London North Eastern Railway (LNER) First Class service

[Butts]

So a free paper, one cup of tea and a biscuit. Isn't that what you now get in FC?

If your lucky......:roll:

 

[calc7]

Passengers on some of the services I've been on which were operating the catering offer wouldn't have even had that. They cleared up just after York on a train that was stopping at Doncaster, Newark, Grantham, Peterborough and Stevenage!

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Passengers on some of the services I've been on which were operating the catering offer wouldn't have even had that. . . .

I'll add a +1 to that.
But I must confess that my experience and/or memory of Standard Plus isn't reliable enough to provide a reliable comparison of the reliability and deliverability of service standards(in a comparison between then and now).

But there may be scope for the 3 main long-distance high-volume TOCs to consider a three-tiered service. Not that I would expect it to survive more than a few meetings with the Department. I think we're likely to be stuck with what we've got for a long time now.

 

[calc7]

One potential issue with a three-tier format is that the most profitable customers (typically businesspeople using FOS/FOR on business expenses) will just revert to Standard Plus/Club Class whilst your "First Class" will still be full of people on Advance 1sts hoping for a decent lot of food and drink.

 

[Butts]

One potential issue with a three-tier format is that the most profitable customers (typically businesspeople using FOS/FOR on business expenses) will just revert to Standard Plus/Club Class whilst your "First Class" will still be full of people on Advance 1sts hoping for a decent lot of food and drink.

With hoping being the appropriate description

 

[Aberdonian]

Has anyone raised the issue of the absence of, or quality of, catering with EC and if so what response did you get?

 

[Butts]

Has anyone raised the issue of the absence of, or quality of, catering with EC and if so what response did you get?

Tommorrow between 1200 and 1500 is East Coasts online forum where a Director will be available to answer questions on any aspect of the service.

You have to register and then can ask a question. You can't respond directly to the answer you get, but all the questions and answers are visible.

I shall be attempting to source the "holy grail" or second slice of toast on the breakfast service.

http://www.talk.eastcoast.co.uk

 

[calc7]

I shall be attempting to source the "holy grail" or second slice of toast on the breakfast service.

I am unable to attend and would much appreciate if you could extend this line of questioning to a second refreshment from the cold drinks trolley (if they are hell bent on it only appearing thrice in five hours).

 

[Butts]

I am unable to attend and would much appreciate if you could extend this line of questioning to a second refreshment from the cold drinks trolley (if they are hell bent on it only appearing thrice in five hours).

You don't have to attend its online - Dave Newcastle will be giving them a grilling no doubt.

 

[calc7]

You don't have to attend its online - Dave Newcastle will be giving them a grilling no doubt.

Unfortunately I will be half way up Scafell Pike
I am looking forward to reading what you guys get out of them!

 

[Bellwater]

Really? I remember it being just an STD coach with antimacassars on the seat with newspapers on the table. It was also the coach near to the cafe bar so the queue would often form through it from mainline STD. I believe however if you showed your STD* ticket at the bar they would give you a free tea and a shortbread.

it was -

Ticket Checks
Coffee served at seat
Snacks served at seat
offer of newspaper
offer to take food order
and then about 2-3 rounds of coffee or juice if you wanted.

 

[bnm]

Dave Newcastle will be giving them a grilling

Unlike the toast on many occasions, so I'm led to believe.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Unlike the toast on many occasions, so I'm led to believe.

A few days ago, the morning toast arrived extremely promptly! Excellent!

But it was cold by the time the accompanying food arrived. Without any butter/spread. So I walked to the kitchen to ask for some butter. "Butter?" was the astonished reply.

Toast was now cold and beginning to soften.

It seems quite typical that some elements of the service work well, while others, quite randomly, do not. Catering is one of those disciplines where every element has to be present at the right moment, every time. And that's what EC fail to achieve: consistent performance.

 

[mralexn]

Have you thought of doing an "Oliver Twist" and asking for more - further supplies must be available as from my experience a lot of people opt out of the "fry up"

I found the Chef on the Highland chieftain to be very rude.
Basically because I did not finish everything on the plate (I do not like Tomato or Mushrooms) He literally told me off, saying well you should not order breakfast if you are not going to eat everything and said that I was depriving other passengers of food.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The removal of the tomato is required, with the addition of another sausage and a couple of bits of BP

Bring your own toaster if you want more than one slice !!!

bring your own toaster, mini electric oven, and make your own little kitchen at the other end of Coach K :P

 

[brad465]

Not sure how appropiate this is but it's nice to see how much talk can come out of a franchise's 1st class meal.

 

[simonsjh]

So my thread on cleanliness in the East Coast First Class service has been moved to one about food.... so here is the pic of the general levels of hygiene on the Easter Sunday 0952 London to Leeds service. About a third were in this state. I reported it to the guard and sent the pic in to East Coast and asked for their comments. Several of you have asked for East Coast's response and I will post them in this thread. Needless to say, the grub was dreadful - clinging on to life by a crumb - and the wifi was knackered. I agree with some other respondents that First has been great - i actually thought it was good toward the end of the GNER time.... but it is never consistent under East Coast.

 

[Butts]

Not sure how appropiate this is but it's nice to see how much talk can come out of a franchise's 1st class meal.

Very true , Virgins isn't that much better but attracts far less vitriol. Probably because on East Coast an inferior substitute replaced a quality paid for service.

 

[telstarbox]

Virgin's is a lot more consistent though and they're generous with the drinks!

 

[Blindtraveler]

agreed

 

[Butts]

East Coast are "live online till 1500" if you want to raise a query

See the answer to the "holy grail" more than one slice of toast - apparently there is no limit on the number of slices you can have.

Staff are asked "to exercise their discretion" - well they certainly do that by never asking if you want another slice

 

[DaveNewcastle]

In today's East Coast "Talk to Us", Peter Williams responded to my questions about unpredictable and inconsistency in the First Class catering provision in these terms:

Since May First Class journeys have increased by over 20% and therefore we have no plans to change the proposition. I agree that we need to improve the consistency of our customer service delivery and we have recently introduced 'mystery shopping' to get an objective and comprehensive view of how all our teams perform. We are in the process of reviewing the results of this first wave and will be working with, and supporting our teams, to ensure we get it right consistently.

Seems to me that that reply is more an attempt to blame staff than to devise a better policy and raise the standards from RG.

 

[ainsworth74]

I'd love to know who told them that they didn't want black pudding with their breakfast? I'll accept that not everyone likes it but enough of a majority to remove it from the menu?

I've asked them about beans so we'll see if they tell us that people didn't want beans with their breakfast (which I'll have an even harder time believing!).

It took them rather a long time to answer your question on advance fares DaveNewcastle (and even then they seemed to somewhat dodge the question)

 

[Blindtraveler]

id also be quite keen to know the length of there deal with RG. I woant bother to ask as they would never tel me but if its largely supply issues then, well, the supplier needs to be reigned in or pushed out.

 

[142094]

Going to take a while to look through all those questions and digest their responses.

 

[richa2002]

In today's East Coast "Talk to Us", Peter Williams responded to my questions about unpredictable and inconsistency in the First Class catering provision in these termseems to me that that reply is more an attempt to blame staff than to devise a better policy and raise the standards from RG.

So the 20% increase was nothing to do with offering first class for £25 one-way...? These people think we were born yesterday.

 

[ainsworth74]

So the 20% increase was nothing to do with offering first class for £25 one-way...?

Quite. The only way to know would be to see a breakdown of the figures into the number of open, advance and special offer tickets sold during the period that they're headline 20% figure applies to (and the percentage increase on sales of open and advance tickets). Actually it would be really interesting to see that, but I suppose such detailed information is probably commercially sensitive or some other such guff.

 

[Butts]

Alcoholic Drinks Policy First Class
Sometimes the frequency of "trolley runs" is less than ideal possibly due to staffing issues.

Are customers allowed to request a further alcoholic drink by approaching a member of catering staff directly outwith the scheduled runs ?

Re: Alcoholic Drinks Policy First Class
Hi, yes they are and within reason additional drinks will be provided.

Regards,

Peter

So from the Horses mouth if you want another drink and the trolley is nowhere in sight you can get another by simply asking.:roll:


Can I ask firstly why Black Pudding cannot be offered as part of the Breakfast Menu, and secondly why there seems to be a restriction of one slice of toast per customer?

We conducted extensive customer research prior to launching our Welcome To campaign which included the first class complimentary offer and black pudding did not feature within customer preferences as part of the full English breakfast.

The breakfast menu was susbsequently developed around the customer based research, we persoanlly feel that there is a comprehensive choice available ranging from full English breakfast, vegetarian and lighter breakfast options.

In respect of the toast there is no restriction per serving, our staff are encouraged to use their discretion when providing toast or croissants as an option.

Kind Regards

Danny Williams

So there you have it no restriction on Toast


Tellingly one of the few questions they failed to answer or comment on namely my follow up....

With regard to the black pudding issue most people I have spoken to would be in favour of its addition to the existing menu. The cooked breakfast is insubstantial and somewhat inferior to that available in any high street supermarket for what is supposed to be a premium product. Were it served in a seaside Guest House I feel it would be disappointing. Compared to what was previously available on payment of a fee , it pales by comparison.

You say staff are encouraged to exercise their discretion with regard to toast provision. Perhaps it would be a more sensible proposition to actually get them as a matter of course to ask customers if they would like "one slice or two". I can assure you this never happens at the moment.

Says it all really
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

In today's East Coast "Talk to Us", Peter Williams responded to my questions about unpredictable and inconsistency in the First Class catering provision in these termseems to me that that reply is more an attempt to blame staff than to devise a better policy and raise the standards from RG.

Its patently obvious from their responses that Silver Service will not be coming back.

They keep crowing about the increase in 1st class traffic and forgetting to mention the £25 specials.

The guise for most of these decisions are the so called research they have carried out that no one knows anything about or has participated in.

I have established toast should be a free for all and drinks available on demand , but regular travellers will know this to be a myth. When asked why they don't offer a second slice of toast as standard there was a deafening silence ( 1 of only 2 questions not answered in the whole forum)

I shall continue to obtain the cheapest advances I can and scew them for everything I can get without any feeling of guilt

 

[Aberdonian]

I am currently in (protracted) conversation with them about what was required to qualify for the £25 fare. If I understand them properly I would not have qualified for the offer on the Newark to Aberdeen run because, although it would have been EC all the way, I would have had to change at York. Can anyone confirm if this is accurate please?
Thanks!

 

[DaveNewcastle]

. . . . . I would have had to change at York. Can anyone confirm if this is accurate please?

No. Although I didn't save the T&Cs from the EC website when the offer was 'live', you can still access the general page here: http://www.eastcoast.co.uk/25reasons and the Press Release here : http://www.eastcoast.co.uk/about-us/press-release/2012/25-reasons-to-travel-first-class-for-less/.

That £25 offer was a special promotion of their own making and was not issued under any of the industry-wide Conditions for tickets available across the network. I'm not aware that the offer would have to have conformed to any requirements to convey passengers across changes of operators and/or (as in your enquiry) changes of train, both of which their Franchise agreement would require of the Company in the case of Regulated Fares and inter-available Tickets.
I guess they could have introduced the £25 scheme in exactly the way they are now arguing. So what would be interesting would be any publicity or information from the Scheme which suggests that these tickets were available for journeys on multiple trains.

 

[pgs911]

In todays East Coast 'Talk to Us' various contributors (myself included) questioned the lack of gluten free food as part of the complimentary offering. In the good old days of Restaurants and At Seat Dining gluten free options were always available and clearly marked on the menus.
It was clear that EC are no longer interested in providing for any type of dietary problem which made me wonder if this could be regarded as a form of discrimination?
Probably not, but I would be interested to read other peoples thoughts.