Great Western Coffee Shop

Since the TT change the herefords have the buffet closed at evesham as the crew get off.  Which is fine - the number of passengers who continue beyond that is so small it hardly justifies a buffet.

However, I have noticed this week a lack of announcement that the buffet is closing.  Last night after it closed, a number of people wandered down presumably to make a purchase.  The CH was one I know so I asked why the announcement is no longer made that the buffet is closing at evesham.

Apparently they have been told by catering management that they are not allowed to make the announcement anymore - specifically instructed not to do it. 

Now as a passenger, if I got onto a buffet service to go to Hereford, I might rightly expect it to be open unless advised otherwise.  The result would be a mightily miffed me if I went to get last refreshments etc and found it closed and no one home.
Announcing its closure would at least alert me that I need to go make my purchases earlier - and I know when they used to announce it, there was a last minute surge to the bar.

Now, since I can think of no logical or operational reason (please advise if im wrong) why you WOULD NOT make the announcement, I can only assume that they are trying to have people NOT use the buffet.  This is backed up by the recent appalling changes to the stock they sell!

So, is this another way FGW are trying to drive a nail into the coffin of the buffet?  Make them so unprofitable they have an excuse to close them?

I suspect that you are right, and that this is a plan to minimise use of the buffets and justify closure.
FGW do seem to have a policy of "closure by stealth" as regards catering in general.

In longer term of course new trains will be ordered, as disscused elswhere on these forums.
Therefore catering needs to be reduced/withdrawn on the existing services in order to justify building trains without restaurant or buffet.

Many trains on FGW and elswhere, are very overcrowded, and the rail industry considers the solution to be not longer trains, but the removal of catering and the use of high density bus seats.

If they are to "mothball" the buffet, why have they revamped the travelling chef and committed to mini-buffets?  ???

Interestingly Mark Hopwood (FGW MD) has recently been reported as saying that the future of buffets is safe and that the trolley service to 2nd class is going.  

Having looked at catering in detail FGW is currently refurbishing 10 more buffet coaches and the remaining 15 trains will loose their buffet cars (reducing the length of train by one coach) and creating a new buffet at one end of an existing 2nd class coach (removing 4 seating bays).  

Mr Hopwood has also stated that he does not want to see any early closing of buffets, i wonder if an edict has come out saying that they are not allowed to close early which has been misunderstood as they are not allowed to announce that....

I think you have answered your own question.

If the train is terminating at Worcester, closure at Evesham is acceptable, but only if an announcement is made 15 mins beforehand. On a train to Hereford, it should stay open to at least Malvern Link.

Question was rhetorical, probably not that clear.

I am not sure it is a plan to close buffets by stealth.  More likely they have had complaints about buffets that close early and have (rather stupidly) decided that rather than keep them open longer they are to close them early quietly and in the hope that few people will notice.  (if you don't annouce closure a few people go to the buffet and see it is closed - if you announce its closure evryone on the train knows it is closed and perhaps they reckon that gives a bad impression even amoung those who were not going to use the buffet after Evesham????

IMO , closing the buffet for short parts of the journey is fine so long as it is announced.

What puzzles me about buffet closure is when they are closed for 10 to 20 minutes for a stocktake on staff changeover.  To me this implies:

    1)FGW do not trust their staff not to nick the stock. In which case they should be employing either more trustworthy staff of less paranoid managers.
or 2)Managers think that having the occasional kitkat going unaccounted for is worse than annoying your customers and paying supposedly customer service staff for signifiant periods of time when they are not serving the customer

Anyone who defends this procedure needs to be able to answer the question of why every shop in the high street manages to change shifts without needing to do a stocktake.

It smacks of the mentality of BR at its worse - "lets follow procedure as we always have done with no thought fo the customers".

It really surprises me that no TOC has got rid of this working practice (perhaps by employing modern stock-control equipment.  Afterall, if each member of staff spends say 30 minutes a day doing stock-takes, that is perhaps 5 to 10% of their time.  Abolish this practice and you could increase the efficiency of your staff by that percentage.

At least the high street shops do shut at night. My daughter had to do stock checks, (once a month !) in a WH Smith on the M4 in a shop that NEVER shut - they managed OK !

Strange - even in the old BR days, the buffet ranto Worcester Shrub Hill. I wonder what's hapening with buffets from Hereford.

For a good many years the buffet didn't open until Worcester Shrub Hill, then back in the mid 1990s it opened at Hereford which gave the early birds a chance of caffeine and bacon rolls. If customers now have to wait until Evesham...... Why Evesham, of all places?

You misunderstand - most of the up trains open up just after hereford or worcester shrub depending on where the crew get on

The issue is now where buffets are run by crew based a long time before the final destination - in this case hereford trains staffed by worcester crew.   It is the down trains that are the problem.  Closing at evesham allows them to close up and stock check or whatever before they get off.

Thanks for that - now I'm puzzled. If the Hereford bound buffet staff get off at Worcester of an evening, where are the London bound staff to be found at Hereford the next morning? And where do the happy Worcester dwelling buffet crew go the next day - unless one evening Worcester bound HST DOESN'T have any buffet staff.
(Or do they travel up from Bristol/Cardiff or some other nonsensical start point?). And what happens with the HST that I understand now stays at Hereford overnight?

The morning Hereford trains get ther staff from Bristol.  The trains come from there empty stock.

The staff for the evening work an earlier service from Worcester to London before working back to Worcester.

As an aside the arrangement with staff getting off at Worcester goes back to the service provided at privatisation - what goes around comes around  ;D

The hereford stabled HST gets worcester crew - I believe it starts at great malvern - although not sure where the TM comes from - I guess a worcester TM gets taxied to GM

The next three peak trains I believe start at hereford/abergaveny  and they have TM and driver taxied up from bristol.  The CH tend to be bristol although I believe now worcester help out ferrying food due to the travelling chef.

I may be completely wrong as I'm still  a zombie first thing in the morning!  (note - im still up at 11pm and have to be a train in 6 hours!)

Mookiemoo are you sure about the post below this?

I was under the impression that there isn't a Hereford stabled train and that it runs up from from Bristol.  I talked to the catering staff and TM on this train 2 timetable changes ago and this was the case then.  At that time the catering staff were being taxied up with the food from Cardiff.

The second HST starts from Great Malvern and this runs empty from Worcester.  The third HST starts from Worcester and I think that the driver and TM are also taxied up from Bristol.  No idea where the catering staff come from.

From looking at the diagram for the first train from Hereford (05:35) it is schedule to come from Bristol.
Interestingly though the first train from Great Malvern (05:17) is formed using the stabled set from Hereford (formed of previous nights 19:22 from Paddington)

Where does the insomniac special start from - the one that leaves WOS at around 5am

The 5am HST to Paddington is stabled at Worcester overnight.  I have travelled on it a couple of times, in both cases there were less than 10 passengers on the train before the Oxford stop.  It only became full at Reading.

Thanks Ollie for answers to my previous post.

Well, in my experience (I've probably caught it 30-odd times over the years) it's a hell of a lot busier than that! Granted the Worcester and Evesham stops don't get much trade - that's partly to do with the 15 minute rest the train has at Moreton-In-Marsh meaning the following train isn't too far behind and the fact that it is a new service.

Custom from Moreton onwards is far more than 10 passengers though. Typically (and this is erring on the side of caution) 15 join at Moreton, 10 at Kingham, 15 at Charlbury and 10 at Hanborough. Then around 80-100 swamp it at Oxford. Didcot Parkway varies considerably depending on whether the platform 2 departures there are running to time and Reading is also hit and miss depending on what else is around, but usually it's a case of nearly every seat taken after Reading.

Oh Good, last time I traveled on it was last winter and it did make me wonder if it was soon for the axe. 

I would not call replacing proper buffets with mini buffets a commitment to catering !

And as for the travelling chef, it is a slightly improved hot buffet, and a very poor substitute for the Pullman restaurant formerly provided on busy trains.
Those expecting a hot buffet might well be impressed with the travelling chef, those expecting a proper restaurant would be less impressed!

Downgrading restaurants to a braserie/travelling chef/select travelling chef/pullman brasserie/latest re-branding is not a commitment to catering.

D/M, the above post is a better explanation of my "I think you've answered your own question" comment! ;)

By "committing" to mini-buffets, FGW are showing that they are not "committed" to catering.

FGW are to be congratulated for keeping at least a half decent level of catering with travelling chefs and mini-buffets on some of their trains at a time when other TOCs are doing much worse in terms of cutting restarants etc (NXEA, NXEC, XC etc). 

My main complaint is that they keep chopping and changing abandoning and relaunching things like teh travellingchef the public (and staff) don't have time to get familiar with the product and for it to bed-down in terms of consistancy before it gets changed.  I fear that thsi will lead to falling custom and more cuts