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Petition to bring back the buffet on GWR

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MCSHF007

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Exactly. I'll wager I've travelled as many 'long-distance' miles by rail over the last 40 years as most on this forum but I can confidently state that the number of times I've purchased anything onboard has barely reached double figures. It's much cheaper to make sandwiches in advance/buy from supermarkets. Far too many people seem to be obsessed with the idea that food has to be hot. In the close confines of a railway carriage I'd much prefer that it wasn't.
 

Mountain Man

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How does that help? Where would they sell from? What has a naff coffee brand owned by coke got to do with on-train catering? So many questions...
They know how to make drinkable coffee. No TOC can manage that.
 

irish_rail

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Exactly. I'll wager I've travelled as many 'long-distance' miles by rail over the last 40 years as most on this forum but I can confidently state that the number of times I've purchased anything onboard has barely reached double figures. It's much cheaper to make sandwiches in advance/buy from supermarkets. Far too many people seem to be obsessed with the idea that food has to be hot. In the close confines of a railway carriage I'd much prefer that it wasn't.
I think with the Penzance route price is less important. Most people are making an occasional journey perhaps once or twice a year and are thus happy to treat themselves and their families. Also despite Devon and Cornwall being very poor in European terms, alot of our customers do have money (especially the Londoners coming down) So I really think the argument that the food is expensive is irrelevant. If the food and drink is quality, people will happily pay. And on the trolleys it is not.
 

Mintona

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As a semi-regular traveller from Gloucester to London, I don’t recall a time when I didn’t go to the buffet at some point in the journey. I used to much prefer to get a nice glass bottle of orange juice, fruit cake and vegetable crisps from there than anything that is available in the fairly unpleasant Pumpkin at Gloucester station.

The last time I did the journey (only between Gloucester and Reading admittedly) I didn’t see or hear about a trolley service at any point.

I could’ve probably coped without snacks and a drink on a ~2 hour journey, but I was quite happy to spend the money. If the same stuff is available easily from a trolley I’ll quite happily buy it there instead.
 

Master29

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An advertising feature by the tourist board (Visit Cornwall say that Cornwall is the UK's number one holiday destination? Well I never!) and a regurgitated press release from a company that wants you to stay in their hotels in Cornwall? Well, I'm convinced.
Which had you read was a reply to a group of links that could equally have been construed as unreliable. A bit of perspective please.
But a flask could be used for a hot drink. Maybe TOCs should be looking at ensuring station facilities are open to at least 8/9pm. This way passengers could get a hot drink, or a vending machine on stations or trains.
Which begs the question, why not put it on trains as well?
More to the point why is a restaurant justified on some services and yet a buffet with hot snacks for standard passengers on the same services isn't?
Precisely.
They are not 'not letting' you get food, they just are not providing the service which the trains that were specified by the DfT do not allow for. Not all long distance services have catering TPE from Manchester to Edinburgh, LNR Liverpool Lime Street to Euston via Birmingham New Street.
So why in that case are they advertising food for which they are "not allowed to provide"?
But, is it their job to provide provision for food? Ultimately the job of the railway is to get you from A to B.
If it is advertised.Yes.
Please don't start polluting this thread with basic common sense.
Common sense has nothing to do with it. It`s about choice as well as the fact it`s advertised.
 

Darandio

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But, is it their job to provide provision for food? Ultimately the job of the railway is to get you from A to B.

Who is 'their'? The Driver? I'd imagine his job is to get you from a to b, the same with the Train Manager. What about catering staff though? I'd certainly assume it is their job.

You really are clutching at straws here.
 

takno

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They know how to make drinkable coffee. No TOC can manage that.
Most Costa coffee is made by other people. The station Costas for example are largely run by exactly the same people who run the Pumpkins and the Burger Kings. If Costa were going to get into the train business they would do it by selling their brand and the beans to the train company, who would use either the exact machine they are using now, or possibly an extremely similar one. The coffee would be about the same (not great, but significantly better than the stuff on the trolleys), and nothing much else would be different.
 

pt_mad

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Would any flights lasting more than 3 hours not come around and at least offer refreshments?
 

Mitchell Hurd

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I thought longer distance (Inter City) train travel was supposed to be an experience especially for leisure travellers. Part of that experience would be to have something nice to eat, probably hot and a drink on the train and to sit back and relax. Is that too much to ask for.

Rail travel has now turned into a torrid endurance of anything from minutes to multiple hours.

I'll probably regret saying this but I've had a look on Tiger train times for Didcot Parkway this morning and found, for the second Sunday in a row, that once again a nearly 6 and a half hour trip has no catering facilities available. I'm glad I wasn't catching this service.

I do wonder if any effort at all is provided to get staff to cover on this train. They're happy to run the train but on Sundays I think it's either cancelled trains or run them without food knowing a good number of passengers will complain.

I bet if 8-coach HST's were still here then a buffet would have been provided on a lot of GWR's long-distance routes!
 

CC 72100

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I bet if 8-coach HST's were still here then a buffet would have been provided on a lot of GWR's long-distance routes!

A buffet would have been provided, but could be closed. I've been on many GWR HSTs on a Sunday with the buffet locked up. You're trying to force a point into something that is unrelated here.
 

Greg Read

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Nothing can match the old BR breakfast :) also recall having a lovely Chicken dinner on the way to Cornwall on an HST, but that was quite some time ago now,
 

Mountain Man

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Would any flights lasting more than 3 hours not come around and at least offer refreshments?
Its a different business model. You'll struggle to find a flight over an hour without refreshments because it's a fundamental part of the revenue generating model for short haul airlines. It isn't for railways
 

jimm

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A buffet would have been provided, but could be closed. I've been on many GWR HSTs on a Sunday with the buffet locked up. You're trying to force a point into something that is unrelated here.

Exactly. If there isn't a member of staff available for all or part of a journey, it is neither here nor there whether the planned service was a trolley or a buffet. And it can happen on other days of the week as well - and on other TOCs' services.
 

takno

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Its a different business model. You'll struggle to find a flight over an hour without refreshments because it's a fundamental part of the revenue generating model for short haul airlines. It isn't for railways
Right, but people do gratefully buy the stuff on planes, and planes are in serious competition across a lot of the country. Logically they should be looking to offer the same, rather than cutting back a service that has always previously been part of intercity train travel
 

Mountain Man

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Right, but people do gratefully buy the stuff on planes, and planes are in serious competition across a lot of the country. Logically they should be looking to offer the same, rather than cutting back a service that has always previously been part of intercity train travel
On what routes are GWR competing with air travel?
 

Ianno87

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Its a different business model. You'll struggle to find a flight over an hour without refreshments because it's a fundamental part of the revenue generating model for short haul airlines. It isn't for railways

Right, but people do gratefully buy the stuff on planes, and planes are in serious competition across a lot of the country. Logically they should be looking to offer the same, rather than cutting back a service that has always previously been part of intercity train travel

The sales environment on a plane definitely feels more 'agressive' than on a train. Plus on a plane it's more faffy to bring your own sustinance through security.
 

takno

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London-Cornwall (via Newquay St Mawgan Airport).

There are also regular air services to Newquay from Leeds and Manchester, and in the summer from other airports (Birmingham, Doncaster/Sheffield, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool and Newcastle upon Tyne) in mainland Great Britain, all operated by Fly(may)Be.
Also year round from lots of places to Exeter. If you're close to City Airport or Gatwick then even London to Exeter is a viable flight. Bristol and Cardiff airports also have flights which compete with rail, albeit that the rail will be GWR plus Eurostar or another operator
 

Erniescooper

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Its a different business model. You'll struggle to find a flight over an hour without refreshments because it's a fundamental part of the revenue generating model for short haul airlines. It isn't for railways
You say it isn’t for the railway but it seems to be for Virgin west coast as it generates thousands of pounds a day per train and one of the most important engineering KPIs for Alstom when maintaining the Pendolino was catering equipment
 

JN114

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You say it isn’t for the railway but it seems to be for Virgin west coast as it generates thousands of pounds a day per train and one of the most important engineering KPIs for Alstom when maintaining the Pendolino was catering equipment

Thousands per train? Are you sure? I was in restaurant management before joining the railway; even the largest restaurants I managed struggled to crack into the 10s of thousands per day; and that’s with an average spend in the £15-20pp bracket - I can’t see a Pendo having the stock capacity for the 250+ covers per train you’d need to reach the thousands with typical average spend on a train.
 

takno

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Thousands per train? Are you sure? I was in restaurant management before joining the railway; even the largest restaurants I managed struggled to crack into the 10s of thousands per day; and that’s with an average spend in the £15-20pp bracket - I can’t see a Pendo having the stock capacity for the 250+ covers per train you’d need to reach the thousands with typical average spend on a train.
A train will run multiple trips in a day, and you can get to a thousand by selling about 250 beers or wines, or less than 400 coffees. I would guess the average is over a thousand, and could be over 2000
 

Mountain Man

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London-Cornwall (via Newquay St Mawgan Airport).
That averages less than 500 passengers a day (from Gatwick, Stansted is barely 20 a day) according to the passenger stats. Compare that to the capacity GWR offer by train to Cornwall , it's hardly much of a competition
 

sprunt

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Which had you read was a reply to a group of links that could equally have been construed as unreliable.

I don't care about anyone else's links - you made an assertion in post 721, so it's up to you to back that up and not up to anyone else to disprove it. The links you provided did nothing of the sort.
 

Mountain Man

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A train will run multiple trips in a day, and you can get to a thousand by selling about 250 beers or wines, or less than 400 coffees. I would guess the average is over a thousand, and could be over 2000
What's the profit margin?
 

Master29

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I don't care about anyone else's links - you made an assertion in post 721, so it's up to you to back that up and not up to anyone else to disprove it. The links you provided did nothing of the sort.
I posted a couple links in reply to someone's post where he had provided 3 links which to be fair to them were as reliable as mine. It was a quick reply and nothing else. Everything I stated in my post I stand by. No assertions were made that cannot be backed up. Maybe you can do a little investigating yourself about Cornwall, it`s people and it`s trade, be it either holiday or industrial, and it`s very rich celtic history, you might be surprised. I would be interested to know if you`ve ever visited Cornwall? If however you wish to PM me on the subjects at hand I am more than willing to provide you with links. Btw I`m not Cornish and in no way profess to be an expert in any way.
 

PHILIPE

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Tweets regarding the Trolley service are being posted continuously and the cut and paste reply from GWR is that it will be fed back to the Catering Manager but nothing seems to be happening in the way of improvements. Some time ago GWR said the situation was being reviewed to see how the service could be improved bu this reply seems to have been dropped now. As an aside, a Paddington to Penzance earlier today ran out out of milk before it had even reached Newbury.
 

pt_mad

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Tweets regarding the Trolley service are being posted continuously and the cut and paste reply from GWR is that it will be fed back to the Catering Manager but nothing seems to be happening in the way of improvements. Some time ago GWR said the situation was being reviewed to see how the service could be improved bu this reply seems to have been dropped now. As an aside, a Paddington to Penzance earlier today ran out out of milk before it had even reached Newbury.
If for example it were that the trolley couldn't get down the train due to standing/luggage, then how would anyone expect that to be improved?
 
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