Unsurprisingly I have differing views to many of you in this thread - suffice to say some of the "concerns" :roll: raised herein are bordering on the ridiculous. I can assure you we are not all anti-social aisle blockers peddling overpriced lukewarm tat and soggy sandwiches. Some of us love doing our job, getting massive job satisfaction and receive positive feedback from our passengers so it's disheartening to hear the level of hatred aimed at us by some of those on here. We may not be the most glamorous or essential of railway workers and I appreciate we may not be everyone's cup of tea (pun intended), but to read some of the "thoughts" on here you'd think we were the worst blight to hit modern rail travel since Dr Beeching's little red pen.
Are those of you anti-trolleyites seriously suggesting ripping out seating space on DMUs such as 158s or 175s in favour of a permanent buffet? Do those of you who prefer buffets find that pax meandering precariously down aisles carrying hot drinks preferable to having it prepared at your seat by someone who has had months, if not years of practice balancing on trains? I can work in a single shift up to 4 different types of DMU - would you convert all of these to include a buffet? A poster mentioned "progress" - frankly it's just a case of needs-must to be honest - persons may have a romantic image of trains with buffets and restaurants but they are not fashionable, practical or popular on certain services.
In mitigation, I am not naiive enough to think that one size fits all, and I will admit I am biased because of the position I am in, and my experience of other services is limited to a certain number of TOCs that I have travelled on (or have heard about through family.) As indeed, I expect, a number of views on here are based on limited exposure to differing types of service levels, so apologies if you feel put out by my reaction. I just felt it necessary to put across my views at this time. I would say though, to those of you who think them dangerous or a nuisance (perhaps in reactionary mode to the Swansea incident, of which I have little to no knowledge outside of what has been reported in the rags) that we are not all cowboys, and some of us know how to intelligently and safely work a train without inconvenience to pax or safety-critical crew.
Rant over!