End of GNER catering range

[Max]

Saw this on Railchat:

I got into work today and stumbled upon a catering newsletters for us lesser important folk on-board.... which may I had nobody had bothered to say was for us or made the effort to make sure we could find it with ease.

Anyway NXEC are about to launch their brand new catering offer and to be honest its a breath of fresh air. I came from a retail management background and even I was impressed simply by this newsletter which has phrases actually used in the retail industry and looks like NX are very commited to improving the service.

A summary of whats going and changing;

First Class - Those silly little cakes & crisps are going to be replaced by good old Biscuits and Pretzels... like the old days I believe. Oh yes and apparantly the cup and saucer is going!

Dining services are seeing a big change. I'm sure many of you have walked through and seen this very extravagant layup on the tables. Well for Lunch it's being made more practical and appealing to encourage diners. Lunch will be extended to 4pm rather than 3pm as is now. The menus for Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner are all changing hugely. Those little preserves jars are returning for Breakfast trains as they look far more attractive than the current plastic tubs.

Buffet/Std Trolley. Quite frankly the biggest changes are taking place on the bar & trolley. The hot/cold sandwiches are completely changing. The core ones Egg, Tuna, BLT & Chicken are being kept some slighltly altered. There will also be premium sandwiches rotated on a monthly basis. The current hot snacks are going. A new offer of hot Panini's, Aberdeen Angus Burger, Pizza, Bacon Toasties and Heinz Big Eat meals will be on offer instead.

A new cake offering will also be rotated on a monthly basis, this will include danish pastries & scones, the items will be displayed in a wicker basket on the bar counter... as some crews do already to boost sales and it clearly works its about time they caught up as every other outlet selling food does it! The picture also shows a muffin which looks something similar to the likes of Costa/Caffe Nero but I doubt it will look like that.

Also appearing are Fruit Pastilles, Mini Hob Nobs, Mini Cheddars and.... Walkers Big Eat Crips - looks like the Pipers varieties may be going.

Hot Chocolate is changing from the current brand and will now be offered with whipped cream as an extra.

Some prices are changing, Lunch will be on a cheaper tariff than Dinner. They are also going to try and encourage passengers to 'Combo' items to get them cheaper. A kind of Meal Deal.

A true breath of fresh air I'd say. Some raised eyebrows around after reading it but NX are really making their mark. Good on them!!

Personally, I believe that this is far from all good news, and I personally will be sad to see the loss of some of these items. The Pipers Crisps are so much nicer than bog standard Walkers, and it was nice that NXEC (previously GNER of course) were supporting a small, independant company as opposed to a big multi-national brand. I personally found all the hot sandwiches very appetising, and again, it made a nice change from some of the rubbish that you get on the network. All day breakfast ciabattas and ham and cheese toasties - best hot sandwiches out of all the TOCs in my opinion. Seems they're just bringing in a fairly average new selection.

I was just commenting last week that the first class refreshments had improved significantly in recent times. The little cakes were lovely, and it was nice to be able to have some Piper's Crisps for nothing too. Back to biscuits and pretzels? Frankly, that isn't going to encourage me to go first class...

I think it's quite sad news really. GNER's food offering was so unique compared to the other TOCs. Now it looks as if we're just getting a duplicate of every other buffet car on the network.

 

[P156KWJ]

pah! Walkers crisps - woh! must have taken them ages to think what brand to choose there :roll::roll:
At least EMT have said they are now keeping the full english but they are still removing the buffet coaches from 222s and HSTs :roll:

 

[richa2002]

EMT are retaining the buffet cars. Not really sure what to think of this news about catering.

 

[Galvanize]

I think it looks OK, but it is a big shame that they may be phasing out the Pipers Crisps......

Before GO-EAT took over in the early 2000s, i seem to remember they had some really odd things on the menu, hamburger and chips. A plastic hamburger from it has been preserved at the NRM

The current GNER range i thought was good, though a bit over-priced, but then again, almost everything from any buffet/trolley service is expensive.

 

[djw1981]

The NXEC revamp has had strong input from the NXEA teams which have gained awards and passenger praise for their dining car etc, and also the NX management who used to be involved at MML have had some input to the revamping AIUI.

 

[Max]

The NXEC revamp has had strong input from the NXEA teams which have gained awards and passenger praise for their dining car etc, and also the NX management who used to be involved at MML have had some input to the revamping AIUI.

But I just think it's so average. One of the things that made travel with GNER special was that their food was that little bit more 'special'. It's all really high quality stuff. With brands such as Heinz and Walkers appearing, I can't see how this can be an improvement.

 

[voyagerdude220]

I don't actually know what to make of this, tbh.

What confused me on NXEC, is that on the only journey i've made with them so far, Motherwell- Haymarket, I was only offered a glass of orange juice (amongst other soft drinks), but no actual snacks/food.

This is in contrast with the GNER offering on the Aberdeen-Edinburgh HST, where I got many drinks, crisps, snacks etc included, and I was truely impressed with the service I got.

Because i'm not sure what is actually complimentary in FC on NXEC, i've always hesitated buying an NXEC Adv 1st single, as they always seem to be far more expensive compared to other companies Adv 1st singles for similar length journeys, e.g. Virgin West Coast, and whatever One railway is called now..

Edit: Forgot to say that hot paninis sound a little interesting.
VT bacon rolls are history- The best ever product i've ever seen on a TOC's buffet/shop has been altered to a disgusting bap format

 

[richa2002]

No proper food is complimentary with NXEC, only crisps (currently) and biscuits plus fruit I think.

 

[voyagerdude220]

Thanks Richard for confirming this.

What really confused me on the NXEC set from Motherwell, was that the at-seat service menu, specially for FC, had prices for drinks like the Orange Juice i had, even though you obviously don't pay for a complimentary drink...

The sandwiches on the trolley were priced at a huge premium, but with it being 10:00 ex Motherwell, and the fact I had a very enjoyable Full English on the Pendo ex Preston (390008) I wasn't tempted at all.

 

[djw1981]

The VXC ones tended to suffer for being prepared days in advanced , chilled to the extent where condensation formed on the inside of the packaging making the bread soggy, then microwaved leading to soggy bread, limp bacon and lots of water and fat sloshing around in between.

 

[Nym]

was the same on a VWC one that I got back from EUS - MAN, Shipe food, no choice of beer or wine either, had to have a tin of smooth, which was tolerable but needed after spending a day in london!

 

[Tom B]

You only traveled once - I find it is, usually, dependent upon the staff. Some will go up and down a few times, others will do it once then bugger off for break.

Of course, one made the mistake of parking the trolley opposite me for about 4 hours. They probably had to fill up on those little shortbreads before the next trip...

 

[Nym]

Yeah, but thats what we're like in Yorkshire

 

[vc-10]

One problem with FGW's first class catering is that the drinks are always warm. I've never had a cold coke on a FGW HST, apart from the ones you buy (though they are in a fridge at the Paddington lounge). They don't give you enough food either, but I don't think that their journeys are ever too long, apart from the ones all the way to Penzance. They have little bags of nuts (I've got ones with Virgin Trains branding on them before!), some very nice biscuits, and fruit. I've once got a small danish, on a more 'peak' service, from Paddington.

 

[Max]

No proper food is complimentary with NXEC, only crisps (currently) and biscuits plus fruit I think.

It depends on what's in stock I think. I got 2 pieces of cake, a shortbread, a packet of Piper's crisps, and about 4 glasses of orange juice during my 4 hour journey from Edinburgh-Hull. I was actually very impressed, as previously you only seemed to get biscuits! And for only £10 more than the cheapest STD advance, it was good value. I got all those freebies, a reclining seat with a decent sized table all to myself so I could work easily, as well as other refreshments served to my seat in glasses and on plates. Plus I bought a buffet voucher at the station before departure and saved another £1.50 off my non complimentary food!

To be honest, I think Virgin and Hull Trains are the only TOCs that serve proper food to first class customers. Not sure about Virgin, but you really pay a premium for this on Hull Trains - the cheapest first advance Hull-London is much more expensive than the cheapest NXEC first advance.

 

[me123]

I liked GNER's range, but the new range looks very good indeed. More hot snacks is definately a good thing IMO, as I previously had found hot snacks rather limited. A wider range of snacks would also be nice: I once asked if they had and chocolate biscuits (my first GNER trip) and she only had muffins.

I will miss the old buffet, but unlike many people I think the new one is very good and will boost both sales and customer satisfaction. I for one look forward to a wider choice as a rather fussy passenger.

 

[djw1981]

Maybe you should become less fussy hock:and knock of the chocolate biccy's

 

[schmoo_smith]

anyone remember those root veg crisps gner did, they were lovely

 

[P156KWJ]

sort of odd, I am closely involved at the GCRN with on train catering on a smaller scale. We have a mk2F RFO and 2 Catering trolleys for the mk1 stock. For the first few weeks of catering on-train, it was a massive success. Our only difficulty is not being able to serve hot food as we all need Food and Hygene certificates, and unfortunately the only thing that failed the safety checks on the RFO was the microwave :roll:

 

[djw1981]

A Food & Hygeine course is only about 3hrs long, and a cost of about £25 per person - though less if you can fill the course.... and is a very useful certificate to have.

 

[45002]

They could always go back in time

http://www.nrm.org.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/2002/BRB_sandwich.asp

I liked the BR sandwich

Now here one for you

Does anyone remember "The Goon Show" and there take on the BR sandwich

MARTIN

 

[me123]

Aboput the food hygeine course: we were given the opertunity to do it at school as part of "good4u day", but I didn't partake. They covered the course in about 2 hours and got their certicates. All said it was easy but boring. Apparently a ot of it is common sense with some random facts thrown in on top of it.

 

[First ScotRail]

Maybe these changes will make NXEC staff to actually open the buffet out of edinburgh when the train goes to Glasgow and not to clear first class when you are still there!!

 

[Tom B]

They could also do with speeding up their stock take. It cannot take that long to count "4 muffins, 2 of the crisps nobody likes, and a couple of overpriced cans of coke". My record is the buffet shutting on departure from York for a changeover at Newcastle...!

 

[Galvanize]

How about Stoke summit en route to KX? Claimed they were stock-taking, but i saw the man shut the buffet down, he and the buffet staff just went and sat in FC!

 

[yorkie]

How about Stoke summit en route to KX? Claimed they were stock-taking, but i saw the man shut the buffet down, he and the buffet staff just went and sat in FC!

Yeah, stock taking. As in taking the stock and eating it probably

I once did a trip from Edinburgh to Berwick (where I was breaking my journey) and sat near the buffet car and saw how they very delicately prepared the buffet with extreme care placing everything in it's place. Unfortunately they had not opened by the time to Berwick (57 miles from Waverley!) so I had to do without a ham & cheese toastie for breakfast that morning :roll: A few hours later I witnessed the rudest VXC guard imaginable between Berwick and Newcastle. Not the best advert for rail travel that day....