiring for electric train supply, ETS (used for powering services in the coaches such as air conditioning) and RCH jumper cables
to enable the locomotives to work in multiple.
s, marshalled between the two Class 37/6 locomotives.
, London
, Manchester
, Plymouth
and Swansea
in the UK to/from Amsterdam
, Dortmund
and Frankfurt
.
service: primarily due to rising costs and competition from low cost airlines such as Ryanair
and EasyJet
.
Fragmentation and privatisation of Britain's rail network also left European Passenger Services (Eurostar) as a small operator lacking financial muscle and technical know-how, and incapable of operating such a service even had there been demand for it.
In retrospect, the service was ill conceived. Specifying numerous trains to numerous destinations meant loadings would have been low, and security at some stations high-cost trying to separate security cleared international passengers from local commuters.
As it became clear that the Nightstar services were unlikely to ever run, in June 1997, London and Continental Railways
initially sold half of the fleet of twelve Class 37/6
locomotives to Direct Rail Services
, followed by a further three locomotives three years later bringing the DRS total to 9 Class 37/6 units.
to sell the carriages back, subject to Alstom securing a new purchaser.
There was interest in the carriages from both British and European operators but the weight, high electric train supply demand and the need to extensively modify them to suit the prospective operator's needs meant there were no takers, with Alstom accepting that if they could not sell them they would all eventually be scrapped. The heavy weight steel (by European standards) of the cars (seated cars: 50.2 tonnes, sleeper cars: 53.3 tonnes, service vehicles: 52.9 tonnes) came from all the safety systems required for the carriages to run through the Channel Tunnel, and the wiring for the over-specified hotel services. The same over-specified hotel services also account for the high ETS index.
Just before the service was finally withdrawn, it was estimated by one expert to The Sunday Times
that only one European produced locomotive could have hauled and powered a fully laden Nightstar - and that the locomotive was not due into production for another two years, would not fit the British loading gauge, and would draw too much power from a single section, thus requiring it to have special clearance while operating. The article concluded that the only pair of locomotives available to power and move the complete train was the Eurostar modified TGV
power car.
was interested in purchasing some of the redundant Nightstar stock.
Via Rail took delivery of three cars for evaluation in June 2000.
The carriages required several modifications for Canadian service:
On 15 December 2000 Via Rail issued a press release confirming that it had placed an order with Alstom for the supply of the 139 Nightstar cars. Due to the lack of other interested purchasers, Via Rail acquired them for $130 million total, a considerable discount from the fair market value of $400–500 million. According to the press release Via Rail planned to use them to expand service in the Corridor routes (notably on services between Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and Quebec), on sleeper routes from Montreal to Halifax (Ocean) and Gaspé (Montreal – Gaspé train), and to free up existing stock for use on The Canadian
(Toronto–Vancouver) transcontinental route.
The cars were shipped to Bombardier Transportation
’s Thunder Bay
facility, where the conversion work was carried out. The cars now comprise Via's "Renaissance" fleet.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
to continental Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, via the Channel Tunnel
Channel Tunnel
The Channel Tunnel is a undersea rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent in the United Kingdom with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais near Calais in northern France beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. At its lowest point, it is deep...
. To run alongside the Eurostar
Eurostar
Eurostar is a high-speed railway service connecting London with Paris and Brussels. All its trains traverse the Channel Tunnel between England and France, owned and operated separately by Eurotunnel....
and north of London day time Regional Eurostar
Regional Eurostar
Regional Eurostar was the name given to plans to operate Eurostar train services from Paris and Brussels to locations in the United Kingdom beyond London...
services, the Nightstar was the last part in a round the clock passenger train utilisation of the Channel Tunnel.
After rejection of various British ideas for the service that was to become the Eurostar train
British Rail Class 373
The British Rail Class 373 or TGV-TMST train is an electric multiple unit that operates Eurostar's high-speed rail service between Britain, France and Belgium via the Channel Tunnel...
, which eventually was created from the existing French TGV
TGV
The TGV is France's high-speed rail service, currently operated by SNCF Voyages, the long-distance rail branch of SNCF, the French national rail operator....
scaled for a British loading gauge
Loading gauge
A loading gauge defines the maximum height and width for railway vehicles and their loads to ensure safe passage through bridges, tunnels and other structures...
, the Nightstar emerged as an individual locomotive-hauled passenger train.
Rolling stock
The trains were to use equipment based on the British Rail Mark 4British Rail Mark 4
British Rail's fourth design of passenger carriages was designated Mark 4, designed for use in InterCity 225 sets on the newly-electrified East Coast Main Line between London, Leeds, and Edinburgh.-History and construction:...
coaches modified for long distance service, configured as a fifteen coach train as follows:
- Seated coach: 4 per train
- Lounge/Service: 1 per train
- Sleeping car: 10 per train
Electric
On electrified lines the services were to be hauled by Class 92British Rail Class 92
The British Rail Class 92 is a dual-voltage electric locomotive which can run on 25 kV AC from overhead wires or 750 V DC from a third rail. It was designed specifically to operate services through the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France...
locomotives. These locomotives were built and designed as multipowered electric units for this role as well as hauling Channel Tunnel freight services.
Diesel
On non-electrified routes Nightstar services would have been hauled by a pair of Class 37/6British Rail Class 37
The British Rail Class 37 is a diesel-electric locomotive. Also known as the English Electric Type 3, the Class was ordered as part of the British Rail modernisation plan....
locomotives, which would have come from a dedicated operational pool of twelve units (37601-37612). These diesel locomotives were modified during 1995 and 1996 at Doncaster Works
Doncaster Works
Doncaster railway works is in the town of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England.Always referred to as "the Plant", it was established by the Great Northern Railway in 1853, replacing the previous works in Boston and Peterborough...
and fitted with through wiring for electric train supply, ETS (used for powering services in the coaches such as air conditioning) and RCH jumper cables
Railway Clearing House
The British Railway Clearing House was an organisation set up to manage the allocation of revenue collected by numerous pre-grouping railway companies...
to enable the locomotives to work in multiple.
Generator van
To produce the ETS there would have been a generator van, containing two 500 hp diesel engineDiesel engine
A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...
s, marshalled between the two Class 37/6 locomotives.
Routes
The proposed services were to operate via intermediate stations on five routes to GlasgowGlasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
and Swansea
Swansea
Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...
in the UK to/from Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....
and Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
.
Delay
The 139 carriage stock order began construction in 1992 and continued slowly until the whole project was put on hold in 1997, then formally abandoned in 1999. The reasons for the delay in the start of operations and then the final cancelling of construction are similar to those given for the non-start of Regional EurostarRegional Eurostar
Regional Eurostar was the name given to plans to operate Eurostar train services from Paris and Brussels to locations in the United Kingdom beyond London...
service: primarily due to rising costs and competition from low cost airlines such as Ryanair
Ryanair
Ryanair is an Irish low-cost airline. Its head office is at Dublin Airport and its primary operational bases at Dublin Airport and London Stansted Airport....
and EasyJet
EasyJet
EasyJet Airline Company Limited is a British airline headquartered at London Luton Airport. It carries more passengers than any other United Kingdom-based airline, operating domestic and international scheduled services on 500 routes between 118 European, North African, and West Asian airports...
.
Fragmentation and privatisation of Britain's rail network also left European Passenger Services (Eurostar) as a small operator lacking financial muscle and technical know-how, and incapable of operating such a service even had there been demand for it.
In retrospect, the service was ill conceived. Specifying numerous trains to numerous destinations meant loadings would have been low, and security at some stations high-cost trying to separate security cleared international passengers from local commuters.
Withdrawal
Although only 45 cars (20 seated, 19 sleeper & 6 service vehicles) of the 139-car order were completed when the project was put on hold in 1997, at least 32 more were partially complete and all the body-shells were complete. All the complete and partially complete cars were moved to secure storage, mainly at MoD Kineton which stored 38 numbered complete cars and 32 unnumbered incomplete cars in 2001.As it became clear that the Nightstar services were unlikely to ever run, in June 1997, London and Continental Railways
London and Continental Railways
-History:Created at the time of the privatisation of British Rail it bid for and won the contract from the UK government in 1996 to build and operate High Speed 1 between London and the Channel Tunnel...
initially sold half of the fleet of twelve Class 37/6
British Rail Class 37
The British Rail Class 37 is a diesel-electric locomotive. Also known as the English Electric Type 3, the Class was ordered as part of the British Rail modernisation plan....
locomotives to Direct Rail Services
Direct Rail Services
Direct Rail Services is a freight operating company created by British Nuclear Fuels Limited. The company started rail operations in 1995 using five heavily refurbished Class 20/3 diesel locomotives. Since then it has expanded greatly, and has acquired many more locomotives, most bought...
, followed by a further three locomotives three years later bringing the DRS total to 9 Class 37/6 units.
Resale
After withdrawal of the service, in 2002 London and Continental Railways were credited by the UK Government with the lease fees on the carriages. The UK Government reached an agreement with builders AlstomAlstom
Alstom is a large multinational conglomerate which holds interests in the power generation and transport markets. According to the company website, in the years 2010-2011 Alstom had annual sales of over €20.9 billion, and employed more than 85,000 people in 70 countries. Alstom's headquarters are...
to sell the carriages back, subject to Alstom securing a new purchaser.
There was interest in the carriages from both British and European operators but the weight, high electric train supply demand and the need to extensively modify them to suit the prospective operator's needs meant there were no takers, with Alstom accepting that if they could not sell them they would all eventually be scrapped. The heavy weight steel (by European standards) of the cars (seated cars: 50.2 tonnes, sleeper cars: 53.3 tonnes, service vehicles: 52.9 tonnes) came from all the safety systems required for the carriages to run through the Channel Tunnel, and the wiring for the over-specified hotel services. The same over-specified hotel services also account for the high ETS index.
Just before the service was finally withdrawn, it was estimated by one expert to The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
that only one European produced locomotive could have hauled and powered a fully laden Nightstar - and that the locomotive was not due into production for another two years, would not fit the British loading gauge, and would draw too much power from a single section, thus requiring it to have special clearance while operating. The article concluded that the only pair of locomotives available to power and move the complete train was the Eurostar modified TGV
TGV
The TGV is France's high-speed rail service, currently operated by SNCF Voyages, the long-distance rail branch of SNCF, the French national rail operator....
power car.
Via Rail Canada
Alstom confirmed in early May 2000 that Canada’s Via RailVIA Rail
Via Rail Canada is an independent crown corporation offering intercity passenger rail services in Canada. It is headquartered near Montreal Central Station at 3 Place Ville-Marie in Montreal, Quebec....
was interested in purchasing some of the redundant Nightstar stock.
Via Rail took delivery of three cars for evaluation in June 2000.
The carriages required several modifications for Canadian service:
- Fitting of knuckle couplers
- Doorways to suit Canadian low-level platforms
- Compatible with the 480V HEP system
- Enhanced air-conditioning system
On 15 December 2000 Via Rail issued a press release confirming that it had placed an order with Alstom for the supply of the 139 Nightstar cars. Due to the lack of other interested purchasers, Via Rail acquired them for $130 million total, a considerable discount from the fair market value of $400–500 million. According to the press release Via Rail planned to use them to expand service in the Corridor routes (notably on services between Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and Quebec), on sleeper routes from Montreal to Halifax (Ocean) and Gaspé (Montreal – Gaspé train), and to free up existing stock for use on The Canadian
The Canadian
The Canadian is a Canadian transcontinental passenger train originally operated by the Canadian Pacific Railway between 1955 and 1978. It is currently operated as an Inter-city rail service by Via Rail Canada with service between Union Station in Toronto, Ontario and Pacific Central Station in...
(Toronto–Vancouver) transcontinental route.
The cars were shipped to Bombardier Transportation
Bombardier Transportation
Bombardier Transportation is the rail equipment division of the Canadian firm, Bombardier Inc. Bombardier Transportation is one of the world's largest companies in the rail-equipment manufacturing and servicing industry. Its headquarters are in Berlin, Germany....
’s Thunder Bay
Thunder Bay
-In Canada:Thunder Bay is the name of three places in the province of Ontario, Canada along Lake Superior:*Thunder Bay District, Ontario, a district in Northwestern Ontario*Thunder Bay, a city in Thunder Bay District*Thunder Bay, Unorganized, Ontario...
facility, where the conversion work was carried out. The cars now comprise Via's "Renaissance" fleet.