What factors have made on-train catering no longer viable in most cases?

[Indigo Soup]

Teabags of a decent strength can be easily provided.

If staff could be trained to put the teabag in the hot water - or better yet, to put the hot water on the teabag - that would be a great improvement. This also applies to servers in coffee shops, who really should know better.

Also, and my longstanding bugbear with catering trollies, there's the 'we don't have any hot water, would you like coffee instead?' Last time I checked, coffee was also made with hot water - and the kind of coffee snob who'll refuse instant coffee will also refuse filter coffee made several hours ago!

Not necessarily, some airlines have more cabin crew than legally required for the onboard service.
My last flight was a A319 and had 4 cabin crew instead of 3

I would imagine there are operational reasons for doing so - given the wafer-thin margins of the airline industry, they won't be flying crew around for the fun of it!

 

[Krokodil]

That said I’d much rather be served by a human on trains rather than a machine. Also for the 60 or so staff that are employed to serve onboard catering at my TOC alone.

I do prefer interacting with a human. But a common experience is to find that there is no human anyway, because they are short of staff/don't cover this train anyway/are in the other Voyager etc. so passengers who didn’t stock up will go hungry and will buy from the station beforehand.

My experience of buffet cars tends to be that they are reliably staffed, whereas trolleys are are much more unreliable.

I certainly don't miss the host chasing me up the train minutes after departure trying to nick my float because they've had 3 people in a row with 20s for a coffee that's cleaned them out.

It worked both ways though, I got them to bail me out once or twice so that I could continue selling tickets until I could get to a booking office for some change.

 

[LowLevel]

I do prefer interacting with a human. But a common experience is to find that there is no human anyway, because they are short of staff/don't cover this train anyway/are in the other Voyager etc. so passengers who didn’t stock up will go hungry and will buy from the station beforehand.

My experience of buffet cars tends to be that they are reliably staffed, whereas trolleys are are much more unreliable.


It worked both ways though, I got them to bail me out once or twice so that I could continue selling tickets until I could get to a booking office for some change.

Never worked that way for me - we've only ever had trollies on routes where cash ticket sales were the exception, even back in the day when you'd take a 4 figure sum the vast majority was on card! Standard practice at the end of your shift was to offer them whatever they wanted out of your float if they weren't also finishing before you cashed up

 

[Krokodil]

Never worked that way for me - we've only ever had trollies on routes where cash ticket sales were the exception, even back in the day when you'd take a 4 figure sum the vast majority was on card! Standard practice at the end of your shift was to offer them whatever they wanted out of your float if they weren't also finishing before you cashed up

I had a load of teenage girls board at Llanfairpwll on a Saturday wanting tickets to Llandudno. The fare being just over a fiver, you're going to be using four pound coins for every tenner you're offered.

 

[Bald Rick]

I had a load of teenage girls board at Llanfairpwll on a Saturday wanting tickets to Llandudno. The fare being just over a fiver, you're going to be using four pound coins for every tenner you're offered.

I can‘t believe a load of teenage girls weren’t welded to their phones and using them for paying!

 

[Krokodil]

I can‘t believe a load of teenage girls weren’t welded to their phones and using them for paying!

It was pre-covid (our caterers have since gone cashless so there's no possiblity of pooling floats)

 

[357]

Of course, contactless doesn't work so well on a line with lots of tunnels. Ok on Greater Anglia perhaps

Why?

I manage a number of Square and Stripe terminals when not driving trains - and they can do offline transactions.

Certain low-credit people have some sort of flag on their card to refuse any offline transactions, but this isn't normally an issue and probably saves us bother in the long run.

I can even set a limit for the value of any offline transaction from the admin screen.

 

[yorksrob]

Why?

I manage a number of Square and Stripe terminals when not driving trains - and they can do offline transactions.

Certain low-credit people have some sort of flag on their card to refuse any offline transactions, but this isn't normally an issue and probably saves us bother in the long run.

I can even set a limit for the value of any offline transaction from the admin screen.

The trolly guy on the trans-pennine core often seems to be struggling with reception when I see him.

 

[BazingaTribe]

Card readers need to connect to the internet, so that will be the sticking point there rather than the RFID cards themselves actually being the problem.

My parents run a village horticultural show over the August bank holiday and we've been transitioning to card from cash for a few years. The biggest stumbling block was WiFi access on the site, which we've only just rectified by installing something pretty powerful at the nearby church. Traders want to use their machines and this year just gone was the first time ever we didn't have difficulty paying by card because of a patchy signal.

So it will be the readers that need to be connected. It's pretty bad if all the guy has is a mobile hotspot -- most trains I've been on now have some sort of general public WiFi access, and I'd imagine that there is also a staff loop as well.

 

[357]

The trolly guy on the trans-pennine core often seems to be struggling with reception when I see him.

Sounds like the settings on the readers are set to authenticate all transactions online.

Doesn't need to be that way but may be done due to high levels of fraud in the past

 

[Krokodil]

The trolly guy on the trans-pennine core often seems to be struggling with reception when I see him.

He will be reliant on whatever mobile data signal can filter through the steel bodyshell and probably doesn't have the facility to authorise offline. Using the unit's own antenna (which is mounted externally) and permitting small transactions (pretty much anything sold by a vending machine will be less than a fiver) to be authorised offline then it should be trouble-free

 

[negone]

It's the price, a certain youtube blogger took a cheap booked in advance £17 Lumo train London to Newcastle trip. then bought some on board food, £2.00 for one tunnock biscuit, a pack of 8 from any supermarket is £1.85. I assume it's all to do with content creation.

If only Heineken. No.
If only Greggs ran trains.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's the price, a certain youtube blogger took a cheap booked in advance £17 Lumo train London to Newcastle trip. then bought some on board food, £2.00 for one tunnock biscuit, a pack of 8 from any supermarket is £1.85.

This is the same false comparison that people bring up when they complain a pint in a pub is £6 but the same drink in a supermarket is £2. The cost structures are totally different, and expecting on-train items to be sold at supermarket prices is simply unreasonable.

 

[negone]

This is the same false comparison that people bring up when they complain a pint in a pub is £6 but the same drink in a supermarket is £2. The cost structures are totally different, and expecting on-train items to be sold at supermarket prices is simply unreasonable.

If your booking in advance to get a cheap Lumo fare, I expect you to bring a tunnock biscuit with you.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If your booking in advance to get a cheap Lumo fare, I expect you to bring a tunnock biscuit with you.

While Lumo's purpose is mostly budget travellers, there are reasons to pick it over LNER even if not a budget traveller, to be fair, such as the earlier northbound first service.

 

[yorksrob]

Sounds like the settings on the readers are set to authenticate all transactions online.

Doesn't need to be that way but may be done due to high levels of fraud in the past

He will be reliant on whatever mobile data signal can filter through the steel bodyshell and probably doesn't have the facility to authorise offline. Using the unit's own antenna (which is mounted externally) and permitting small transactions (pretty much anything sold by a vending machine will be less than a fiver) to be authorised offline then it should be trouble-free

This all sounds very hi-tec.

 

[Spaceship323]

This is the same false comparison that people bring up when they complain a pint in a pub is £6 but the same drink in a supermarket is £2. The cost structures are totally different, and expecting on-train items to be sold at supermarket prices is simply unreasonable.

Exactly, you're paying not just for the convenience and the fact that it's available at all, but I got a bottle from the Decorum machine at Wigan the other day and it was ice cold. I wouldn't get that from a can out of my rucksack!

 

[The exile]

Most payments, including contactless, are "online" authorised, meaning that they contact the bank to confirm the payment at the time of presenting your card.

Airlines (typically) work around this by doing offline authorisation, where the money is not debited immediately but the machine stores some authorising token generated by the card alone to then confirm the transaction at a later date when connectivity is restored or available (e.g., when the machines go back to the catering company overnight). This is why you'll see the card transaction appear on your banking app the next day.

Offline auth does carry more risk, as the bank could refuse the transaction after the fact if you, for example, don't have sufficient funds. There are ways that a card network could potentially "force" the payment through anyway, I think, despite funds not being available. At least I had that once many, many years ago on my child current account which obviously had no overdraft.

Presumably airlines have the advantage of knowing who you are…!

 

[Krokodil]

This all sounds very hi-tec.

Not particularly. My ticket machine can authorise small transactions offline (though it can be slow in doing so). Something permanently installed in a unit can be wired into the unit's WiFi router and take advantage of the more reliable signal available.

 

[D6130]

Presumably airlines have the advantage of knowing who you are…!

'Do you know who I am'?

 

[James H]

I do think we could learn from other countries. In Spain I had a very good illy coffee on an Iryo train served at seat from a dispenser worn as a backpack.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Exactly, you're paying not just for the convenience and the fact that it's available at all, but I got a bottle from the Decorum machine at Wigan the other day and it was ice cold. I wouldn't get that from a can out of my rucksack!

Nor would you from a trolley!

 

[Gloster]

To go back to the original question. The on-train trolleys lost my custom because you could never be certain that there would be a trolley or, if there was one, whether it had a reasonable stock of items, even at the beginning of the journey.

This is on the Waterloo-Portsmouth services, so I always stock up on the station before joining the train, even though handling a scorching hot of tea (a paper napkin insulates for about seven seconds), a stick and a bag is an acquired art: tip, headbutt the Door Open button if need be. For emergencies I keep a bottle of water and a flapjack in my bag.

 

[BazingaTribe]

To go back to the original question. The on-train trolleys lost my custom because you could never be certain that there would be a trolley or, if there was one, whether it had a reasonable stock of items, even at the beginning of the journey.

This is on the Waterloo-Portsmouth services, so I always stock up on the station before joining the train, even though handling a scorching hot of tea (a paper napkin insulates for about seven seconds), a stick and a bag is an acquired art: tip, headbutt the Door Open button if need be. For emergencies I keep a bottle of water and a flapjack in my bag.

Try it with a suitcase, a pirate hat (off to a sci-fi/fantasy convention in the west country, had to keep it topical!), a rucksack, a stick and a big book. The kind guy at Basingstoke pie shop gave me a proper bag with handles.

The pie kept me going until Salisbury so it was worth it.

 

[MrJeeves]

Presumably airlines have the advantage of knowing who you are…!

I suppose, but it's not like they formally track who the goods are being sold to, is it? The closest I have seen (on easyJet, mind you!) is jotting down some info on a napkin so they remember who is in line for the next toastie!

I don't remember if cardholder details are transmitted for EMV/Chip & Pin transactions, either.

 

[zero]

I suppose, but it's not like they formally track who the goods are being sold to, is it? The closest I have seen (on easyJet, mind you!) is jotting down some info on a napkin so they remember who is in line for the next toastie!

I don't remember if cardholder details are transmitted for EMV/Chip & Pin transactions, either.

They record the seat number on the machine - and some people get items free with their airline status, or they have prepaid for food

 

[HSTEd]

I think a buffet has more of a future than a trolley, I think.
But without construction of some sort of glorious new driverless Shinkansen where the train captain can be a barrista (which certainly won't happen post HS2), I am not sure the economics can be made to work.

Perhaps non DOO services could convert the train guard into a barrista, but I don't know if that is feasible either - even if you moved the guard dispatch panels to behind the buffet.

 

[Bald Rick]

Perhaps non DOO services could convert the train guard into a barrista, but I don't know if that is feasible either - even if you moved the guard dispatch panels to behind the buffet.

To be fair that’s more or less what Lumo do.

 

[michaelh]

My wife and I travel to and from Worcestershire to London 3 or 4 times a year. We take sandwiches (from Tesco at Worcester FS and Sainsburys at Paddington ) and a bottle of CAVA for a picnic on the train.

 

[D6130]

My wife and I travel to and from Worcestershire to London 3 or 4 times a year. We take sandwiches (from Tesco at Worcester FS and Sainsburys at Paddington ) and a bottle of CAVA for a picnic on the train.

You still can't do that officially on ScotRail services - although, in my experience, many people do - especially pairs of middle-aged couples setting-out on a long weekend break together. An example being one morning in the Summer of last year, when I was travelling from Glasgow to Inverness on an Inter7Cities HST. Two very jolly middle-aged, middle-class couples - with seats reserved round a table - joined the train at Stirling and immediately set out their stall with an impressive array of cooked and cured cold meats, smoked salmon, cheeses, breads and crackers....which definitely hadn't been purchased from any outlet on the station. By the time they alighted at Kingussie they had also worked their way through two bottles of Prosecco between them....and were even more jolly than when they boarded. Of course the conductors - both before and after the crew change at Perth - said nothing.