Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 18 on 8/1/2005.

This article is 43 months old and some information provided may be time sensitive. Please check all details of events, tours, opening times and other information before travelling or making arrangements.

Travelling North? Sleep on it!

Mark Nicholls overcomes the urge to fly and takes the night train to Scotland

The train arches its back along the full length of the terminus platform: 16 night coaches in archbishop’s livery of purple and white and a velvet sheen for carriages that exude an air of mystery and superiority.

This is the night sleeper.

In a bygone age it would have been the Night Scot, a steam-drawn roaring chariot of slumber. Now the quiet whine of a considerate electric locomotive whispers along tracks, fearful of disturbing those asleep within.

These are the coaches of the secret night travellers, gliding through the dark hours behind blacked-out windows.

Not for the night sleepers are there broad, dirty panes, smeared with mud and rain, painted by squalls of sleet through which passing countryside is filtered.

For them it is the high porthole of privacy, a canvas of dreamy imagination and unmentioned, unspoken, unseen luxury within.

Dormant on Platform 15 at London Euston: a strip of white station light reflects off the carriages and red signals flare along windows. Cases are loaded aboard as passengers find a berth and the misty breath of farewells are said on a platform that declines to offer intimacy. The traditional shrill of a whistle brings a fleeting kiss and a vigorous wave as the night sleeper walks again.

Who are these people, where are they going, what do they go home to?

These are questions that always intrigue me of fellow passengers, lives briefly brought together on a train and then dispersed with secrets held safe.

I'm going to Aberdeen in se.....

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By Mark Nicholls

Section : Scottish Travel

Page number : 67