Catering on CrossCountry trains

Friday night, caught the 1744 CrossCountry service from Bristol Temple
Meads to St Austell. Announcement came over that the shop was closing
at Newton Abbot, which meant that for nearly three hours no
refreshment was available.

Coming back, got the 1951 CrossCountry from Taunton to Bristol Temple
Meads, which was going on to Derby. Almost as soon as I'd got on, the
closure of the shop was announced, which meant that there would be
over two hours of the journey with no refreshment available.

I never usually travel on CrossCountry services, but is this the
norm? I can understand them closing up to cash up, etc. about half an
hour before the terminating station, but this seems excessive.
Doesn't Virgin want to sell food to make more money?

Patrick

Patrick Osborne wrote:
> I never usually travel on CrossCountry services, but is this the
> norm? I can understand them closing up to cash up, etc. about half an
> hour before the terminating station, but this seems excessive.

On XC services to/from Bournemouth, the shop opens pretty much as the
train leaves Bournemouth and on the return closes just before or just
after the stop at Brockenhurst 15 minutes before Bournemouth.

Jonathan

"Tony Polson" <docnews2011@> wrote in message
news:i13v54d4ajlqasvl364de9pgrk9je2jqjv@...

> If you had stayed on board the Derby train, the shop would have
> reopened after the train left Bristol. It sounds as if there were no
> shop staff to take over at Plymouth for your St Austell trip.
>

You may have seen my reply up thread by now Tony, but in fact there is no
catering beyond Plymouth or after 2000, which explains both the OP's
scenarios.

Paul

> I believe all catering facilities on XC services now close after
> 20.00. This would explain why it closed soon after departing Taunton
> at 19.51.

Over on NXEA we are very lucky Catering wise - buffet normally open
until trains run into Norwich or LST ! (and 2330 ex- LST always has
catring IME)
Also see Barry Doe article on catering in current RAIL mag.

In message <NqWdnctNa7N1E8LVnZ2dnUVZ8tSdnZ2d@bt.com>, at 12:54:13 on
Mon, 23 Jun 2008, Paul Scott <notvalidpmscott@> remarked:
>perhaps the timetables and other public info could show what really
>happens, e.g. 'before Plymouth' or 'on leaving the last station before
>Plymouth' rather than 'at Plymouth'?

It would not be very far from the truth if EMT said on their website:

"No catering in either direction within 20 minutes of St Pancras."
"No catering northbound past Leicester".
--
Roland Perry

On Mon, 23 Jun 2008, Sam Wilson wrote:

> I've said this before, but a friend of the family used to work for
> British Transport Hotels and one of his duties was to check on buffet
> staff to make sure they were only selling the prepacked sandwiches.
> Some staff (allegedly) brought a suitcase full of their own home made
> ones.

Just in case anyone tried to sell something edible? ;)
--
Chris Johns

Tom wrote:
> On 23 Jun, 12:48, Tony Polson <docnews2...@> wrote:
>> If you had stayed on board the Derby train, the shop would have
>> reopened after the train left Bristol. It sounds as if there were no
>> shop staff to take over at Plymouth for your St Austell trip.
>
> I believe all catering facilities on XC services now close after
> 20.00. This would explain why it closed soon after departing Taunton
> at 19.51.

Wasn't that cut back when Virgin were on the Cost plus management
contract and the SRA held the purse strings

In article <485ff5cd$0$78078$bed64819@news.gradwell.net>,
Dave Hillam <postmaster@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:

> Sam Wilson wrote in uk.railway on Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:02:48 +0100
> MID<Sam.Wilson-4D5780.16024723062008@scotsman.ed.ac.uk>:
>
> >I've said this before, but a friend of the family used to work for
> >British Transport Hotels and one of his duties was to check on buffet
> >staff to make sure they were only selling the prepacked sandwiches.
> >Some staff (allegedly) brought a suitcase full of their own home made
> >ones.
>
> So, the rule was introduced that buffet staff must never bring their
> own food to work, and this was made a dismissable offence. IIRC this
> was around the same time (late 1970s?) that buttered toast was removed
> from the buffet menus.

That would tie in with my recollection of when I was told about it.

Sam

Nick Willis wrote:

> As for EMT shutting down the buffet 20 mins from St Pancras that really
> does seem excessive - its not like the train is going anywhere for a
> while once it gets there!

Thanks to EMT only having 4 platforms at St Pancras now (3 when FCC were
in there over the weekend), they do try to get as much of the
"turnround" done between Luton and St Pancras as possible to reduce the
dwell time on arrival.

The Rules of the Plan specify a 30 minute turnround for HSTs (which can
be reduced to 20 providing the next or previous turnround isn't less
than the normal minimum for the location concerned), and 20 minutes for
Meridians; reduced to 10 for both types of train if they've run ECS from
Cricklewood.

Cheers,

Barry

In the case of most TOCs nowadays its not a case of staff bunking off
at the end of the shift if the shop closes 20 mins or so before the
end of the shift. In Crosscountry and presumably Virgins services
where they use the Voyagers, The Retail Service Manager (shop
assistant) has to do a stock check , put the coffee machine through
its cleaning cycle, bag up all the waste sandwiches and milk, count
thir money and then lock the place up. You can't count the money on
the platform as you need to tell the computer how much money you have
and it will then give you a print off telling you how wrong you are.
This has to be done by the time you get to the terminating station or
by the station you are due to get off otherwise you may get
overcarried to somewhere you don't want to go

Both Virgin WC Voyager services and Arriva XC have the 8pm closing
time (Introduced by Virgin) but the shop can be open longer depending
on the RSMs diagram so shops can be open til about 2130 or 2200.
UNFORTUNATELY Arriva XC have now seen fit to restrict the shop opening
even more by closing it west of Plymouth AND north of Edinbrough so
passengers to / from Dundee Glasgow and Penzance have to wait or
starve due to company policy