Catering/dining options on trains should be identical in First and Standard classes

[doa46231]

Moderator note: split from

CrossCountry Trains advert banned over ‘insufficient’ free food and drink claims…

If a passenger booked an EMR first class ticket on the basis of the claims made on the website (applicable Monday to Saturday on the route to/from St Pancras), then if food wasn't available, they would be entitled to something back...

www.railforums.co.uk

We seem to be obsessed with classes in this Country.

Why we cant just have buffets or restaurants open to all who are prepared to pay is beyond me.

If food is available, sell it to all comers, as they do on most rail systems in Europe.

As it is, availability of catering is a lottery and even paying a first class fare does not guarantee you'll get anything or even if it is worth having when you get it!

 

[43066]

We seem to be obsessed with classs in this Country.
Why we cant just have buffets or restaurants open to all who are prepared to pay is beyond me.
If food is availanble, sell it to all comers, as they do on most rail systems in Europe.
As it is, availability of catering is a lottery and even paying a first class fare does not guarentee you'll get anything or even if it is worth having when you get it!

I don’t follow. First class doesn’t necessarily imply that there will be catering at all. The main benefit for most is a better seating environment, or even getting a seat at all! Many services with first class will also have a rail gourmet type refreshment offering in standard, as my operator does, and occasionally there will be a RG trolley in standard and no host in first!

Rail systems in Europe generally have first class too, so it’s by no means a UK specific offering.

 

[SynthD]

Is it a remnant of older catering setups and offerings? If at-table catering is dead, then yes.

Vending machines have been mentioned as a cheap catering option on this forum. Is that in operation anywhere, including abroad?

 

[dm1]

Vending machines have been mentioned as a cheap catering option on this forum. Is that in operation anywhere, including abroad?

Yes, pretty common in the nordics and in some German speaking countries (e.g. Westbahn, SOB Traverso, DB IC2). Generally a hot drinks machine and a snack/ soft drink vending machine.

You have to be a bit careful to choose vending machines that can handle the vibration, but these are readily available. They tend to be more common on longer distance regional services, with bistro or dining cars still being more common on intercity services.

 

[Topological]

Differentiation between first class and other classes has to be based on what allows the railway to gain the most profit from the first class tickets. IF the refreshments are really important then refreshments are a small cost opposite the extra ticket price.

IF it is only about seats then the catering is not needed. Indeed you probably reach a point where no catering is needed on the train at all. It is the same thing about whether dropping the catering puts enough people off travelling that you lose revenue overall.

Right, wrong, or otherwise, we live in a world with supermarkets everywhere and ample other options around our stations. If people know there will not be suitable refreshments then they will buy before they board. Even hot beverages like coffee can be transported in appropriate cups to keep them warm.

Airlines have been cutting back catering for a long time now, so maybe the final answer will be trains doing likewise.

What I cannot see is any sort of buffet or on board shop for all comers to have the option to buy.

 

[Falcon1200]

Why we cant just have buffets or restaurants open to all who are prepared to pay is beyond me.

How would a restaurant 'open to all' work; These would have to be unreservable seats kept empty for use by an unknown number of passengers, therefore wasted space on increasingly busy trains. And buffet cars, or rather shops on today's railway, are of course open to all!

 

[Djgr]

Differentiation between first class and other classes has to be based on what allows the railway to gain the most profit from the first class tickets. IF the refreshments are really important then refreshments are a small cost opposite the extra ticket price.

IF it is only about seats then the catering is not needed. Indeed you probably reach a point where no catering is needed on the train at all. It is the same thing about whether dropping the catering puts enough people off travelling that you lose revenue overall.

Right, wrong, or otherwise, we live in a world with supermarkets everywhere and ample other options around our stations. If people know there will not be suitable refreshments then they will buy before they board. Even hot beverages like coffee can be transported in appropriate cups to keep them warm.

Airlines have been cutting back catering for a long time now, so maybe the final answer will be trains doing likewise.

What I cannot see is any sort of buffet or on board shop for all comers to have the option to buy.

First class with a thermos flask. Classy!

 

[Topological]

First class with a thermos flask. Classy!

Still better than flying where you cannot take your own flask (yet).

 

[6Gman]

How would a restaurant 'open to all' work; These would have to be unreservable seats kept empty for use by an unknown number of passengers, therefore wasted space on increasingly busy trains. And buffet cars, or rather shops on today's railway, are of course open to all!

Some of us are old enough to remember when the dining car was indeed open to all but it meant that users effectively occupied two seats during their journey, a luxury the railway/ government/ country is no longer willing to fund.

 

[Helvellyn]

As it is, availability of catering is a lottery and even paying a first class fare does not guarantee you'll get anything or even if it is worth having when you get it!

LNER at least show on their website when booking which of the four menu options you'll get - Delhi, Dish or Dine plus the hybrid Brunch menu that seems to have appeared at some point last year. They seem to have recognised a one-size fits all inclusive dining option doesn't work but it's a shame they can't offer the full LNER breakfast on more morning services. I do wonder if they did (especially ex-London) they could potentially tempt more leisure travellers onto the pre-09:00 services.

 

[Devonian]

GWR comes close to the single catering offer. They explicitly limit complimentary items in First Class to nothing more substantial than soft drinks and biscuits, crisps and cakes, and even that only on their official 'high speed' Intercity routes. For full (very full) meals, their excellent restaurant cars (sadly few, but better than nothing) are still open to all passengers: as for seat duplication, with only one sitting, its diners generally occupy the seats in the restaurant for the duration of their journey.

Right, wrong, or otherwise, we live in a world with supermarkets everywhere and ample other options around our stations. If people know there will not be suitable refreshments then they will buy before they board. Even hot beverages like coffee can be transported in appropriate cups to keep them warm.

This is not entirely true: there are plenty of smaller stations with very limited take-away options, particularly out of normal shop hours, and while for short journeys it may be fine to take a cup of tea on board, for long distance journeys catering is highly valued. Sipping a cup of cooling tea from Penzance to London? No thanks.

 

[SeanG]

Still better than flying where you cannot take your own flask (yet).

You can.
Just take it through security empty with a tea bag(s) of your choice. Then go and ask at a coffee shop for some hot water. If you find one with a separate milk jug (eg Starbucks) just top up the flask as you wish.
Morally wrong - debatable but you aren't using an independent coffee shop in most airports and I think that Starbucks et al can afford it.

 

[Topological]

You can.
Just take it through security empty with a tea bag(s) of your choice. Then go and ask at a coffee shop for some hot water. If you find one with a separate milk jug (eg Starbucks) just top up the flask as you wish.
Morally wrong - debatable but you aren't using an independent coffee shop in most airports and I think that Starbucks et al can afford it.

Off topic, but I often wondered why UK airports have not branched out into very hot water taps. Obviously, they take business from coffee shops, but many countries do have them and they are great for instant noodles etc as well. Fair to say I have used such machines to have coffee on a plane before now. These countries often offer a similar service at the stations too.

Whether such is the image of first class travel though, I doubt, but ultimately if there is business in a means of providing refreshments then that is the way it will go. My feeling remains that first class catering brings back more in ticket revenue by promoting the service than it costs in actually having refreshments on trains. We will never know though what exactly it is that causes each first class ticket to be (a) sold over standard class, (b) sold over alternative travel, or (c) sold versus the alternative of not travelling.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Then of course you could still charge more for first class seating without any catering whatsoever (as GTR, SWR etc. do). I’m not advocating for that, but you only have to look at the reduction in catering offering at many operators to see the direction this is all going.

It's interesting to see how different people value the aspects of 1st. Traditionally, 1st cost about half as much again as Standard, which is simply because 1st took up about half as much floor space again as Standard to provide the extra comfort with more legroom and wider seats. (For example, 64 Standard seats in a Mk1 vs. 42 1st). There was no special catering, if you wanted that you'd go to the restaurant car and pay for it.

GTR and SWR are of course commuter services where another differential comes into play - First Class in those cases doesn't give you more space or considerable/any more comfort - it's just an expensive seat reservation. That wouldn't work for XC, of course.

 

[SeanG]

Off topic, but I often wondered why UK airports have not branched out into very hot water taps.

I would imagine that is because we have much less common sense here and unfortunately a culture of suing.
So it wouldn't take long until someone scalded themselves then complained