Catering on board trains Summer 2020

[yorkie]

Here are details of what is on offer on various TOCs:

LNER

Let's Eat - at your seat! LNER to launch ‘at-seat’ food and drink delivery service onboard

In a first for the UK rail industry, LNER will begin trials of an ‘at-seat’ catering offer onboard trains this August.

www.lner.co.uk

LNER will begin trials of an ‘at-seat’ catering offer onboard trains this August.

The service will enable customers to order and pay for food and drinks from their phone in the comfort of their own seat, without having to visit the onboard cafe bar.

The digital in-seat app ‘Let’s Eat – At Your Seat’ will be available to customers in both Standard and First Class.

Food & drink onboard our trains

With LNER's first class rail travel we have a wide range of food and drink to make your journey as comfortable and enjoyable as possible.

www.lner.co.uk

We're bringing back a limited onboard catering offer for our passengers in Standard and First Class.

Whether you're returning to the office or using your saved up annual leave for a well deserved getaway, keep yourself fueled up throughout your entire journey.

CrossCountry

Welcome to CrossCountry

We cross more of the country than any other train company. We can provide cheap train tickets for any train journey, on any train, in Great Britain, with big savings with Advance tickets – and no booking fee! Booking online or on your mobile is quick and easy at crosscountrytrains.co.uk

www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk

Catering - Catering is now available on-board our services. To keep our customers and colleagues safe, catering will be provided from a static location at one end of the train. On-board colleagues will make regular announcements to let customers know when and where to find our catering trolley.

Customers are welcome to bring their own food on-board for their journey and face coverings can be removed only whilst food & drink is being consumed. If you are travelling with us in Wales, please note that under current guidelines the consumption of food and drink is banned on-board.

GWR

Food and drink | Great Western Railway

At Great Western Railway we take special pride in the locally sourced food and drink we offer.

www.gwr.com

Although we have started to re-introduce catering on a small number of our services, you may still want to bring your own drinks and snacks.

Avanti

Onboard shop | Avanti West Coast

No need to buy before you board. There's a shop on every train stocked with lots of delicious food and drink.

www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk

our Shop onboard Pendolino services will be open with protective screens and safety lines in place.
Unfortunately Shops onboard Voyager services are currently closed. Because of this, there are no Food and Beverage options available onboard these services.
Please see below a menu showing the current products that are available onboard Pendolino services....

TPE
TransPennine Express do not currently have a date for the return of onboard catering.

EMR
East Midlands Railway plan to catering back onboard trains from 17th August.



Please note:

To discuss what you would like to see offered please use the following thread:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/what-on-board-catering-improvements-would-you-like-to-see-over-the-next-few-weeks.207148/

This thread is to discuss what is actually being offered.

Thank you

Further update (October 2020):

This thread is now locked; the latest thread at the time of writing is at

On-board catering updates

LNER managing director David Horne has tweeted this morning to confirm they have restarted a limited hot food service. The menu doesn't appear to be online yet, maybe it'll surface later today? David Horne @DavidHorne 6:37 AM · Sep 30, 2020 Hot food returns to @LNER! From today, we’ll be...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[westv]

I notice that LNER say a limited menu but they don't mention what exactly that is though.

 

[FQTV]

First Class on LNER last night was tea, coffee, water, cheese crisps and biscuits, available from a host in Coach M.

Tea and coffee on request from the host.

The crisps were self serve in a box on the floor, blocking the aisle between passengers and the host. Water and biscuits were from help yourself boxes on tables.

Milk jiggers and sugar sachets likewise. Stirrers were packed in a cup as usual for you to fumble over six before managing to grab one.

With all this, Coach M was out of use for passenger seating, despite reservations having been available in it at time of booking in early July.

The host had no shoes on and holes in his socks.

 

[godfreycomplex]

. Stirrers were packed in a cup as usual for you to fumble over six before managing to grab one.

The horror

The host had no shoes on and holes in his socks

Burn him at the stake

 

[168lover]

GWR says 'limited services' anyone know which services they're talking about please?

 

[londiscape]

GWR says 'limited services' anyone know which services they're talking about please?

Well it certainly hasn't been on the ones I've been on between Paddington and Cheltenham and vice versa. Nothing at all, I brought my own beer.

 

[FQTV]

GWR says 'limited services' anyone know which services they're talking about please?

It was on my Paddington to Plymouth on Friday, but there was nothing on the Penzance to Plymouth part of a Penzance to Paddington service on Saturday.

The arrangement on Friday was a static trolley in each five car portion of a ten car unit, located in the London end First Class carriages. Regular announcements were made to say that they had a limited selection of teas, coffee, water, soft drinks, sandwiches, crisps and sweets. People were definitely using it.

 

[Blindtraveler]

LNER weren't trialling their at seat ordering system on the several journeys I made with them last week north of Edinburgh; Instead they were operating a somewhat confusing system of calling passengers forward to the cafe bar by coach letter.

The selection available was limited to the point of being actually underwhelming and possibly unusable to some people, thankfully all I wanted was a coffee having had a substantial hotel breakfast in Dundee.

On the subject of coffee, it's so great to see a proper coffee machine return to the east coast after all these years of excuses and various incarnations of instant coffee.

I'm no coffee snob by any means but for standard class passengers a decent one was lacking for so long that to have it back again is just wonderful.

Incidentally I'd love to know what brand they are using, the flat white I enjoyed on a lovely run up the coast from leuchars to to Montrose on Friday morning was quite possibly one of the best cups of coffee I've experienced on a British Train.

 

[route101]

LNER weren't trialling their at seat ordering system on the several journeys I made with them last week north of Edinburgh; Instead they were operating a somewhat confusing system of calling passengers forward to the cafe bar by coach letter.

The selection available was limited to the point of being actually underwhelming and possibly unusable to some people, thankfully all I wanted was a coffee having had a substantial hotel breakfast in Dundee.

On the subject of coffee, it's so great to see a proper coffee machine return to the east coast after all these years of excuses and various incarnations of instant coffee.

I'm no coffee snob by any means but for standard class passengers a decent one was lacking for so long that to have it back again is just wonderful.

Incidentally I'd love to know what brand they are using, the flat white I enjoyed on a lovely run up the coast from leuchars to to Montrose on Friday morning was quite possibly one of the best cups of coffee I've experienced on a British Train.

Yes, they were calling people up on my LNER last week. One first class and one standard class coach. I was only travelling to Berwick , so not sure how long it takes to do whole train. Heard a customer complain they couldnt get orange juice.

 

[Blindtraveler]

not offering orange juice seems a pretty big omission to me, a basic expectancy of your average passenger these days I should think if I'm any judge

 

[Scotrail314209]

Scotrail have not announced a date yet for resuming their onboard catering offer. Presumably, the issue is that the majority of their long distance services are trolley service only, with the exclusion of the HST services which have a microbuffet.

Maybe they could open the buffet on the HSTs and provide a static trolley on the other services.

 

[williamn]

Still unclear to me why the offering is so limited given that all other hospitality is now open as usual.

 

[Journeyman]

LNER catering doesn't sound too wonderful, then. I'm travelling first class from Edinburgh to London next week, and in the absence of more concrete information on what's available, I think I'll stock up in the Sainsbury's in Waverley Mall before I board. I don't fancy spending four and a half hours on a train getting increasingly hungry and thirsty.

I'm not too bothered, as my tickets were incredibly cheap, and I'm quite looking forward to a journey on a very empty train.

 

[Journeyman]

Still unclear to me why the offering is so limited given that all other hospitality is now open as usual.

Socially distancing staff and customers whilst serving food on board trains is much harder than it is in larger, static premises.

 

[williamn]

Socially distancing staff and customers whilst serving food on board trains is much harder than it is in larger, static premises.

Yet allowed on airlines.

 

[Journeyman]

Yet allowed on airlines.

Yes, because airlines have to make a profit, and aren't being bailed out with billions from the taxpayer.

 

[OliverH68]

LNER weren't trialling their at seat ordering system on the several journeys I made with them last week north of Edinburgh; Instead they were operating a somewhat confusing system of calling passengers forward to the cafe bar by coach letter.

The selection available was limited to the point of being actually underwhelming and possibly unusable to some people, thankfully all I wanted was a coffee having had a substantial hotel breakfast in Dundee.

On the subject of coffee, it's so great to see a proper coffee machine return to the east coast after all these years of excuses and various incarnations of instant coffee.

I'm no coffee snob by any means but for standard class passengers a decent one was lacking for so long that to have it back again is just wonderful.

Incidentally I'd love to know what brand they are using, the flat white I enjoyed on a lovely run up the coast from leuchars to to Montrose on Friday morning was quite possibly one of the best cups of coffee I've experienced on a British Train.

I was on the 0933 KGX - LDS last Friday with 800206 which was one of the trial sets. Very simple - you scan the QR code in front of you, specify where you are sat and order what you want. Pay with card/Google Pay, and delivered to your seat. Whole thing took about 5 minutes, very easy.

And the coffee from the machine was lovely! Much better than the instant stuff you get in 1st class

 

[Mag_seven]

A trolley has just come through the GWR service that I am on - this is the first one I have seen since before the lockdown!

 

[Blindtraveler]

I was on the 0933 KGX - LDS last Friday with 800206 which was one of the trial sets. Very simple - you scan the QR code in front of you, specify where you are sat and order what you want. Pay with card/Google Pay, and delivered to your seat. Whole thing took about 5 minutes, very easy.

And the coffee from the machine was lovely! Much better than the instant stuff you get in 1st class

Unless they have changed it, first class have filter coffee from filter machines which is then poured into to some sort of coffee pot for delivery to passengers

 

[Iskra]

Does anyone know what XC or GWR are doing in 1st class and what the catering is (if any) on the GWR sleepers?

 

[185143]

Does anyone know what XC or GWR are doing in 1st class and what the catering is (if any) on the GWR sleepers?

GWR sleepers have the lounge car open for takeaway (or as normal if you're in the torture chambers seated coaches) though there's no alcohol. The staff seemed oblivious as to why and agreed that they'd do a decent trade. Very few, if any, passengers seemed to partake in the catering offer which seemed to be just soft/hot drinks and crisps/chocolate/cake and the like.

 

[route101]

No carery from Glasgow to Carlisle on tpe this morning.

 

[Iskra]

GWR sleepers have the lounge car open for takeaway (or as normal if you're in the torture chambers seated coaches) though there's no alcohol. The staff seemed oblivious as to why and agreed that they'd do a decent trade. Very few, if any, passengers seemed to partake in the catering offer which seemed to be just soft/hot drinks and crisps/chocolate/cake and the like.

Yeah that does seem weird. I'd be much more likely to want something alcoholic on an evening rather than something full of sugar. Hopefully they see sense when the full timetables return in time for my trip on the 17th. Thank you for the information.

 

[MDB1images]

No carery from Glasgow to Carlisle on tpe this morning.

A few trials are currently taking place (over the last few weeks on various Airport to Edinburgh/Glasgow trains) to see how this fairs but currently catering is temporarily suspended..

 

[yorksrob]

I've got a coffe a couple of times on TPE between Leeds and York since lockdown.

 

[LowLevel]

EMR are reintroducing first class catering Monday to Friday next week. Still no word on standard.

 

[dave87016]

0815 Preston - Glasgow ( Avanti West Coast ) today breakfast grill , Sausage bacon black pudding , mushroom , scrambled egg and tomato in a cardboard box. Accompanied with tea/coffee and orange juice Good food and quality but poor quantity

1840 Glasgow - Preston ( Avanti West Coast ) sausage roll in a plastic box was nice but needs to be accompanied with something , alcohol and tea/coffee served with it the other alternative to sausage roll was a ham and egg mayo sandwich

 

[Scotrail314209]

0815 Preston - Glasgow ( Avanti West Coast ) today breakfast grill , Sausage bacon black pudding , mushroom , scrambled egg and tomato in a cardboard box. Accompanied with tea/coffee and orange juice Good food and quality but poor quantity

1840 Glasgow - Preston ( Avanti West Coast ) sausage roll in a plastic box was nice but needs to be accompanied with something , alcohol and tea/coffee served with it the other alternative to sausage roll was a ham and egg mayo sandwich

There have been some complaints about the dishes in the cardboard box. I'm assuming it's something to do with COVID as the boxes can be disposed of, but having seen a picture of it, it looks a bit unappetizing.

The sausage roll on it's own does also seem a little bit poor. They should at least give you a side with it.

 

[Huntergreed]

After a pretty awful trip down to London in LNER sadly ruined by mask-obsessed crew, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed and been impressed by Avanti’s first class catering offer on 9S97 this evening. Nice sausage roll and snacks and drinks just after Watford Junction. Further offering of food (I just took snacks) at Wolverhampton, and yet another offering at Preston (I just took water at this point). The staff have been fantastic and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this trip, if anyone is debating LNER vs Avanti in first class right now I would definitely recommend Avanti.

 

[Bletchleyite]

After a pretty awful trip down to London in LNER sadly ruined by mask-obsessed crew, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed and been impressed by Avanti’s first class catering offer on 9S97 this evening. Nice sausage roll and snacks and drinks just after Watford Junction. Further offering of food (I just took snacks) at Wolverhampton, and yet another offering at Preston (I just took water at this point). The staff have been fantastic and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this trip, if anyone is debating LNER vs Avanti in first class right now I would definitely recommend Avanti.

TBH I'd always recommend West Coast over East Coast if not in a rush. Pendolino 1st is really very good (best on the network, I'd say) and barring the "coach K issue" the staff are very good and as you say the food good and plentiful. And the scenery is interesting pretty much the whole way, unlike the ECML where once you're south of Newcastle it's all just drab.