Avanti shop closures when approaching Preston

[RJ]

I did that job for Virgin Trains many moons ago, before shift change you have to cash up, do a stock take and ring through a replenishment order, this all takes time. I mostly worked weekends and often ended up on the London to Glasgow trains (usually all the way through!) as those were the ones which were always short of people wanting to work them.

 

[TonyW590]

Back in the day, on a Bristol-Paddington train the buffet car would often open at Swindon and shut before Reading. This was due to "cashing up", "stock take", etc., cunningly disguised as the staff drinking tea and having a fag.

 

[dk1]

Back in the day, on a Bristol-Paddington train the buffet car would often open at Swindon and shut before Reading. This was due to "cashing up", "stock take", etc., cunningly disguised as the staff drinking tea and having a fag.

And you could smoke in the buffet car back in the day too. It was only pipes that were discouraged in the restaurant.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Back in the day, on a Bristol-Paddington train the buffet car would often open at Swindon and shut before Reading. This was due to "cashing up", "stock take", etc., cunningly disguised as the staff drinking tea and having a fag.

Back around '85 when my chores involved visiting Area Managers on the W.R. I quite often caught a particular Down early-ish morning service. The first time I caught it, the chief steward made a long announcement. It started with him announcing his name (Peter X) and went on to say what a struggle he was faced with, stock late arriving, not what he'd ordered, previous crew left the buffet in a sad state, etc. but he was doing his very best and he would let us know when the buffet would open (turned out be some time after Reading). How heartwarming.
Only little point was every time I travelled on his train he came out with the same sob story

 

[AlterEgo]

I don't think anyone really disputes the need to have a period to balance the till and restock at crew change. The issue is that, like many things on the UK's network, the process is prolonged and inefficient, and seemingly designed for the convenience of the railway rather than the customer.

I travel this route at least once a month, and it seems (judging by the public address announcements, as I have never actually used the shop on an Avanti train) that the shop is often closed as much as 20 minutes before arriving in Preston and doesn't open again until 20 minutes after leaving Preston. A proper commercial, customer-focused organisation would do it in 5 minutes.

How would they do that? What if the till doesn't balance?

 

[Bill57p9]

It did happen in BR days, however wasn't one of the promotional features of "Intercity Shuttle" that the buffet would be open from departure right up to arrival at final destination?

 

[dk1]

It did happen in BR days, however wasn't one of the promotional features of "Intercity Shuttle" that the buffet would be open from departure right up to arrival at final destination?

Only on shuttles like Birmingham/Norwich to London. Not on longer distance IC services.

 

[Hadders]

There is a difference between a shop and a train.

With a normal ‘bricks and mortar’ store there will be a permanent store manager who is ultimately responsible for the stock and cash. A full stocktake normally takes place a couple of times a year.

With a train there is no permanent manager. The train manager/catering staff vary according to the time of day, shift being worked etc. A stocktake is done at every shift change.

 

[Harratt4]

No serious business doesn’t cash up between employee shifts. Huge cash control risk. Avanti isn’t some corner caff.

You also wouldn’t give yourself only five minutes to do it if you were on a train and had to get off at Preston to catch another one you were contracted to work.

*Ahem* when I worked for M&S tills were only balanced at the end of every day. Intelligence, CCTV, an acceptance of some leakage due to error and a dose of “resource to risk” balanced the potential risk of loss with the costs of multiple till draws, floats, staff time and the risks of cash draws being swapped over during trading hours when the whole shebang could be nicked.

This was, admittedly, 26 years ago, so things could have changed, but also when our till draws could end up with upwards of £10k in them by the end of a busy Saturday.

I think M&S can just about be classed as a serious business.

Till leakage was below 3p per £100 most of the year.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Apr 2026 ==

One of the mods will shortly close it for 20 minutes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Apr 2026 ==

Not sure why it deleted my laughing emojis in reply to that amusing comment! Forum humbug lol

 

[Chrism20]

How would they do that? What if the till doesn't balance?

Pretty much the same as would happen in a bricks and mortar business - the cash gets banked and the variance is investigated.

The checking of the cash is not as difficult as some appear to think it is particularly these days with a huge number of transactions being via card.

If the stock is checked at the start and end of every shift as some are suggesting the new member of staffs stock input should be flagging a variance which would balance the previous error when the paperwork is submitted.

There are 54 items listed on the menu (Not including hot drinks) on the Avanti website. Stockholding onboard isn't huge because there is nowhere to put the stuff so a lengthy time consuming stock take really isn't holding water.

 

[AlterEgo]

Pretty much the same as would happen in a bricks and mortar business - the cash gets banked and the variance is investigated.

It's an eye opener from my time in retail banking, we wouldn't be allowed to go home if the till didn't balance and the discrepancy not explained.

 

[Chrism20]

It's an eye opener from my time in retail banking, we wouldn't be allowed to go home if the till didn't balance and the discrepancy not explained.

It's broadly accepted that there are going to be small variances here and there and that a trainee may make a few more mistakes but the figure quoted by @Harratt4 above isn't wildly off.

In retail the biggest leakage problem is stock and when you are operating with circa 95% of your stock on your side of the counter if there are stock issues it's either deliveries not being checked or products not being processed through the till properly combined with inaccurate counting. There is always going to be occasions where you get a customer with a large order say for four people and when ringing it all up a pack of crisps or something is accidentally missed. That should be baked into the tolerance levels as genuine mistakes happen.

The stocktake should be done on the POS by now rather than paper so if they are inputting the correct amounts at the start and using the till properly the system would tell them immediately you're missing a kitkat or a can of coke etc.

 

[Harratt4]

It's an eye opener from my time in retail banking, we wouldn't be allowed to go home if the till didn't balance and the discrepancy not explained.

I suspect banks might have a lower tolerance for inaccuracy than retail, after all, if you can’t trust a bank to look after money…

To move us back on topic, with at least 1 CCTV camera directly above the cash draw in the Avanti shop and only 2/3 people operating the till across the whole journey, and probably less than £40 going through the till in cash across the whole journey and less than probably £100 in the till in total including the float, counting it mid journey feels horrendously excessive.

Given how infrequently cash is likely tendered I would suggest errors in counting are much more likely than errors in transaction or theft.

If someone is on the fiddle, a pattern will soon emerge…

Also surely they don’t count stock mid journey? Just a quick glance around the place and a top up order for anything that looks a bit short would do the trick, or am I massively over simplifying things or missing something?

Back to M&S (and back in time, to note) a much bigger problem in terms of number and value of till fraud were fraudulent refunds. Either staff quietly refunding a few hundred quids worth of items onto their own card when the tolls were quiet or allowing accomplices to bring stock from the shop floor to the till for a refund. Even back then we had powerful (in those days!!!) IT systems that could show if a credit or debit card had been used alongside a staff discount card previously and whether that member of staff had done any refunds on to the same card. These days AI could do all that detective work in about 0.3 seconds so maybe staff have worked out how easily such fraud could be detected. However it Avanti think their staff are that dishonest the tills need checking every 3 hours then maybe they should be checking the 1 or 2 refunded hot chocolate and sandwiches each shift (if staff can even process refunds on train). But I fear I am flogging the dead horse that this thread has become!

 

[KNN]

I suspect banks might have a lower tolerance for inaccuracy than retail, after all, if you can’t trust a bank to look after money…

To move us back on topic, with at least 1 CCTV camera directly above the cash draw in the Avanti shop and only 2/3 people operating the till across the whole journey, and probably less than £40 going through the till in cash across the whole journey and less than probably £100 in the till in total including the float, counting it mid journey feels horrendously excessive.

If someone is on the fiddle, a pattern will soon emerge…

Indeed. Especially when you are trading off against the loss of shop revenue because it is closed (or people aren't confident it's going to be open).

 

[GordonT]

LNER tend to close the shop and pause first class catering between Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh on trains going south from Aberdeen from my personal experience.

I may be mistaken but the last time I travelled from Kirkcaldy to London with LNER, I think by virtue of the catering crew changeover happening at Haymarket rather than Edinburgh itself, catering was restored with the new team as soon as the train was departing Edinburgh. Second team was likely NE England based as I remember the lady making the catering announcements sounded exactly like the detective "Vera" in the tv drama of the same name.

 

[Travelmonkey]

some points just have strategic changeovers i.e the Evreros if you want something you have a buffer around Crewe where they change staff and stock. I do think it being a compact galley means stocking without a que of customers makes life easier. although you seem to get to Watford on some northbound Euston trips before the declaration of shop open is announced over the tannoy.

 

[p.d87]

Just for clarity, the floats/ takings leave the train with the staff, they don't stay onboard for the next crew. They are returned the depot by the crew they started with. So yes, tills need cashed before leaving the service. Be that mid journey or if someone is working the whole route depending on where the staff are diagrammed to change. Orders need to be placed. Then when delivered need put away as the space around the shop is limited so the boxes become a trip hazard. Stock checks need to be done on the POS before you can close the journey and enter the cash amounts. There are specific cleaning task to be done also. This all takes time so closing the shop to do so is necessary.

 

[BanburyBlue]

100% this.

That's the point - they don't close 'for a few minutes' do they. When I was going from Banbury to Derby and back regularly a few years back, they would close the shop just after leaving Derby, and it wouldn't be open much before Banbury.

 

[PeterC]

It's an eye opener from my time in retail banking, we wouldn't be allowed to go home if the till didn't balance and the discrepancy not explained.

My memory too. Although procedures varied depending on the amount.

Most cashiers kept a little small change from "overs" at the back of the till to make up "shorts".

 

[Harratt4]

Just for clarity, the floats/ takings leave the train with the staff, they don't stay onboard for the next crew. They are returned the depot by the crew they started with. So yes, tills need cashed before leaving the service. Be that mid journey or if someone is working the whole route depending on where the staff are diagrammed to change. Orders need to be placed. Then when delivered need put away as the space around the shop is limited so the boxes become a trip hazard. Stock checks need to be done on the POS before you can close the journey and enter the cash amounts. There are specific cleaning task to be done also. This all takes time so closing the shop to do so is necessary.

They don't need to be, that is a business decision.
Other options include adding 10 minutes on to the end of a shift and counting it at the depot after leaving the train, or keeping the same till draw from the start to the end of the journey (which is how I would do it).

Avanti must have the most counted coppers in the country!

 

[BanburyBlue]

They don't need to be, that is a business decision.
Other options include adding 10 minutes on to the end of a shift and counting it at the depot after leaving the train, or keeping the same till draw from the start to the end of the journey (which is how I would do it).

Avanti must have the most counted coppers in the country!

Totally agree - basically saying we don't trust our catering staff.

 

[LickeyIncliner]

Totally agree - basically saying we don't trust our catering staff.

The railways have always taken that view of catering and ticket office staff. It's a nuisance for the honest majority of staff and customers, but an essential deterrent to others; if there were no checks in place then the jobs would be far too attractive to people intent on making on illicit personal profit. Card-only payment has reduced the scope, but the principle remains.

 

[KNN]

I'm on a southbound train and the shop closed at 13:14 for a changeover at Wolverhampton at 13:42, reopened at 13:53 after a delayed 13:48 departure.

Irrespective of whether the shop duties take 28 minutes to complete, they really shouldn't.

As discussed, it isn't the biggest problem in the world, but it is a bad customer experience.

 

[Ju135]

Another reason why the shop closes is because crews are formed of people from multiple depots. I used to work a service to Glasgow which consisted of a Glasgow service manager and CSA (EUS-GLC), a Euston CSA (EUS-PRE), a Carlisle CSA (EUS-CAR) and a Preston CSA (EUS-PRE). Then a Glasgow CSA would join at Carlisle to Glasgow. So due to crews coming from different locations and services before commencing the journey from Euston, it's impossible to know if there are staff joining to work the remaining journey. So instead of having an unmanned shop, it makes more sense to close it. If crew join, it reopens and if they don't, it's already secured.

 

[KNN]

I think people get the logistical justifications, but it's still a bad experience and seems badly designed.

Repeated stock taking and float counting especially seems to make no sense other than being in the rules.

 

[E16 Cyclist]

I think people get the logistical justifications, but it's still a bad experience and seems badly designed.

Repeated stock taking and float counting especially seems to make no sense other than being in the rules.

I obviously can’t speak for now but when i started on the railway if stock or takings were down they were taken directly out of the wages of the person who worked that train, it did mean that staff were effectively stealing off each other though by declaring stock was short and then selling and keeping the money, but it does highlight why repeated stock taking and float counting happens

I once got a please explain for being something ridiculous down like 41p

We keep hearing about archaic practices on the railway but not all of them benefitted the staff

 

[sh24]

The simple answer is to go cashless. All that hassle and complexity removed, customer transactions sped up.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

The simple answer is to go cashless. All that hassle and complexity removed, customer transactions sped up.

A fantastic suggestion.

 

[iamraymond]

A fantastic suggestion.

I'd say go a step further and make it unstaffed, save on costs.

 

[Acathater]

The simple answer is to go cashless. All that hassle and complexity removed, customer transactions sped up.

only works where you have mobile phone reception