Great Western Railway: on-board catering, buffets, Travelling Chef, Pullman - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

The furthest I can recall them going along this road rail in the past was expresses out of King's Cross which were in some cases all seats reservable / passengers carried limited to capacity of trains.

Were the Blue Pullmans that ran on the London Midland and Western Regions in the 1960s/early 1970s also all seats reservable and limited to seating capacity?

[BBM]

The furthest I can recall them going along this road rail in the past was expresses out of King's Cross which were in some cases all seats reservable / passengers carried limited to capacity of trains.

Were the Blue Pullmans that ran on the London Midland and Western Regions in the 1960s/early 1970s also all seats reservable and limited to seating capacity?

I travelled on the South Wales Pullman from Swansea to Paddington (including a non-stop run through Reading although I recall it was checked by signals) with my parents in 1973 shortly before the Blue Pullmans were withdrawn from service. My Dad bought supplement tickets from the booking office in Swansea just before we travelled. Seat reservations were included but I believe it was possible to simply board the train, find an empty seat and pay the supplement to the conductor.

Bringing this post closer to the thread's topic of catering, I recall having a very delicious meal of steak and chips with a catering staff member frequently roaming up and down with a a bowl of fresh chips. Yum! 

[TaplowGreen]

The furthest I can recall them going along this road rail in the past was expresses out of King's Cross which were in some cases all seats reservable / passengers carried limited to capacity of trains.

Were the Blue Pullmans that ran on the London Midland and Western Regions in the 1960s/early 1970s also all seats reservable and limited to seating capacity?

I travelled on the South Wales Pullman from Swansea to Paddington (including a non-stop run through Reading although I recall it was checked by signals) with my parents in 1973 shortly before the Blue Pullmans were withdrawn from service. My Dad bought supplement tickets from the booking office in Swansea just before we travelled. Seat reservations were included but I believe it was possible to simply board the train, find an empty seat and pay the supplement to the conductor.

Bringing this post closer to the thread's topic of catering, I recall having a very delicious meal of steak and chips with a catering staff member frequently roaming up and down with a a bowl of fresh chips. Yum! 

Sounds like the passage of time has not affected the menu - still steak and chips! (but I bet you wouldn't get extra chips these days witout shelling out another fiver at least!!! 

[bobm]

Chips haven't featured on the Pullman Menu for a long while.  However you do frequently get offered a second serving of the remaining vegetables once everyone has had a first serving.

[Richard Fairhurst]

Don't long distance trains in Europe make it compulsory to have seat reservations? I'm thinking ICE or was that because I was on FIP Coupons?

ICE doesn't require compulsory reservation. However, when I travelled on it a couple of weeks ago, 80%-90% of the seats were either reserved or marked as "ggf freigeben", which means "may be reserved at late notice, so sit here at your peril".

[broadgage]

Chips haven't featured on the Pullman Menu for a long while.  However you do frequently get offered a second serving of the remaining vegetables once everyone has had a first serving.

Indeed, the preparing of deep fried foods on a moving train is potentially dangerous and may be banned, or if not actually prohibited is avoided.

IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly), many years ago a serious fire occurred in a BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) restaurant car caused by misuse of a vegetable boiler to fry chips. The appliance consisted of a fixed container set into the worktop and heated by gas. It was intended to be filled with water and vegetables boiled by lighting the gas. This arrangement being safer than a saucepan that could be upset and spill boiling water.
Unfortunately someone filled the vegetable boiler with cooking oil instead of water and thereby cooked chips. Being intended to hold water and not oil, no thermostatic control was fitted and the oil was overheated and ignited.

[Umberleigh]

Chips not a problem on South African railways or crossing the Rockies:

http://www.railway-technology.com/features/feature88897/

Interesting article in its own right, worth a read

[thetrout]

Chips haven't featured on the Pullman Menu for a long while.

As per my earlier photograph. Travelling Chef do serve chips. It's a smallish portion at ^3.00 but very well cooked IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion).

I think they were either shallow-fried or oven/grill cooked.

I managed to convince a chef recently to do me a "Chip Buttie" ... (No photo sadly) Not something I will repeat anytime soon, because it was incredibly tasty and too much chips = bad apparently

^ Click that for the picture

[thetrout]

Another Cornishman Travelling Chef recently

The Chef clocked me sat in Coach K and I can only gather from receiving an order of Cheese on Toast with Mushrooms; assumed which passenger whom was responsible...



I managed also to invade the First Class Lounge at London Paddington the same day and was delighted to see this:



I remember there being a Gentleman who had also clocked the Cake, there were 2 pieces remaining. I managed to get one onto the plate but then had a major hand/eye/though process coordination fail when trying to put the cake server and the lid down... I think he thought I was going to take 2 pieces for which there would have undoubtedly been a stand-off... I managed to work it out in the end and all was well

[JayMac]

I travelled on the South Wales Pullman from Swansea to Paddington (including a non-stop run through Reading although I recall it was checked by signals) with my parents in 1973 shortly before the Blue Pullmans were withdrawn from service. My Dad bought supplement tickets from the booking office in Swansea just before we travelled. Seat reservations were included but I believe it was possible to simply board the train, find an empty seat and pay the supplement to the conductor.

Posted before on the forum (probably in this thread!) is a copy of the 1960 Blue Pullman promotional leaflet and menu. Apt that it is linked to again. Some very interesting menu items:

http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BRWR_Pullman1960.pdf

Also, for those that have not seen it before, here's a link to the British Transport Films' Blue Pullman feature:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paF321PTFwk

[stuving]

and I can remember the Birmingham Pullmans going through Greenford ... about the last proper trains that did that, I think.

[Rhydgaled]

Chips haven't featured on the Pullman Menu for a long while.

As per my earlier photograph. Travelling Chef do serve chips. It's a smallish portion at ^3.00 but very well cooked IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion).

I think they were either shallow-fried or oven/grill cooked.

I managed to convince a chef recently to do me a "Chip Buttie" ... (No photo sadly) Not something I will repeat anytime soon, because it was incredibly tasty and too much chips = bad apparently

^ Click that for the picture

Eating out is bad for me then. I'm a VERY fussy eater and pretty much everything I will eat out involves chips (normally with either battered white fish or scampi). At home I have less-fatty (and therefore presumably much healther) pasta most of the time.

As Fish 'n' Chips is one of the meals I do eat, this Rail UK^▸ (United Kingdom) post about eating on the WAG^» (Welsh Assembly Government - about) Express was quite memorable. Unfortunately I haven't yet managed to travel on a train serving a hot evening meal that I will eat, although I did have a cooked breakfast on the WAG Express once.

[grahame]

Posted before on the forum (probably in this thread!) is a copy of the 1960 Blue Pullman promotional leaflet and menu.

An interesting comparison. The London to Bristol journey time in 1960 was 110 minutes, and the first class price was 3.70 + 0.50 each way Pullman supplement, so taking inflation into account that would be 4.70 * 236.2 / 12.6 = 88.10 today (see http://swanlowpark.co.uk/rpiannual.jsp for inflation rates).   These days, some journeys can be completd in just under 100 minutes, there is no supplement for special trains, and the first class return fare is 193.00 off peak or 317.00 anytime.

[RichardB]

Sadly the Blue Pullmans were one of the biggest mistakes of the Modernisation Plan.  You can see where the BTC were coming from - TEEs^▸ (Trans Europe Express) appeared to be very successful in Europe and survived well into the 1980s.

Nevertheless, part of the Beeching philosophy was to move away from flagship trains (with the rest being nowhere near as good) to regular interval services of a similar standard. 

That is largely the railway we have today though you can argue that the Paddington - far South West service is perhaps the last Inter City route to rely on flagship trains with an otherwise fairly "hot and cold" service.  Hopefully that will change when High Speed Trains (HST^▸ (High Speed Train))s are released from the Bristol and Cardiff services.

As for Blue Pullmans, I was just too young and it's really sad nothing of them was saved.

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

[JayMac]

As for Blue Pullmans, I was just too young and it's really sad nothing of them was saved.

Hear, hear. I too am sad that a set wasn't preserved. Also too young to have seen or travelled on them.

As Fish 'n' Chips is one of the meals I do eat,

Permit me a small topic diversion... I was at a wedding this past Saturday, and fish 'n' chips was served for the wedding breakfast at the reception. A most unusual, but universally enjoyed, choice on the part of the bride (my sister) and groom. As is my way with catered meals I of course took a picture before tucking in: