It’s approaching eight years now since I retired with the intention of doing lots of things whilst I was still able. One of those things wasn’t specifically to travel by night train but if you’ve read any of my previous blogs, you might have noticed that I’ve spent a few nights on trains hoping that the gentle rocking of the carriage sends me off to a comfortable and relaxing sleep. Up until recently it hadn’t. I’ve been on the Caledonian Sleeper twice, spent five days on two different trains in Canada, and travelled from New York to Seattle which required three nights on the rails in the USA. Whilst I enjoyed each experience, especially the crossing of Canada, I can’t say that getting a decent sleep was part of any of them. Despite this I recently had a new sleeper experience when I took the Night Riviera from London Paddington to Penzance. Would I finally get the relaxing sleep I craved? Spoiler alert: No. Was I otherwise impressed with the service? Read on to find out.

The Night Riviera is one of three UK sleeper services. The Caledonian Sleeper runs the other two, The Highland and Lowland Sleepers. Both of these trains split/join on the way with the Lowland Sleeper serving Glasgow and Edinburgh, the Highland Sleeper Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William. The Night Riviera, operated by GWR, plies just the one route, London to Penzance. Like both Caledonian Sleepers, there’s one train in each direction every night except Saturday. The westbound train departs Paddington at 23:45 and arrives in Penzance at 07:55. The eastbound departure and arrival times are two hours earlier though you don’t have to vacate your cabin at Paddington until 06:45. The timetable therefore allows you to get a (hopefully) solid seven hour’s sleep if going the full distance in either direction. To enable this, the train takes a less direct route than the day trains and also spends more time in some stations on the way than it really needs to do.

With the timings sorted for a decent night’s sleep, does the accommodation on board facilitate that goal? The train has two carriages with standard seating. These are great value if you are the masochistic type who can cope with an eight hour overnight journey whilst upright. As I mentioned in the Caledonian Sleeper blog, I something similar many moons ago and would never consider it again. Absolutely brutal. Hats off to those who do it though. There is a cafe car between the seating carriage sand the rest of the train which consists of three sleeper carriages. Rather than invest in new carriages like Caledonian Sleeper did a few years ago, GWR decided to refurbish the Mk3 carriages they already had. There is just one type of cabin on the Night Riviera, unlike the Caledonian Sleeper which has three. Each has two bunked beds with the upper bed stowed if the cabin has solo occupancy. There are no en-suite facilities though there is a sink hidden beneath the bedside shelf for basic ablutions. Space is limited, though there are a small number of designated accessible cabins with room for a wheelchair user. There is room beneath the bed for bags and the world’s narrowest wardrobe with a couple of hangars. The window had a pretty effective blind and the light switches and charging sockets are handily placed next to the head of both lower and upper beds. They’ve used the understandably limited space well but how does the most important aspect of the room, the bed, hold up? It has a comfy mattress and soft bedding. There’s two fluffy pillows. So far, so good. The (very small) elephant in the room, however, is the size. It is just about long enough for me ie. Mr Average, to lie flat on without adopting the foetal position but it is very narrow. I did get the feeling I was teetering on the brink, especially if I lay on my left hand side. As such I laid on the right facing the backrest. Once I got used to it, it was in fact very comfortable. If you need a wee during the night you are going to have to wander down the corridor and use one of the lavatories at the end of the carriage. This is an area where the en-suite cabins on the Caledonian Sleeper wins but having had nocturnal corridor wanderings on the trains in Canada and the USA, and also the time I used a standard cabin on the Caledonian Sleeper, it isn’t really too much of a hassle. Just remember to take your key card with you. Finding the carriage attendant to let you back into your cabin in your night attire would be slightly embarrassing. Some people might be tempted to stay in their cabin and utilise the sink for number ones. That would be gross. Don’t do it.

So that’s the cabin. Would I get any sleep in it? Sleeper passengers can utilise the GWR First Class lounge at Paddington from about 21:00. This is a pleasant place which used to be Queen Victoria’s private waiting room so you are following in the footsteps of giants. There’s free soft drinks and snacks – biscuits, nuts, crisps etc – and comfy chairs. We were called to board the train at about 22:30. I found my cabin and a few minutes later got the briefing from the carriage attendant. I also put in my breakfast request and obtained a slot for the showers at the lounge in Penzance. I went to the cafe car and got a beer from the cafe car. Like the lounge, soft drinks and snacks are free for sleeper passengers but I had to pay for the beer. I drank some of it in the cafe car’s lounge and took the rest back to my cabin. It was probably a bad idea to have said beer with the lavatory arrangements as mentioned above but I felt it was required to get the full Night Riviera experience. I still had time for a wander up the platform to get a photo of the locomotive and a look at the seating carriages which affirmed my decision to pay the sleeper supplement. Back in my cabin, we pulled out of Paddington bang on time and I settled in for the night. My previous sleeper train experiences have been rattly and shaky affairs. Not so much on the Night Riviera. Whilst by no means silent, the rooms offer some excellent soundproofing from what is happening outside the train. The ride of the old Mk3 carriages was much better than on the Caledonian Sleeper’s newer Mk5s with just gentle motion as the train trundled down the tracks towards the West Country. It was also a much better ride than the trains in Canada and the USA so if I was ever going to get a decent sleep on a train, this was the one to be on. Despite this, I didn’t sleep well. It took me a while and a visit to the loo before I got off and once I did, it wasn’t long before I was awake again. I reckon I managed two hours of sleep and maybe a couple more of dozing. The strange thing is that the frequent stops were what woke me up. The very gentle rocking motion when we were moving was more conducive to sleep than total lack of movement. Good as though the cabins were at keeping the external sounds at bay, any noises from adjacent cabins sounded as though they were just a couple of feet away which, as it happens, they tended to be. This wasn’t much of an issue for me but if your neighbour is an early riser or getting off at Bodmin Parkway you may be woken from your slumbers with the sound of the blind being raised an hour or so before you would like. Anyway, I finally opened my blind at 06:40 (possibly waking up the person in the next cabin – they are are quite loud when you raise or lower them) to be greeted by St Austell Cathedral and blue skies. My breakfast was delivered at the allotted time of 07:00, a warm bacon roll with a choice of sauce, an apple juice and my umpteenth pack of biscuits of the trip. It was rather nice to eat it whilst the pleasant Cornish countryside trundled by outside the window. Not quite the wow-factor of breakfast on Rannoch Moor on the Caledonian Sleeper but much appreciated nevertheless. I popped on some daytime clothes as we approached Penzance where we arrived about eight minutes late.

This was a bit after my allotted shower time of 08:00. Would they take pity on me? I needn’t have worried. The expected rush to the showers in the Night Riviera lounge never happened. In fact I believe I was the only person to take advantage of the facility, everyone else seemingly heading for the connection to the Scillonian Ferry. It was a nice shower too, a fluffy towel was provided and I emerged as fresh as a daisy. The lack of sleep would catch up with me later on in the day but for now I was raring to go. Go where I hear you ask? That’s another story which I won’t relate here other than it involved a few trains, a couple of buses and a Ryanair flight from Newquay to Edinburgh.

To summarise, I think the Night Riviera is a great product. A direct comparison can be made with the Caledonian Sleeper’s lowland service to Glasgow or Edinburgh in a non-en-suite cabin (Classic Room). The journeys take a similar time and level of service is almost identical. Points shared. Both have comfy but narrow beds. I prefer the Night Riviera’s layout with the upper berth stored and the ladder folded away. The positioning of the ladder on the Caledonian Sleeper was annoying whilst lying in the lower bunk. A narrow (literally) win for NR there. Where NR really won was the ride afforded by the carriage. It’s old Mk3 stock ride the rails significantly better than the newer Mk5 of the CS. The fact I didn’t sleep well on either of them is down to me rather than the trains themselves but overall it is the Night Riviera for the win. True, it’s not much of a win if you end up in Penzance and wanted to go to Glasgow but to me the Caledonian Sleeper is style over substance whilst the Night Riviera is substance over style. Was I impressed? Yes I was.

Costs: I booked the train two months in advance. It cost £57.50 for the ticket with a Senior Railcard plus £109 for the sleeper supplement, total £166.70. Pricing is dynamic so you might pay more or less but I think what I paid was about average for a midweek, summer trip. The price sits midway between a Standard Room (£140) and Club (ie, en-suite) Room (£195) on the Caledonian Lowland Sleeper. (Railcard Prices)