In the 1960s and 1970s one of the great U.K. rail journeys was the 19:00 Royal Highlander out of Inverness to London. It consisted of up to 18 coaches and was always at least double headed by a pair of Class 24s or 26s and sometimes was triple headed. There was nothing better than standing on the hill above the old Daviot station on a summer's evening listening to the locomotives "chuntering" and "straining" up Strathnairn after crawling with their heavy load up the incline to Culloden Moor.

The leading coach was the restaurant car and the dining experience was an enjoyable one. My late father used to leave our house in Inverness in plenty of time to "bag his seat" beside his colleagues before it filled up when heading south on business. David Spaven and I, as students, treated ourselves to dinner when setting off on our European InterRail expedition in September 1972. In truth, the service was always a bit doubtful and we still laugh when we remember the waiter dispensing wrapped pats of butter over the tables - simply thrown as "confetti" to the punters. Some of the soup inevitably sloshed onto the tablecloths as the waiter failed to lurch in tandem with the train. Nonetheless, I have very fond memories of dining on the Royal Highlander. It always struck me as a most civilised experience.

Fast forward 50 years to October 2023, and I was delighted to learn that my cousins in Wiltshire, Niall and Victoria, had used the sleeper to and from Inverness for an onward journey on the Kyle Line for a holiday in Plockton. Despite wet weather, Plockton lived up to expectations especially the "delicious" food at the various hostelries. Of the sleeper experience it was a different story and I quote from Victoria's e-mail (with her permission):

"Not so impressed by the Sleeper. On both journeys, outward and homeward, they were swapping cabins over, so it got a bit chaotic. We were swapped to a different cabin and then had a lady insisting that it was her cabin as that was the one printed on her ticket. We had to explain to her that the stewards were moving everyone around and to go and speak to a steward.

Not overly impressed by the food menu on the way up, and then the homeward journey from Inverness was just a shambles in the dining car. I had just assumed that there would be a catering manager based at Inverness and that supplies would be topped up for the journey back down to London. Wrong! Niall and I enjoy eating on the train and it's one of our highlights. Immediately on boarding we go to the dining car. At Inverness for the homeward journey we were told that because they had been really busy on the way up, there wasn't much food left for the London-bound trip. Most of the dishes were unavailable. I said to Niall that, if the worst came to the worst, we would just order a bottle of wine and a couple of cheese platters. They couldn't even provide cheese and biscuits. This is with the station being next to a large supermarket! I would have thought that a catering manager would have overseen stocks at Inverness and, at the very least, done an emergency top-up of cheese and crackers. Seriously not impressed.

We also didn't like the fact that there's no saloon facility as part of the dining car. Before, we've had our meal at one of the tables and then moved to the couches for whiskies, coffee, etc. You definitely got the impression that the staff really didn't want you to eat on board and, if you did, then to leave as soon as possible to go back to your cabins. We said that if we did the trip again we definitely wouldn't eat on the London-bound leg. On a brighter note, we were very impressed with the facilities at Euston, having complimentary use of the first-class lounge."

I suppose that's "progress". Old standards of service are often (not always) in decline. It is, however, interesting that my cousins were using the sleeper as a "feeder" to the Kyle Line and that they are questioning whether they will wish to risk repeating the experience. I assume they will not be recommending overnight rail travel to Scotland to others. Perhaps their experience is not typical of normal sleeper journeys but, nonetheless, this must be a concern to those championing the two lines north and west of Inverness.