Caledonian Sleeper nationalised - TSSA statement

Rail union TSSA has welcomed the announcement by the Scottish Government that the Caledonian Sleeper service will return to public hands in June.  

The announcement was made by the Minister for Transport, Jenny Gilruth, who said Sleeper services would ‘be provided by an arms-length company of the Scottish Government, in line with our Operator of Last Resort Duty’. 

This will take effect from 25 June this year. The Sleeper had previously been in the hands of the outsourcing giants – Serco – who were stripped of the franchise in October 2022. 

Commenting, TSSA Interim President, Marios Alexandrou, said: “This decision is certainly welcome because there’s no space for profiteering on Scotland’s railways.  

“The Sleeper is a vital service and was run for many decades successfully under public ownership. Now it will be again and that is a good thing because we need a rail network that runs wholly in the public interest.  

“Serco’s involvement in the service proved costly and chaotic, something which reflects the wider failure of the private sector in our railways.”