London North Eastern Railway (LNER) First Class service

[Butts]

I've never had a problem with East Coast's First Class other than once or twice.

Every train I've been on out of London has had food. Only once they didn't have the dessert I wanted, but I was quite happy with the cheese selection and it actually got me into some new cheeses that I had never had before!

When I've been in First Class on the 2000 it's odd to think that just a few coaches along a group of young women wearing next to nothing are swearing their heads off and causing mayhem and a huge mess for the cleaners. Meanwhile I'm in relative peace with the only noise being that coming from the clattering of plates as the crew have tidied away.

First Class to me is more of a way to escape the (sometimes) mayhem of Standard Class and get something to eat/drink out of it.

I will admit when I book East Coast I do always expect a meal on board, if one wasn't supplied then I would get quite hungry as I don't take extra snacks with me!

And you didn't invite them in for a drink ? :roll:

 

[yorkie]

Great service from Newcastle based crew on 1330 Edinburgh - kings cross (afternoon tea).

Is there a way to find which trains are manned by London crews so I can avoid them?

 

[Butts]

Great service from Newcastle based crew on 1330 Edinburgh - kings cross (afternoon tea).

Is there a way to find which trains are manned by London crews so I can avoid them?

Perhaps the domicile of the crew should appear alongside the catering symbol in the Timetable

Surprised to hear a resounding endorsement of A "Scone Express" - however we all have our preferences.

Any Scotch on the horizon ?

 

[leightonbd]

Great service from Newcastle based crew on 1330 Edinburgh - kings cross (afternoon tea).

Is there a way to find which trains are manned by London crews so I can avoid them?

Newcastle crew looked after us very well on the 1830 from KGX the other night. Generous and friendly service.

THat lamb off the new menu was tough as old boots though, shame because the dish is a lovely idea and the spuds and red cabbage were excellent. Maybe it is just too difficult to execute on board. They did say they had had trouble with the ovens.

 

[HST Power]

I've never travelled First Class so can't comment on the service, but from what I've seen in this thread over the last couple of years, the food side of things need sorting out massively.

That's because the last 300 pages are mostly a constant bombardment about how awful the service is. I wonder what the ratio is between posts that praise the service and posts that slate it? I bet it's swung toward the latter.

Time and time again, I come to this thread only to read; 'Went First Class today; I wasted my money, I could've gone to M&S and sat in Standard Class.'

Yet this thread continues to roll on by, and First Class numbers are up big time.

 

[Squaddie]

Time and time again, I come to this thread only to read; 'Went First Class today; I wasted my money, I could've gone to M&S and sat in Standard Class.'

The only people likely to write that are those who choose first class specifically for the freebies. I would imagine that most passengers who travel in first class do so for the space and the ambience, and don't really care what the catering's like. (But, as one of those passengers, I would agree that if a TOC is going to make its catering a selling point then it should at least make an effort to provide a consistently good product).

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

The only people likely to write that are those who choose first class specifically for the freebies. I would imagine that most passengers who travel in first class do so for the space and the ambience, and don't really care what the catering's like. (But, as one of those passengers, I would agree that if a TOC is going to make its catering a selling point then it should at least make an effort to provide a consistently good product).

Yes I would agree with that. I like the extra space and the general ambience in First Class.

In fact, I have found the catering service has been extra good on the slower services that start at York to Kings Cross.

I think onboard catering & service on the trains, be it on East Coast, Virgin, FGW, or MML/EMT, Eurostar etc is similar to when flying, it very much depends on the crew onboard and any particular circumstances/difficulties on the day. I have sometimes bought a few bits from M&S, Sainsburys or Upper Crust, (They do very good baguettes) if I have been worried about lack of food/drink on the train. (I did have a very good experience one morning on TPE all the way from Preston to Manchester early one morning, offered 2 coffees and pastries, it's only about 30-45 minutes journey time too!)

 

[manxqueenies]

I have recently concluded a week on first class ALR with a few add on trips and tried the old and new menus, I have tried to upload photos but only seem to be able to get one uploaded - that said I have to say the on the whole I was very impressed with the East Coast service. Ok the food was not of the brilliant standard of FGW Pullman, or ATW service from Cardiff but it was head and shoulders above Virgin, CC, and other operators.

Virgin ran out of food more often than not, but drinks better. East Coast did vary on service and offering - but breakfasts were consistently good, even the early starters from Doncaster north and Inverness south.

Highlights of new menu were steak pie - stuffed solid with delicious tender beef, the sea bream with kale was great, cheese and bics good.

But what made the real difference were the staff - the Inverness and Newcastle crews were a credit to the company and of a standard that I would go out of my way to travel with them again - full of character and personable. Leeds and London crews were more functional but still ok.

I found I juggled my trip to do extra runs down the Northumberland coast - the fantastic views but good service too - the lovely run through the Lake District and shap was great - but service not good when Virgin ran out of hot food, dessert available was Branson and port as cheese and puddings ran out on 25% loaded train!

I know EC have mixed reviews but I have to say I loved the journeys with them...

 

[Chew Chew]

Can anyone advise what I should be offered on the Hogmanay service leaving Aberdeen at 1452? I'll be getting on at Aberdeen and travelling to Edinburgh.

Will there still be a hot food offering or will it have wound down by then due to it being Hogmanay and it will be a selection of cold food instead?

 

[YorkshireRider]

Can anyone advise what I should be offered on the Hogmanay service leaving Aberdeen at 1452? I'll be getting on at Aberdeen and travelling to Edinburgh.

Will there still be a hot food offering or will it have wound down by then due to it being Hogmanay and it will be a selection of cold food instead?

It will just be cold sandwiches, crisps and sweet snacks, no hot food. Although a full drinks selection will be offered including alcohol

 

[johntea]

What can I expect to be treated to on the 19:28 York to Newcastle service this Friday?

Using a newspaper promotion I got a free tenner towards an East Coast website booking, so I've paid £0.15 for a First Class ticket

 

[Chew Chew]

It will just be cold sandwiches, crisps and sweet snacks, no hot food. Although a full drinks selection will be offered including alcohol

Cheers for confirming.

 

[Tetchytyke]

What can I expect to be treated to on the 19:28 York to Newcastle service this Friday?

Generally speaking sod all, you're not entitled to the complimentary food or alcohol on journeys of less than 70 minutes. But it seems to depend on the crew.

What did you get?

 

[badger1badger]

What can I expect to be treated to on the 19:28 York to Newcastle service this Friday?

Using a newspaper promotion I got a free tenner towards an East Coast website booking, so I've paid £0.15 for a First Class ticket

Brilliant - which news paper !?

 

[PaxVobiscum]

At last, I have achieved more toast!
Never been offered 'seconds' before, but this morning the 0650 ex GLC has come up trumps:

First coffee 7:09am (just after Motherwell)
Toast & orange juice at 7:25am
GB Breakfast at 7:27am
Coffee at 8:14am
Toast & orange juice again at 8:42am.

EDIT: offered more coffee at 9:22am!
This is the most attentive service I've had for a long while between Glasgow and Newcastle.

 

[Butts]

At last, I have achieved more toast!
Never been offered 'seconds' before, but this morning the 0650 ex GLC has come up trumps:

First coffee 7:09am (just after Motherwell)
Toast & orange juice at 7:25am
GB Breakfast at 7:27am
Coffee at 8:14am
Toast & orange juice again at 8:42am.

EDIT: offered more coffee at 9:22am!
This is the most attentive service I've had for a long while between Glasgow and Newcastle.

I take it that is the 0800 from Edinburgh....hmmm looks like you could blag a breakfast between GLA and EDB

 

[PaxVobiscum]

I take it that is the 0800 from Edinburgh....hmmm looks like you could blag a breakfast between GLA and EDB

Well, I'm quite that if anyone could do it, that person would be you!

That train is usually pretty quiet in 1st class (mid week anyway) between Glasgow and Edinburgh. I have always finished the full breakfast option by Waverley so it should be feasible.

This morning the chap opposite me ordered the salmon omelette just after he boarded at Waverley but didn't get it until well after Alnmouth, and he was getting off at Newcastle. He managed it, just.

 

[YorkshireRider]

Oh dear someone does not like the offering

Not long ago, dinner on a train was an event.

In a dining car with white tablecloths you could eat hearty fare served by jolly staff while the world whizzed by at a hundred miles an hour. It didn’t matter whether you were travelling first or standard class, everyone was welcome and it cost around £20 for three courses. There was soup, steak and school pudding or a generous plate of cheese and biscuits.

That was then. Now we have East Coast Trains.

The temporary owner of the most valuable transport link between our region and our capital did away with the restaurant car and so 600 people down the back have a tiny bar, with chilled pre-cooked meals or packaged sandwiches, whilst 150 at the front get a “first-class complimentary offer”.

According to the train company, this meal is free, but, as East Coast’s press office told us, the food and drinks service “helped it achieve a 19% rise in First Class journeys in the two years since it was launched”, so it’s clear that people are choosing to pay a great deal extra for the food and drink.

£57 a head, in fact. That’s the average price difference I found between first and standard class tickets during mealtimes. For this you get a wider seat, a free internet service that hasn’t worked on any of the four journeys I’ve taken in the last fortnight, and a meal “offer”.

£57 is more than a 12-course lunch at the 6-star Raby Hunt, and three times the early evening two-course special at Café 21. And that’s on top of the cost of the journey itself, which can be up to an extra £150.

The people at East Coast trains are very proud of their food. They claim to serve “the best quality products, sourcing ingredients as close as possible to our route”. Mrs Diner and I passed three hours’ worth of eligible cows during our trip to London last week.

We had breakfast on the 9.59. The previous week on another train I’d had “warming porridge”. It was lukewarm and lumpy, which for a bowl of instant porridge costing £57, is quite an achievement.

The menu on our table promised to “make you feel at home”. Breakfast at home is a couple of barely boiled eggs, homemade toast, freshly squeezed orange juice and a cappuccino with two extra shots. Away from home, in pretty much any hotel in the world, I’d expect a bowl of fresh fruit salad followed by a fry-up, some little pains au chocolat, freshly squeezed orange juice and a cappuccino with two extra shots.

At 9.59am, there’s no fry-up. East Coast’s idea of mid-morning breakfast is a “choice” of porridge, a bacon sandwich, or a cheese omelette. Not all three, just one, with a glass of concentrated orange juice from a box on a trolley, one slice of granary toast or a chewy croissant, and terrible, tepid coffee.

When the train passed Darlington, the trolley trundled past again, but only offered itself to “passengers from Darlington.” This meanness made me feel like I was sitting in a works canteen, rather than a first class restaurant.

Though the staff are as friendly as ever and the views just as cow-filled, this is the opposite of service. At these prices, a first class trolley should be constantly touring passengers offering jars of quality yoghurts, freshly warmed pastries and jugs of freshly squeezed juice.

Mrs Diner had the bacon sandwich, with reasonably good smoked piggy stuffed into a cheap pappy bap.

I had a fairly decent cheese omelette with spicy tomato salsa, let down by a mound of pre-cooked and reheated spinach. The coffee came round again at York, a little warmer.

We returned at half past five, too early for a meal in town and too late for supper at home. So dinner was important, even though it effectively cost us £75 a head this time.

There was no appetiser, but a choice of three dishes: an individual chicken curry pie, a “trio of sausages and mash” and a penne “putenesca”, which I guessed meant puttanesca.

Mrs Diner’s pasta was so overcooked, it had almost dissolved – it was penne mousse. My pie was a little better, though it desperately lacked tamarind or coriander chutney instead of the mound of totally dry lettuce. Meanwhile piles of withered sausage trios came past, wafting the distinctive aroma of gravy powder.

Dessert was hot chocolate fondant, which would have been fine had it been hot, and the meanest portions of cheese I have ever seen. Tiny slices of Coastal cheddar and Isle of Wight blue: both excellent cheeses, of course, but dwarved by their biscuits and celery.

Wine was free – huge tumblerfuls of cheap plonk. We certainly needed it.

Secret Diner’s Verdict
(out of 5 stars)

Food: 1
Service: 2
Ambience: 4

Source

 

[westv]

It would appear that the person who wrote the article assumes prices would be less if there was no "free" offer. Something thay I very much doubt.

 

[LowLevel]

They would appear to be of the opinion shared by EMT and implemented on their trains - charge a modest fee for a good plateful of decent quality food, and throw some money into offering a really excellent quality free chef cooked breakfast on a number of specified trains. Rather than just give half hearted at best and say it's complimentary so you can't complain.

 

[Butts]

Oh dear someone does not like the offering



Source

Sounds like "Dave Newcastle" has been freelancing

 

[YorkshireRider]

Sounds like "Dave Newcastle" has been freelancing

I did wonder

 

[Blindtraveler]

My Goodness, thats one slightly anoyed diner! Got to say I do agree with him on many things - yes ok I'll go first more now to get a bite included but still, on some runs e.g evenings I would still use and pay for a full restaurant service and morn the loss of this.

 

[flymo]

I had my first and probably only experience of the East Coast First Class complimentary offer recently on a trip from Newcastle - London. This was a lunch time departure from Newcastle (12:25) so may not have been the most extravagant offer.

Got a coffee just after boarding was OK, nothing to write home about, certainly had better and hotter, but OK. The only thing on the menu that caught my eye was the quiche which was again OK but just a warmed up store bought-thing by the look of it. Certainly hot though. This came just after Darlington

Later on, just after Peterborough the food came around again and I asked for a small triangular sandwich (beef and something) I got this when she came back again and it was inedible, dried out practically stale bread which went straight in the bin.

My verdict on this offer on this particular train was totally underwhelming. Next time, even if in First Class I'll just get some pastries or something from a bakery or bring my own stuff.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Sounds like "Dave Newcastle" has been freelancing

I did wonder

It wasn't anything to do with me! (or not knowingly, anyway!).

Though the feature does express some of my sentiments, not that I can remember paying less than £30 for a three course meal with wine back in the Restaurant Car days.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I've travelled first class on both EastCoast and NXEC, before and after the "complimentary offer".

The tickets were no cheaper when all you got for your first class money was a cup of tepid coffee- served with a carton of "tastes like real ****"- and a biscuit. And people were just as bitchy about the offering then too.

The food was better back then, yes. But when a beefburger and wedges costs £10.95, and the wine was another £4.95, it bloody well should be better.

Commercially EastCoast did the right thing, and the fact first class ticket sales have risen 19% at a time when most companies are removing first class travel as a perk proves that.

The restaurant cars were nice- mostly for people who wanted to travel first class but didn't want to pay for it.

 

[Squaddie]

Commercially EastCoast did the right thing, and the fact first class ticket sales have risen 19% at a time when most companies are removing first class travel as a perk proves that.

A 19% rise in sales does not necessarily mean a 19% rise in income, as it may be an indication of more people travelling on cheap Advance offsetting a fall in the number paying full fare. (I'm not suggesting that's the case, as I don't know what the figures are, but it's something that needs to be considered).

 

[Butts]

A 19% rise in sales does not necessarily mean a 19% rise in income, as it may be an indication of more people travelling on cheap Advance offsetting a fall in the number paying full fare. (I'm not suggesting that's the case, as I don't know what the figures are, but it's something that needs to be considered).

Me being a prime example of the sort of freeloaders to be found in East Coast First Class these days

 

[Tetchytyke]

A 19% rise in sales does not necessarily mean a 19% rise in income, as it may be an indication of more people travelling on cheap Advance offsetting a fall in the number paying full fare..

Obviously I don't know the details, but the advances now don't really seem to be any cheaper than they were under National Express. I never used first class under GNER because, back in those days, I had a YP railcard and couldn't justify the expense.

What it may have done is encouraged those who are travelling for leisure to spend a bit more, upgrading their standard advance to a first class one. I know I fit into that category. When all I got for my extra £20 was a mug of coffee and a bigger seat (under NX it was free wifi for all) I didn't upgrade all that often, choosing to spend that £20 on something nice for the train or on something nice at my destination. Now I get something- even if it's a couple of glasses of cheap plonk and a RailGourmet pie- I do upgrade.

 

[Bungle73]

I had my first and probably only experience of the East Coast First Class complimentary offer recently on a trip from Newcastle - London. This was a lunch time departure from Newcastle (12:25) so may not have been the most extravagant offer.

Got a coffee just after boarding was OK, nothing to write home about, certainly had better and hotter, but OK. The only thing on the menu that caught my eye was the quiche which was again OK but just a warmed up store bought-thing by the look of it. Certainly hot though. This came just after Darlington

Later on, just after Peterborough the food came around again and I asked for a small triangular sandwich (beef and something) I got this when she came back again and it was inedible, dried out practically stale bread which went straight in the bin.

My verdict on this offer on this particular train was totally underwhelming. Next time, even if in First Class I'll just get some pastries or something from a bakery or bring my own stuff.

I've had the sandwiches a few times on EC, and I've found them to be very tasty.

What it may have done is encouraged those who are travelling for leisure to spend a bit more, upgrading their standard advance to a first class one. I know I fit into that category.

As do I. Personally, I love going FC on EC, so now I do it every time I travel with them (which isn't that often tbh). In fact they were my first experience of any train FC. I'd travelled with them before but didn't even consider going FC because I always travel Standard. It was this thread that encouraged to me to try FC on my next trip with them, and I'm glad I did.

Having said that I wouldn't mind paying for the food if it was made substantially better.