NXEC cuts services and ups prices again!

[Mintona]

I didn't even know NXEC did a Restaurant car. Never seen it advertised.

 

[Failed Unit]

I didn't even know NXEC did a Restaurant car. Never seen it advertised.

It is very well advertised, including in the timetable. Shading showing which stops the service in on offer from!

 

[blacknight]

It is very well advertised, including in the timetable. Shading showing which stops the service in on offer from!

Must be an old timetable you are reading from as latest edition Dec 2009 nolonger as the shading only refers you to their website, so not quite so easy to fathom which service as which standard of catering facilities which at present range from full restaurant on a few services to the odd service with no catering at all.
With introducing the at seat dining option in January this as been restricted to first class passengers which as reduced the potential sale market so that in turn to contributes to reduction in sales. Concept seems flawed as if you where at the office would expect person at desk opposite to eat a meal amongest the laptops no you would expect them to go to the canteen to consume meal.
With present layout in first with bottled water on tables with unsealed plastic tumblers on top of them theres at potential health risk with coughs & sneezes going about with no idea how long beaker as been sat there.
In a matter of months this year we have seen it go from silver service to no service.
At present theres an ongoing petion to Number10 to preserve the catering service. Link is below please support this petition
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NXECservice/

 

[Failed Unit]

Must be an old timetable you are reading from as latest edition Dec 2009 nolonger as the shading only refers you to their website, so not quite so easy to fathom which service as which standard of catering facilities which at present range from full restaurant on a few services to the odd service with no catering at all.

You are right in the past the printed timetable had full details, the online version of the Dec2008 timetable does have this information, I guess it was not known before the printing deadline. I expect to see it will be back in the May2009 timetable.

With introducing the at seat dining option in January this as been restricted to first class passengers which as reduced the potential sale market so that in turn to contributes to reduction in sales. Concept seems flawed as if you where at the office would expect person at desk opposite to eat a meal amongest the laptops no you would expect them to go to the canteen to consume meal.

I have heard that the sales have increased since Jan 2009 - source modern railways March 2009

With present layout in first with bottled water on tables with unsealed plastic tumblers on top of them theres at potential health risk with coughs & sneezes going about with no idea how long beaker as been sat there.
In a matter of months this year we have seen it go from silver service to no service.

can't argue with you here.

Another thing that is miffed me is that the engineering work on Saturdays, 1005 Leeds - London terminates at Retford, 1205 Leeds - London terminates at Doncaster. Both of these services stopped at Newark North Gate but no provision has been made for Newark passengers! Both of these services used to have connections into them from services on the Grimsby - Newark line. Now unless we wait at Newark for 1 hour we have no service between 0733 and 1600 on Saturdays for quite a few weeks thanks national express, I thought you were wanting passengers from Lincolnshire and were planning to run a direct train to get them!

As for the other comment that 95% of passengers don't use the restuarant, true but the 5% that do also spend the most money on the train. You could argue that on 25% use first class so lets get rid of it but I am sure the 25% that use first class provide more money to the company than the 75% that use standard. It is a well known fact that business and first class passengers on the airlines make the money. I see you point but sometimes raw figures don't tell the whole story. As I have said before however I am sure that selling at £40 first class seat is worth more to national express than a £30 meal, they are getting double the joy if the person buys a £10 burger!

 

[blacknight]

I have heard that the sales have increased since Jan 2009 - source modern railways March 2009

Another thing that is miffed me is that the engineering work on Saturdays, 1005 Leeds - London terminates at Retford, 1205 Leeds - London terminates at Doncaster. Both of these services stopped at Newark North Gate but no provision has been made for Newark passengers! Both of these services used to have connections into them from services on the Grimsby - Newark line. Now unless we wait at Newark for 1 hour we have no service between 0733 and 1600 on Saturdays for quite a few weeks thanks national express, I thought you were wanting passengers from Lincolnshire and were planning to run a direct train to get them!

As for the other comment that 95% of passengers don't use the restuarant, true but the 5% that do also spend the most money on the train. You could argue that on 25% use first class so lets get rid of it but I am sure the 25% that use first class provide more money to the company than the 75% that use standard. It is a well known fact that business and first class passengers on the airlines make the money. I see you point but sometimes raw figures don't tell the whole story. As I have said before however I am sure that selling at £40 first class seat is worth more to national express than a £30 meal, they are getting double the joy if the person buys a £10 burger!

Good news if revenue from onboard catering as increased since changes introduced in January- strange then that National Express should be thinking of removing onboard catering as stated in Times article, is that 20 million quid they are losing on ECML or NEG across the business times length of franchise as figure seems rather high.
GNER were quite clever really in having restaurant car open to all passengers in the hope it would entice passengers to travel first class , sure it was a free upgrade weekdays if you went for cost of breakfast but it brought the revenue in remember GNER were making money for first 10 years.
Only reason I can see for National Express keeping at seat dining exclusive to first class passengers is there is very little difference now between standard & first class so theres less chance of passengers wanting to upgrade in the future.
Travelled first last week & cannot fault the staff for the service provided just that the image as been changed by National Express to that of a high speed "Little Chef" & tables laid out accordingly.