Ian Jack should try the 17.16 from Cardiff to Holyhead, which has a first-class dining carriage (How the railway sandwich led to the privatisation of Britain, 20 May). Food is freshly cooked in a galley. Three courses with choices, wine and coffee at very reasonable rates. Until a couple of years ago there were fresh white linen tablecloths and serviettes, but it is a little more prosaic these days. The food was comparable to a local Michelin-starred restaurant in south Wales which I sampled recently. This service is on a dedicated six-coach train subsidised by the Welsh assembly. They also seem to have a highly polished silver locomotive on the front at times. Of course, it is leased from Arriva Trains, part of the German nationalised rail company Deutsche Bahn. Where Wales leads, will others follow?
Roger Pratt
Cardiff
• Ian Jack’s article revives memories of my own. Preceding “the sandwich”, GWR catered on board trains before the end of the war. In 1945, in the RAF, I was stationed near Worcester, whence, on a 48-hour pass, I would take the 8am to Paddington on a Saturday. The dining car provided a “full English” – ie cereal or porridge, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, toast and unlimited coffee – all for 2/6d. Returning from Paddington at 7pm the following day, even before the train started, the dining car attendant was seeking bookings for a three-course dinner for 5/-.
Martin Sheldon
Oxford
• Ian Jack is right that the nation is divided between those who can remember the glory that was British Rail breakfast and less fortunate, younger passengers. However, it appears he only feasted on shortish journeys. In my teens I made an annual trip between Aberdeen and Plymouth. That allowed time, space and comfort for a double of everything from the porridge, through the bacon, eggs, sausage, mushroom and tomato to the kippers. It was always accompanied by: “Are you sure you’ve had enough toast, sir?” What’s more, it was only ever charged as one. Many things nowadays are not as they were of yore.
Angus Doulton
Bere Ferrers, West Devon
• I read Ian Jack’s piece on railway catering and its decline with affection. I recall a journey from King’s Cross to Newcastle in the late 60s where I shared one of those boxy compartments in the company of three befrocked senior seminarians bound for Durham’s Ushaw Moor seminary, and when we interrupted by a steward informing them that the “last supper was to be served imminently” if they wanted to partake – which they did.
David Walsh
Skelton-in-Cleveland, North Yorkshire
• Nostalgia for things as they used to be is all very well, but I remember in the later 1950s when I used to meet my cousin in the bar at Waterloo station. There, if you wanted sugar in your tea or coffee, you had to seek out the one teaspoon provided, which was attached to the counter on a chain!
Mabel Taylor
Knutsford, Cheshire
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