Restaurant Cars/Travelling Chef. Oxford - Paddington

[The Stationmaster]

Arising from something I came across on the 'net earlier today can anybody remember details of any trains which might have offered a full breakfast service between Oxford and Paddington.  All I can immediately think of is the possibility of an early morning Worcester train off the OWW  but I don't thin there were Travelling Chefs on that route so it must have been a long while back, if ever..

[Mike_Walker]

Mike, I presume you are referring to the diatribe by Peter Hitchens in today's Daily Mail and Mail Online.  To use his own description, it's the biggest load of pure tripe, marinated in bilge I've had the misfortune to read.  Among other things; he claims "broken rails" is not an excuse to cancel or delay trains,  Has he forgotten what happened at Hatfield in 2000?  I kept reading his drivel expecting him to complain about track workers standing doing nothing whenever his train passes them!

[Rivercider]

I have the 1977/78 public timetable, and to my surprise there was such a service.

 

The 09.13 ex Oxford service, non-stop to Paddington (10.13), BHX (not bank holidays). It appears to start from Oxford.

It is shown to have a restaurant service, and buffet service.

 

Edit - the next public timetable I have is for 1983/84, by which date the train still ran,

departing at 09.11 non-stop to Paddington, but by then conveyed a buffet service only. 

 

cheers

Edited June 16, 2022 by Rivercider
Clarification. Added details for 1983/84.

[Miss Prism]

What is 'BH' ?

[Rivercider]

4 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

What is 'BH' ?

Sorry, I should have made that clearer, the train does not run on the 'specified' bank holidyays,

 

cheers

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Mike_Walker said:

Mike, I presume you are referring to the diatribe by Peter Hitchens in today's Daily Mail and Mail Online.  To use his own description, it's the biggest load of pure tripe, marinated in bilge I've had the misfortune to read.  Among other things; he claims "broken rails" is not an excuse to cancel or delay trains,  Has he forgotten what happened at Hatfield in 2000?  I kept reading his drivel expecting him to complain about track workers standing doing nothing whenever his train passes them!

Diatribe is a very polite way of describing his rambling nonsense and the implication that you could get breakfast right up until the time the IETs arrived - rather than over 40 years ago!  I had to do a double take when I realised that he was describing Paddington as I have never come across a situation with all the 'platform exit barriers locked' - i.e. the automatic ticket reading gates unable to be used. 

 

Now a real laugh about him - some years ago he appeared as a speaker at our local literary festival and spent a lot of time telling his audience what a wonderful standard of journalism his newspaper was keeping going.  So I asked him. if that included the online version which as far as I could tell was staffed by naive juveniles who not only had difficulty writing clear, grammatically correct, english but couldn't research their way past the headline.  He went to considerable lengths to explain that the online version was not what he regarded as 'proper journalism' and that also meant that it worked to far lower standards because its audience weren't interested in anything better.  Which presumably explains the abysmal standard of his article today.  

 

The headline was actually rather good but the text fell far short.  And in the online article there was a piece of supreme irony which fitted perfectly with the headline which - due to his ignorance of the industry - he completely missed (as would most other people, but other people weren't writing the article).

[RFS]

For those who are curious this is the link to the article in question. 

[Morello Cherry]

The problem is that articles like that are only interested in the clicks and relinks.

 

But back to the question - I wonder what kind of provision there was (if there was any) on the morning Hereford-Paddington service. I am going from memory here but I recall a comment in the CLPG newsletter around the time that FGW was reducing the amount of first class in its HSTs to the effect that the Cotswold line had always had the highest proportion of first class passengers (I assume as a proportion of all passengers), it would seem to me that they might be the kind of people who might want a meal. (I am going off memory and of course the Cotswold line in the 70s and 80s wasn't exactly well used).

[Michael Hodgson]

26 minutes ago, Morello Cherry said:

The problem is that articles like that are only interested in the clicks and relinks.

 

If its target audience consists of disgruntled regular commuters, to be successful a tabloid must pander to their prejudices. 

 

There is a fundamental problem with on-train catering, as with sleeping car accommodation in that it is very expensive to provide because of high costs for relatively low productivity of the labour, the necessarily lower rolling stock utilisation, and lower density of passengers per vehicle. 

 

If the customer (they're not passengers any more) is prepared to pay for that all well and good, but it must always be an extra on top of the fare from A to B.  The cost inevitably increases as you progress from pre-packed sarnies through sausage rolls heated in a microwave to full meals freshly cooked to order and silver service complete with flunkies.  Whilst journalists who can charge it to expenses and a handful of wealthy chief executives travelling first may use the facility, genuine commuters who see their journey as part of the daily grind just to earn a living simply aren't prepared to fork out a fair price for a full English on board, and will settle for a Starbucks on arrival.

 

The people I feel sorry for are the poor platform staff who have to face all the abuse whenever there is disruption to services.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Michael Hodgson

[The Stationmaster]

Although interestingly on some of the GWR 'Pullman' catering trains you need to book your place in good time unless you wish to have to rely on a hot dog stand at your departure station.  But alas breakfast has now vanished from GWR's Pullman menu and that in my view is a major loss because both the Pullman breakfast and the predecessor 'Travelling Chef' breakfast were extremely good and excellent value for money while the latter was served at your seat.

[Miss Prism]

2 hours ago, Rivercider said:

The 09.13 ex Oxford service, non-stop to Paddington (10.13)

 

That's fast. Today's trains are just over the hour I think.

 

What would be on the front - a 47?

 

[Mike_Walker]

I think I'm correct in saying that GWR's Pullmans are the last full silver service dining offered on the national network (that is not including charter services) and is a pet product for Mark Hopwood and it does make a profit or it wouldn't survive.  It was a notable victory over the DfT that it was allowed to continue after the HSTs finished.

 

By contrast it was the excellent on- train catering that helped sink Wrexham & Shropshire.  Everything was prepared on board from fresh ingredients with a wide range of choices.  Sadly, there were too few passengers and the amount of daily waste doesn't bare thinking about.  I recall Mark saying they were mad at the time.  A few days after closure, l said to Andy Hamilton: "As I see it you were attempting to provide a Pullman service at easyJet prices to a market that didn't really exist.". Andy thought for a moment then replied: "Basically yes but we gave it our best shot."

 

Returning to OXF-PAD I do wonder how you could cook, serve and consume a Full English in the time it takes an IET to do the run today.

 

PS. If you've not tried GWR's Pullmans,  do so it's a fantastic experience and great for a special trip; birthday for example.

[The Stationmaster]

18 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

I think I'm correct in saying that GWR's Pullmans are the last full silver service dining offered on the national network (that is not including charter services) and is a pet product for Mark Hopwood and it does make a profit or it wouldn't survive.  It was a notable victory over the DfT that it was allowed to continue after the HSTs finished.

 

Returning to OXF-PAD I do wonder how you could cook, serve and consume a Full English in the time it takes an IET to do the run today.

 

PS. If you've not tried GWR's Pullmans,  do so it's a fantastic experience and great for a special trip; birthday for example.

Mark said exactly that when I asked him about at one of our branch user group meetings (not that we have Pullman service on the branch but he was happier to talk wider GWR things than that.

 

I very much doubt you could do that on an IET in the time (less than an hour) they take for a trip from Oxford to Paddington.  in fact I would have thought it would have been a bit of a push to do it back in an hour in the late '70s, especially if more than a few people wanted a full breakfast.  The crew would need to be very quick taking orders and the breakfast eaters could hardly be having a leisurely meal.

 

And yes - the GWR Pullman catering service is highly recommended although it's a great shame that breakfast was dropped but obviously the trains' return workings would have been very poorly patronised.  The morning I had breakfast on the back working of the Swansea there were only two of us taking breakfast and the crew clearly had a surplus of Welsh Cakes they needed to get rid of  (I graciously helped them out, it would have been very rude to refuse) 😇

[KingEdwardII]

19 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

Today's trains are just over the hour I think.

Fastest morning Oxford - Paddington services are about 50 mins, stopping @ Reading only.

[bécasse]

I remember, when I worked for Sealink (so probably late-1970s), going down to Fishguard on the 08.00 from Paddington one day.  Naturally I took breakfast but I was surprised to see that one passenger was getting special attention from the catering crew. I was even more surprised when he alighted at Slough, having consumed a full breakfast. I assume that this was a regular practice, he certainly seemed to be well known to the crew.

 

That may well hold the record for the fastest on-train full meal, but oddly I was later to participate in what may well have been the slowest. In the late spring of 1994, after the first TMSTs had been delivered but before the first (invited) passenger run on May 3, doubt was expressed about the capability of the catering contractor to serve a full first class meal within the journey time available. A trial was arranged, but on a train which never left Waterloo, and it certainly confirmed that the contractor still had work to do because the service of the (real) meal took notably longer than the booked London-Paris journey time, then about three hours.

[2E Sub Shed]

And as a matter of routine, at Waterloo on an Exeter bound service, the on train staff well before departure, helpfully remind passengers, that they are as likely to see a catering trolley on the  service, as a live Dodo, and advise making a return visit to the station concourse vendors.  

[The Stationmaster]

Further to the nonsense in the DM diatribe I travelled into Paddington on an Oxford train on Saturday morning.  Arriving at Platform 9 there was no barrier of any sort.  And should I have cared to walk across and use them all the exit gates opposite the ends of platforms 2- 8 were operational, as usual.