I just don’t accept the premise of this question. We are now selling more food and drink than we were when we had HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) with buffets. I accept the transition has been tougher than we would have liked but progress is being made to solve the issues we face and our new terms and conditions for catering staff is making it easier to cover shifts, especially at weekends. Removing hard won seats for an old fashioned buffet in an environment where fewer and fewer customers wish to leave their seats is not sensible and the cost would £Ms which would never be recovered - and that’s before we even think of how long each train would be out of service for. The numbers don’t add up!

Our move to an all at seat service is not and never was an 'experiment' It was a well planned and thought through change which despite being logistically challenging is starting to prove beyond doubt that it is the right strategy on these very long trains and will prove to be highly successful. We do understand that it is not perfect. We recognise that with a trolley service the customers are not in control of when the trolley arrives at their seat. We are working very hard to deliver the service.

Regarding hot food, we continue research into ways to improve our catering offer and that includes hot food. We are developing a trolley that can deliver hot food products.

At the end of the day I accept there will be a small set of customers who prefer a buffet but the current options allows us to offer more seats and provide customers a service of refreshments to their seat. That is one of the reasons we are now seeing growth in catering sales year on year after years of decline and a 3% increase in customer satisfaction with on board services in last NRPS^▸ (Numerical Rating Pain Score (patient discomfort scale)) survey by Transport Focus.

Having noted the reference to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) on Trip Advisor I would note that our Pullman catering operation scores 4.5/5 and is ranked in Top 1000 restaurants in London out of c20,000.

Also worth noting that over half of catering complaints in recent weeks have been from first class customers rather than standard where the trolley service remains in first.

I don’t think I am suggesting the Pullman should be delivered at the expense of other aspects of catering delivery.

There are still too many occasions when the delivery of catering at seat is not as good as it should be. We can see from our reports this is getting better but there is more work to do and we are focused on getting this addressed and recruiting more colleagues.

I think Mark hinted at the reason(s) earlier in the thread

Took my wife and daughter up to London yesterday (and hence missed the 'live event') for just their second IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) experience.  Up on the Golden Hind from Exeter and back on the 19:03.

Their first experience (in both directions) was in a 2x5-car which had a trolley 'in the other unit'.  Yesterday, both services were 9-car units and within 10 minutes of joining the train, the rather apologetic call of 'anyone for refreshments' was heard in our carriage. Sadly, neither trolley had hot water available and the selection of food was restricted to packets of crisps and biscuits.

It was extremely good planning to visit Pumpkins before boarding!

Unlikely given the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) hand in all of this. But maybe I detect an agreement with IndustryInsider that we move on from the comparison with buffets until such a time as a new franchise is on the cards, else the subject risks being staler than a 1970s BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) ham sandwich.