Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Sun Corner. It's Tuesday the 4th of November.

It's not been a great few days for rail travel and the landslip that we learned about yesterday in Cumbria has flummoxed all kinds of links.

However, the Caledonian Sleeper Highland Service is continuing to run

via the East Coast, which is just as well because I'm talking about it today. From the 15th of January,

there is going to be a transformation in this link, which has for many years connected London-Euston with

Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William. It is a brilliant way to maximise your time,

and in summer at least means that if travelling north you enjoy astonishing views as you reach your final destination in northern Scotland.

What's changing is that from the 15th of January, there is going to be a stop at Birmingham International Station.

Yes, this is the one that serves the NEC and also Birmingham

EF. I've been hearing more about the plans from Stephen Marshall, Head of Sales and Marketing

for Caledonian Sleeper, and before that, Graham Kelly, who's Caledonian Sleeper's interim

managing director.

Yeah, so after over three decades, delighted to have added a new location,

a new stopping point on Caledonian Sleeper Services of Birmingham International.

And it offers a great opportunity from a connectivity perspective,

both for the people of Scotland to access

the West Midlands, but also for people within the Birmingham area and beyond because of the

airport connectivity to access the Highlands of Scotland. I actually just was talking to women who

had not that long beat to Ben Navis and had driven all the way from Birmingham to Fort William

and was asking me if I thought the train would be faster.

And I said, it will be a much more leisurely,

much more enjoyable experience than taking your car all the way from the Midlands.

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