Trains (Meals on Wheels)

At the risk of this Blog becoming a consumer watchdog site, I did feel the necessity to share my latest outrage at my good friends at National Express who operate the East Coast main line service. Occasionally, as compensation for having to be dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to catch the early London train, I treat myself to a cooked breakfast in the splendid surroundings of the first class restaurant car. It’s not cheap, but it’s one of those indulgences that makes rail travel so special: where else can you be whizzed along at upwards of 100mph whilst being silver-served the very best quality sausages, fried eggs, bacon, hash browns. black pudding mushrooms and tomatoes; all freshly cooked in the on board galley. Well not any more. The service on my train has been scrapped along with the equally sumptuous evening meals. This disgraceful act of customer contempt will no doubt have been instigated in the interests of cost savings: I see it as another nail in the coffin of what was once a world class public rail network. One bitter customer remarked “well this is what happens when you give a bus company a train service to run”. I couldn’t possibly comment.