TT-ONR-NRN
Established Member
Sounds very nutritious. I only hope if a buffet is reinstated there’s a few more healthy options than that!
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Petition to bring back the buffet on GWR
- Thread starter irish_rail
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
swt_passenger
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 7 Apr 2010
- Messages
- 31,408
That seems encouraging for future food quality...
At Paddington, in the good old days, a young man would be deployed to the platform with a rather bigger trolley than is possible on a train. I just wonder whether that solution, perhaps offering 'meal deals' containing a pack of food and drink, might not solve a lot of these issues. The same would be provided at other large stations. Also, why not a member of staff deployed between Taunton and Reading to do the same with a pile of 'meal deals'. When she or he gets to Reading, they get the next one back, having been reloaded.
ashkeba
Established Member
- Joined
- 13 May 2019
- Messages
- 2,171
Amtrak catering is abysmal, akin to what 1980s British Railways would have done if microwaves had been installed. Not only sweaty curly sandwiches, but leathery bergers and unidentifiable cheese in a dried out crunchy bun!
SNCF said they were removing catering due to shortened journey times meaning the refurbishment of TGV buffets not being worth it, accompanied by refurbishment of several key stations in those routes - and to their credit, the station café in many small town TGV stops will now knock most of the tired UK "Pumpkin" and "West Cornwall" concessions out of the park. I don't remember losses being part of the explanation.
DB probably make a loss. They could make a loss on anything. That's been their culture a long time IMO. It's about public service more.
On ÖBB catering losses: do you have any actual numbers to support this claim?
I'm not surprised GWR have always made losses on catering. It's never been mastered like it needs. Not just hot food. Even drinks and cold food has been horribly unpredictable for as long as I've seen it and uncertainty kills catering revenue.
Hardly surprising - there are 7 standard class carriages and 8 minutes. 1 minute to get moving and then you need to not be in the way once the train arrives at Cheltenham. With that logic, you have 5 minutes to serve passengers who otherwise would have been on the train from stations before Gloucester or are just travelling to Cheltenham for a connection.
I use the service from Reading to Gloucester almost every weekday and I can assure you the trolley is almost always mobile - I see it towards the end of the trip as well as at the very start.
According to the website the petition had 1000 signatures 8 months ago. It now has 2947.
Looking at the site's FAQs, it's down to the person who started the petition to download a printable version and send it to the appropriate organisation. It's not clear whether that has already happened, or when it is planned to happen.
They were indeed. I travel 1st class the majority of the time and sandwiches did feature for quite a while. If there was no customer host available in first class then you would go to the buffet counter and collect your refreshments.
Now with IET that is not possible if nobody turns up from the kitchen which does happen.
Although some members on this forum may disagree with Irish rail, it is certainly true that politicians do listen to complaints but whether they will act upon is another matter unless substantial amount of correspondence is received on the subject matter. Irish rail is correct in saying that you do need to raise issues with many people for it to be flagged up as an issue. Part of the problem is getting through to the right people as many organisations have a customer service/contact centre. You really need to bypass these and go up the command chain.
I knew first hand as a senior manager working with elected members. And they did act when politicians knew it would be to their advantage.
Nothing is impossible if there is the political will to do it.
Interestingly though the equivalent mode of transport for GWR would be a coach or a car. Neither of which have any on-board catering facilities - although you can pick some 'on-route at certain facilities' in a car which is somewhat like buying it beforehand at a station. Not a comment relevant only to GWR, but of course most on-board rail catering.
Busaholic
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 7 Jun 2014
- Messages
- 14,084
I'm bothered about the meaning of life - please direct me as to where I can find it
Busaholic
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 7 Jun 2014
- Messages
- 14,084
Absolutely agree - if you're defeatist from the start, well, surprise! surprise! you'll be defeated, whereas if you make an effort you might still not win, initially anyway, but you'll feel you did your best and (rarely, admittedly) might even achieve your objective. Sometimes the political class will decide to toss a bone, and it comes in the direction of the group most getting under their skin.
I'd much rather the politicians in GWR land complained about continual short forms and cancellations due to staff shortages than the lack of a buffet.
Admittedly I'd have to agree with this.
irish_rail
Established Member
Agreed and again, we should all be writing to our MPs to point out the ridiculousness of the situation whereby numerous trains to London are short formed etc etc.
Amtrak journeys take a very long time - rather longer in many cases than Paddington to Penzance - so if people are all gagging to down high-quality simple, profitable meals on all their long-distance train journeys, as claimed above, then why exactly isn't Amtrak offering Pullman restaurants or something like Travelling Chef on all its trains? Perhaps because not everyone does regard food and drink as such an essential journey feature as some claim (or just bring their own) and Amtrak loses money on onboard catering, like most operators.
BR Mk3 buffets had microwaves from day one. From BBC On This Day, October 4, 1976.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/4/newsid_2486000/2486817.stm
Since when has SNCF got rid of its buffets on most of its TGVs? Airline-style food is alive and well at 200mph on most services - the ones that are branded InOui, TGV Lyria or Eurostar.
The only TGVs that do not have any catering are the low-cost standard class-only Ouigos and yet some brave souls use them all the way from Paris to Nice, which is a six-hour journey.
https://www.sncf.com/en/passenger-offer/travel-by-train/tgv-inoui/your-travel/aboard
DB does make a loss. As I noted above it was said be almost 80 million euros in the red on train catering in 2016. So it is not small change. And unless OBB has some magic wand not possessed by other operators across Europe and beyond, then it seems fair to assume that they also lose money but have presumably taken the same policy decision as DB to cover those losses from other income.
BR was losing money from onboard catering a long time before GWR or any other private operator came on the scene.
ashkeba
Established Member
- Joined
- 13 May 2019
- Messages
- 2,171
Or perhaps because US gov interference in Amtrak makes DfT's dictation of IET layout seem like light touch?
And did they serve Amtrak style crunchy bergers from them?
So you do not know and are posting assumption as if fact. Thank you.
Yes, British transport catering has long been stuck in an unprofitable rut. It has harmed the reputation of many celebrity chefs who failed to change things deeply: Prue Leith on railways, Heston on motorways, Jamie Oliver at airports.
Our disagreement is not on whether British rail food has ever been much good. It is whether it can be profitable. I say that GWR's awful airline trollies cannot and upcycling the kitchens which stand empty on most journeys would have a better chance.
Clarence Yard
Established Member
- Joined
- 18 Dec 2014
- Messages
- 2,491
Catering will never be profitable on it’s own. You have to price it in with the ticket so you aim for a yield that covers the predicted catering shortfall.
It is part of your service offer to the punter, or should be. On Anglia, when I was there, it was very nearly profitable and you covered any improvements in the ticket price, usually to first class punters. The same ethos was introduced in Hull Trains from the start.
I’m not sure what is going on in GWR except that those kitchens seem under-utilised and they seem to be inching their way towards improving their product offer. I wish it would be a little more strategic and transformative, with at seat ordering a priority.
On catering, you really do have to be one step ahead all the time as tastes and habits can change rapidly. But I suppose when you are taking more cash than having static buffets, the impetus to change isn’t there but there will come a time and, for me, at seat ordering and fulfilment is an obvious way to go.
It is part of your service offer to the punter, or should be. On Anglia, when I was there, it was very nearly profitable and you covered any improvements in the ticket price, usually to first class punters. The same ethos was introduced in Hull Trains from the start.
I’m not sure what is going on in GWR except that those kitchens seem under-utilised and they seem to be inching their way towards improving their product offer. I wish it would be a little more strategic and transformative, with at seat ordering a priority.
On catering, you really do have to be one step ahead all the time as tastes and habits can change rapidly. But I suppose when you are taking more cash than having static buffets, the impetus to change isn’t there but there will come a time and, for me, at seat ordering and fulfilment is an obvious way to go.
Sorry, but the point here is not government interference, it is the suggestion advanced back up this thread that lots and lots of passengers on long-distance trains, whenever they may be on the planet, are all keen to spend lots of money on food prepared/microwaved on the said train. Where there is plenty of evidence from the UK and elsewhere to suggest that they aren't - and when it comes to long-distance rail journeys, the US is pretty much in its own class, so on the face of it, they should be coining it.
No, they sold iffy BR burgers, if my memory serves me correctly.
Like I say, unless OBB has a magic formula that has eluded railways all over the world, then I feel pretty confident that they do lose money on catering - as the costs are buried in the overall passenger service accounts of a state-owned company, it's a bit hard to tell exactly what the position is. Thank you.
Previous posters have advanced the theory that if only such and such an approach that they just know will work was adopted, then hey presto, the punters would come running and the profits would flow - expect that the profits don't flow and are not going to.
In cases such as Anglia, which as a past resident of Norwich I can attest did work very hard to make the most of onboard catering on London-Norwich (before National Express took a different view of how to go about things), though I never bought more than a cup of tea and the odd sandwich, and again on Hull Trains, we are talking about limited operations between two places, that are fairly easy to control and rather different in scale from the GWR HSS network.
GWR certainly needs to do better, but can we please get away from this fantasy that there are profits to be made by bring back Travelling Chef or something similar.
Last edited:
You can go to a shop in advance, or use your kitchen at home.
Goldfish62
Established Member
- Joined
- 14 Feb 2010
- Messages
- 10,034
ashkeba
Established Member
- Joined
- 13 May 2019
- Messages
- 2,171
Shops aren't open in advance of the early train and my home is not in Penzance, so those are unviable. Maybe you think we need to be like some NZ, Czech and Serbian trains of old and have half hour stops mid journey for passengers to buy lunch? No fast travel AND food - that would be having your cake and eating it! If you want to arrive in half the time, you must waste a chunk at static shops at one end or other.
ashkeba
Established Member
- Joined
- 13 May 2019
- Messages
- 2,171
GWR Twitter say they have trollies even when they don't. GWR don't seem to care yet. Write to MPs.
The microwave gristle cheese burger certainly continued past BR into the Great Western, First Great Western and then First Greater Western era's, IIRC it must have been around '08 to '10 that it died to be limited only to the then travelling chef services, which suffered immensely from crew availability or the wrong type of train. I can't remember GNER or NXEC ever suffering from lack of chefs the extent the GW franchises did.
Annual co-payments by ÖBB to the caterer for RailJet services are low double digits apparently on catering turnover of around €14m... to quote a statement made by the head of ÖBB "Die Verpflegung im Zug ist Teil des Reiseerlebnisses" or in English "Catering on the train is part of the travel experience.", does a potential 50% subsidy sound reasonable for a UK TOC to cover?
https://www.diepresse.com/5351386/obb-teuer-erkauftes-essen-auf-radern
There are services particularly and ironically enough the GWR Pullman that demostrate on train catering can be very good for that matter the VT and LNER complementary first offers serve perfectly decent food, before that the GNER paid for restaurant service was good, none of these are known to make a profit for the operator and exist or existed as services to increase yield indirectly.
However in all seriousness is there a railway operator in Europe that actually makes a profit on catering provision? DB don't, SNCF don't, OBB don't. RENFE don't publish numbers so who knows. Trenitalia publish that they had catering costs of €90m but not what the revenue was but do also note costs have increased, I'd expect this is code for not a profit making service.
AlbertBeale
Established Member
Toilets on trains don't make a profit either; but they're seen as part of a civilised provision for travellers on longer journeys - even if most people, on any given train, don't use them.
If I'm on a journey of more than a couple of hours or so, I'd expect there to be a buffet with a range of drinks and hot and cold food (decent snacks, at least), even if I don't use it - beyond the odd drink - on every trip. If there's food available on a long journey, then I often have something - in fact I sometimes need something. And if the specific train journey is part of a longer overall trip, I might even plan my route/timing to ensure the possibility of food en route. (This seems easier to do in some other European countries than it is here.)
I travelled all the way from Palermo to Rome a few weeks back on a Trenitalia "IC "service - despite being an 11 hour journey no catering whatsoever was provided. I think that says it all.
flitwickbeds
Member
- Joined
- 19 Apr 2017
- Messages
- 529
How far do you take that, though? Thameslink trains take around 2.5 hours from Bedford to Brighton, although most passengers would rarely make the whole journey (I'd say even journeys like St Albans to East Croydon, about 1 hour, are rare).
But if you were to make that whole journey you'd expect there to be food available. That means putting full facilities on a commuter train which the majority of people are only on for less than 45 minutes.
Goldfish62
Established Member
- Joined
- 14 Feb 2010
- Messages
- 10,034
Yes, why do some people insist that every element of a service provision should make a profit? It's really rather naive.
DB are currently turning the bistro in their ICE3s into a full restaurant. They have stated that catering makes a loss but regard it as an essential part of the overall Inter-City package. Get rid of the catering and that's one less advantage you have over your competitors.
- Status