If every GWR IET has an on board kitchen...

[Ashley Hill]

The new Mk5 sleepers are side corridor stock, are they not? How does the width of the corridor compare to the kitchen corridor on an HST?

Do they have an universal accesable berth and adjacent toilet ?

 

[43096]

Do they have an universal accesable berth and adjacent toilet ?

They do have such facilities, but the point is about emergency evacuation - which is apparently the restriction on a mid-train kitchen/buffet facility.

 

[jimm]

How many diagrams are required to run the hourly Paddington-Plymouth/Penzance fasts (which I assume include the Pullman services)?

I agree, particularly that 'railway catering should be actively desirable'. If passengers could rely on getting a decent breakfast or evening meal on board that would be a hugely helpful service which could help attract passengers to the railway. If making a long journey across Britain to start a holiday, it may well be too late to find an evening meal by the time you reach your destination. Going to bed without a nice cooked meal isn't a great way to start a holiday. This is a service that should be available to standard class passengers, ideally with a menu that is not too fancy so that it can be priced at a level the majority of standard class passengers can consider affordable, not just in first. The difficultly is either keeping passenger's seats and luggage safe so that they can get to a buffet to buy food or finding a way of providing an at-seat hot food service throughout the train without excessive staffing costs.

The actual difficulty is not losing a shedload of money providing such a service, whether at a buffet counter or at seat. That is the fundamental issue - and has been discussed on this forum previously - e.g. in this thread

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/petition-to-bring-back-the-buffet-on-gwr.181401/page-36

If you are a state-owned operator, such as DB, you tend to have rather more wriggle room for subsidising catering (which it did to the tune of almost 80 million euros in 2016) than if you are a franchised UK private operator, with both the company's shareholders and the DfT to answer to when it comes to keeping down your costs and generating profit - and making premium payments to the Government if that is what the franchise agreement says you will do.

 

[HowardGWR]

Fair enough, but it does seem somewhat odd that pax who travel early from, say, Exeter, to Norwich or Doncaster (*) could expect buffet or dining facilities on GA or LNER, but in reverse might only get a trolley on GWR. Also, when crossing London between terminals, the last thing one has on one's mind is stopping off at station facilities, unless one discovers a long wait on reaching the far terminal.

* I've assumed via London is cheaper and probably quicker than cross country. using XC and other regional connections. I don't know that though.

 

[Mogz]

Fair enough, but it does seem somewhat odd that pax who travel early from, say, Exeter, to Norwich or Doncaster (*) could expect buffet or dining facilities on GA or LNER, but in reverse might only get a trolley on GWR. Also, when crossing London between terminals, the last thing one has on one's mind is stopping off at station facilities, unless one discovers a long wait on reaching the far terminal.

* I've assumed via London is cheaper and probably quicker than cross country. using XC and other regional connections. I don't know that though.

You would only get a trolly on CrossCountry nowadays if you chose to do it that way.

Even on the HSTs there’s a vast amount of coach space taken up with an unused kitchen and buffet, shown on the seating plan as a staff area.

Come to think of it, if XC are going to retain HSTs this area, with its adjacent corridor, would be a great place to put in some family compartments for those very long distance journeys...

 

[ainsworth74]

Even on the HSTs there’s a vast amount of coach space taken up with an unused kitchen and buffet, shown on the seating plan as a staff area.

There is no buffet and the "kitchen" is about as large as the galley on a Voyager. An XC HST has eight standard class seats and then thirty first class seats in that vehicle whilst an LNER HST had just seventeen first class seats. So not really "vast" amounts of space taken up

 

[RailWonderer]

Most people? Do you have a properly conducted opinion poll with a large sample of people to indicate that is the case? Didn't think so...

In case you haven't noticed, the 5-car sets for TPE and Hull trains have kitchen areas that are a whole one window bay shorter than on the GWR and LNER five-car sets. There still needs to be somewhere to have hot water boilers and microwaves, store the food and drink supplies for trolleys, etc.

As I noted above, if a future operator in the GW area wanted to do something like the LNER/Avanti first class food offer, then they would need a kitchen - which was a large part of the DfT's thinking when it specified the kitchens in the IEP orders in the first place. Taking them out would cost a packet and put trains out of action for a long time - as would putting them back.

Morning services heading out of London are far quieter than those coming in. When GWR was offering Travelling Chef on a fair number of trains, it was almost all inbound in the weekday peaks and Saturday mornings, with the crews serving brunch on their way home in mid to late morning. So GWR has plenty of background knowledge about what will and will not work from that experience - especially as it lost a packet, which was why Travelling Chef was stopped.

As for affluence being a factor in Pullman dining take-up, I can't say I am particularly affluent but have had the odd Pullman lunch down the years - and the people dining at that time of the day are certainly not all business types in suits.

I think something seasonal could be viable. Morning services out of Paddington to Bath, Bristol and Exeter in my expereince were heavily loaded - couples and families on Christmas breaks. As for kitchens, the more 9 cars and less 5 cars argument was made a long time ago so I wont rehash it but it was specifically becasue of the catering and seating issues. I am aware all of that is far too late to change now. And all I meant by most people was the fact shorter distance travellers way outnumbered longer distance passengers in the GWR surveys and logically they preferred seats over kitchens and buffet catering, but that is by the by.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Out of interest before I reply what do you consider to be the "affordable price range" for such a meal?

Not sure to be honest, but after a quick Google I see that a pub meal (eg. scampi and chips) can be had for about £10 so perhaps £10 for the breakfast and £12-15 for the evening meal on-board? I really don't have a clue what passengers would consider reasonable though.

I think though that the only question I asked in the post you quoted was the following one, which isn't related to the price of the meals, the rest being meerly a statement of my opinion:

How many diagrams are required to run the hourly Paddington-Plymouth/Penzance fasts (which I assume include the Pullman services)?

The actual difficulty is not losing a shedload of money providing such a service, whether at a buffet counter or at seat. That is the fundamental issue - and has been discussed on this forum previously - e.g. in this thread

Well yes, which is why I put the 'without excessive staffing costs' bit in there. You could possibly provide an at-seat hot food service if you had lots of staff carting food up and down the train but the costs would be excessive. The buffet option requires fewer staff, but if pepole don't want to leave their seat it might not see enough custom to pay back the costs.

As for kitchens, the more 9 cars and less 5 cars argument was made a long time ago so I wont rehash it but it was specifically becasue of the catering and seating issues. I am aware all of that is far too late to change now. And all I meant by most people was the fact shorter distance travellers way outnumbered longer distance passengers in the GWR surveys and logically they preferred seats over kitchens and buffet catering, but that is by the by.

I believe a 9-car set has virtually the same number of seats as a pair of 5-car sets due to the duplicated cabs and kitchen. I think the difference in number of seats is in low single-figures. The cost saving from running 9 cars instead of 10 would surely help pay for better catering. While it's too late to change the spec of the current fleet, I think this point is still relevant in case electrification is extended which would allow EMUs to replace bi-modes on Oxford, Bristol and Cardiff services (with the bi-modes being cascaded to XC).

 

[supervc-10]

I think an 'order to your seat' option over the wifi would be a good option. It's done on the airlines. Don't see why a train is any different!

 

[jimm]

Well yes, which is why I put the 'without excessive staffing costs' bit in there. You could possibly provide an at-seat hot food service if you had lots of staff carting food up and down the train but the costs would be excessive. The buffet option requires fewer staff, but if pepole don't want to leave their seat it might not see enough custom to pay back the costs.

Well that's the problem, isn't it? In order to provide an at-seat service, you need the staff. Travelling Chef lost a packet with just paying the chef and the buffet steward who took the orders and handed them across the counter - and the steward needed to be on the train and paid anyway to provide the normal buffet service.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Well that's the problem, isn't it? In order to provide an at-seat service, you need the staff. Travelling Chef lost a packet with just paying the chef and the buffet steward who took the orders and handed them across the counter - and the steward needed to be on the train and paid anyway to provide the normal buffet service.

Part of the issue of the Travelling Chef was that all they did was basically toasted sandwiches, though. Not a great sales pitch.

Personally I prefer DB's approach of serving stuff that can be easily microwaved on proper plates etc. Chillies, curries, Bockwurst, that sort of thing.

 

[jimm]

Part of the issue of the Travelling Chef was that all they did was basically toasted sandwiches, though. Not a great sales pitch.

Personally I prefer DB's approach of serving stuff that can be easily microwaved on proper plates etc. Chillies, curries, that sort of thing.

There was a bit more to the menu than something out of a sandwich toaster. And the food was served on 'proper plates' in FGW first class.

The people calling the shots on the railways here do not prefer DB's approach of losing millions of euros on catering costs every year.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The people calling the shots on the railways here do not prefer DB's approach of losing millions of euros on catering costs every year.

Partly because they understand the price of everything and the value of nothing. That tide seems to be turning, though, with e.g. TPE ordering rolling stock which doesn't follow the "pack them in" approach - catering would be another aspect of that.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Partly because they understand the price of everything and the value of nothing. That tide seems to be turning, though, with e.g. TPE ordering rolling stock which doesn't follow the "pack them in" approach - catering would be another aspect of that.

Really do DB understand the value? As Bord-Bistro/Bord-Restauraunt looses nearly 80 million euro per year, thats an awful lot of cost to find value for....

Put it another way how much extra would you be prepared to pay on your ticket for every rail journey to fund the Bord-Bistro?

 

[43096]

There was a bit more to the menu than something out of a sandwich toaster. And the food was served on 'proper plates' in FGW first class.

They used to a splendid breakfast baguette on Travelling Chef which was a regular purchase when I was travelling on FGW.

As I recall it there was rather more than what Bletchleyite is suggesting to the menu - it’s a shame it didn’t continue. Was it marketed correctly?

 

[AngusH]

If DB is loosing 80 million euro a year on catering, and has long distance passenger figures of 148 million per year (per 2018)

This would appear to be about 0.54 euro [54 euro cents] per single passenger journey.

(does this seem right?)

 

[Mogz]

Given half decent microwavable ready meals are now available in many forms, perhaps the answer would be to have a sit-down “Cafe Car” providing a selection of hot meals that don’t have to be cooked from scratch but which nevertheless provide a decent hot meal at a reasonable price?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Given half decent microwavable ready meals are now available in many forms, perhaps the answer would be to have a sit-down “Cafe Car” providing a selection of hot meals that don’t have to be cooked from scratch but which nevertheless provide a decent hot meal at a reasonable price?

Yes, that's what I'd do.

 

[AngusH]

It would probably be something like a "starbucks" type cafe but modified a bit perhaps?
Maybe with slightly bigger range of hot meals


(edited to rephrase without affecting meaning)