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If they're doing trial runs I hope they keep it off services currently timetabled as operating with a restaurant. Although I'd be curious to see a sneak peak of the new service I'd be disappointed if I was on a train expecting a three course meal and got something less substantial.

So why play it on trains that's not split? It means nothing to most people anyway. This coach is for XXX, please move to the rear X coaches for all destinations to YYY. Always sounds odd on the rare occasion it pops up on the ELL.

If it lets me attach them here's some Grand Central menus that I found on my machine in its download folder (have to love the quick search facility on the Mac). These were the ones published on the original GC website.

This is coach number 2 of 4 - often heard on Southern trains. What's the point when there's no allocated seating? Even odder I sometimes hear the same announcement on London Overground stock (same voice as Southern, which is different to the standard LO voice).

I'm sure FGW still operates a proper restaurant on a few trains. Anyone got any views on it - how does it compare to EC?

When NXEC introduced a reservation fee for standard class passengers (advance passengers still got free reservations as it was a compulsory part of their ticket) they received so much bad publicity that EC quickly scrapped it. I supported the reservation charge, it made those with flexible...

They published menus for it on their website so I thought it had started already. Never did try Grand Central as I needed to go from London - Heworth and a regular fast GNER service to Newcastle beat an occasional slow (it's fast enough to York but seems to take the slow route beyond there)...

When Grand Central started they offered a restaurant service (this was when they had an all HST fleet). They were competing against GNER then and had to try harder. It's a shame the quality has dropped since then.

Does National Express use the former GNER call centre for their other franchises? It seems odd to me how the call centre didn't transfer over to East Coast at the end of the franchise.

Any evidence of that? A decent telesales operation based in Newcastle was always a nice point about GNER and I was happy that NXEC retained it. One time many years ago I tried to call Virgin telesales (for Crosscountry, but I assume Virgin had one number for WC and XC) and it was an automated...

Oh yeah, they now charge for postage which is something NXEC never lowered themself to do. However, they only charge postage if it's on a route where you can't collect from a ticket machine and even then sometimes there's still no charge showing for postage. There's other train operators...

I was a GNERtime member at the time and never did get invited for the beta testing of the site. I think that's because prior to the launch of the new booking engine I never booked tickets online because I despised thetrainlines interface and so I used to just use GNER's excellent telesales service.

Exactly, but it was developed for GNER originally by Atos Origin and now other TOC's use it. http://www.flow-interactive.com/case-study-national-express-east-coast

Perhaps it'll convince more TOC's to switch to the GNER booking engine and either force thetrainline to improve or go out of business. Didn't GNER invest the money in developing the better booking engine, but with their financial woes the site was only ready a few weeks before GNER...

I think the confusion is caused because many tube trains have buttons but they're never used so they assume trains will be the same. Are passengers ever expected to open the doors themselves on the tube? As I'm sure all the trains are custom built for LU (well the Central line stock is shared...

Some trains (like the 378's used on the ELL) won't open the door if you keep your finger held down on the button before the doors are activated. You have to lift your finger off and press again.

A shoddy little station for a long distance operator to use. I wonder how many people just assume it's going to be Westgate as that's where the trains to London generally leave from. Grand Central's own page does not give much prominence to the fact it is Kirkgate, just mentioned once in...

That's good news (never knew this myself). Personally I think East Coast should keep it until the end of the original GNER/NXEC franchise and re-let from there. There's been so much uncertainty on this route for both staff and customers that it'd be good to have a reasonable operator in charge...

The Abellio logo (they took over Travel London buses from National Express) contains the Nederlandse Spoorwegen logo which seems to be based on a similar concept to the BR logo. So the tickets will have the BR logo and the trains (if they get the franchise) will have the Dutch Railways logo...

Yeah, but as an escape member I get 20% off EC advance tickets booked online, so add to the hassle of going to the slow moving 'tickets in advance' queue at the station I'd also have to pay more for the privilege. EDIT: By escape I mean East Coast Rewards :)