A cup of tea

[whole diary]

[fanara]

At many FGW^▸ (First Great Western) stations a small cup of tea is charged at ^1.49. Does any one agree that this is extortionate?

Wetherspoon's charge 99p for a small coffee and if you buy five you get the sixth free.

 Recently at a cafe outside Brighton station I bought a large cup of tea for only 50p.

[JayMac]

The price of a cup of tea from station outlets has nothing to do with First Great Western.

And if you believe ^1.49 to be extortionate then don't pay it.

Alternatively get yourself a BiTE Card and enjoy 20% off at a wide range of food and drink outlets at rail stations and some bus/coach stations.

http://www.bitecard.co.uk/default.asp

Or buy one of these. 

[Brucey]

I do agree that ^1.49 for a cup of boiling water and a tea bag is excessive, but no-one is forcing you to pay it.

It is still cheaper than Costa, who charge around ^1.65 for a cup of tea.

Wetherspoons now charge 49p for coffee so I assume tea will be a similar price.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

expencive refreshments...on railways..... well i have never heard such a thing!!

[dog box]

if at pad just take a walk outside there are plenty of reasonable priced places, cross the road by Hilton Hotel turn right 2min walk to Raffles...as recommended by most fgw staff

[Super Guard]

At EXD^» (Exeter St Davids - next trains) in the Lemon Tree and associated establishments, if you purchase a number of hot drinks you get one free with their loyalty card.

[grahame]

Welcome to the forum, Fanara.

I'm going to give you a slightly different "take" on this one. Only a very small proportion of the cost of providing a nice cup of tea is the ingredients.  Other costs relate to staffing, and to the cost of premises ... and if you're in a low volume setup, these will be significantly higher per unit than in a high volume one.

So ... on train, let's take the Stroud Valley diagram as an example.   Each unit is on a 4 hour "cycle" ... 1 hr and 15 minutes from Swindon to Cheltenham, 15 minutes gap, 1 hour and 15 minutes back to Swindon, 1 hour 15 minutes in the bay.   People won't want to buy a drink in the last 15 minutes before they arrive ... and you end up with huge costs.   Surprise, surprise - there is no catering on Stroud Valley.  Even on the London -> Bristol 125 service, you've got a 40 minute layover in Bristol, a layover in London ...

On station, you may have heavy traffic, but you've probably got some fairly heavy payments to make for the right to trade there, and the extra money has to be generated.   It's not necessarily a bad thing as it  helps keep train fares down to a reasonable level ( ).   And on some stations - Warminster in our area comes to my mind - you can end up with some quite long gaps where there are no trains so few customers.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

there is however no reason for the high price of the on platform vending machines!

[Phil]

Welcome aboard Fanara. I for one agree with you - ^1.49 is extortionate for hot water and a bag of coloured sawdust, but rest assured some student of the subject of marketing will have done their homework and worked out that that's what people will usually pay for the convience. Some of course will bring a flask and make their own; the vast majority won't though, not least for fear of being erroneusly mistaken for one of that despised breed, the lesser spotted Gricer.

Where I think the train operating companies do have some responsibility is in consideration of the fact that once inside the barriers at certain stations (Salisbury, Exeter, Reading spring to mind immediately), passengers are virtually a captive audience. They are at that point the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)'s customers, and it is in their best interest to ensure that they are treated fairly - including not being charged an extortionate amount for a cup of tea.

I fully realise people are perfectly entitled to faff around with waving their ticket at disinterested barrier staff and explain they intend to break their journey and then re-enter a few moments later simultaneously clutching all of their baggage (which as we are constantly reminded should never be left unattended), the ticket which in all probability won't work in the barrier even if it had going out and which they need to show the still disinterested barrier staff if he or she is still around; and a scalding cup of tea which happens to be 27p cheaper just outside the station in the cabbies' caff. But again, the vast majority won't bother. They'll just pay through the nose and go away grumbling about rip-off Britain and how rubbish it is travelling by train and how next time they'll take the car instead.

[fanara]

In the days of the 'first' Great Western and in the early days of British Railways, station refreshment charges were on a par with those outside. It's ridiculous to say that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) is not responsible for these extortionate charges. They should require the refreshment room operators to charge a reasonable price for basic refreshments, ie tea and sanwiches. Tea from a machine at my local hospital is only 60 pence and I regard anything more than that as robbery.
Stations and airports have just been piling it on over the last few years. It's got to stop.

[JayMac]

I don't think it's possible for FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to make any insistence on station retailers and their prices. Along with the retailers FGW are merely tenants of the stations - the landlords are Network Rail.

So I think the opposite applies. It's ridiculous to say that FGW is responsible for these extortionate prices.

As I said before, no one is forcing you to pay these 'extortionate' prices. As for it being robbery, I'd check the dictionary on that one.

[Chris from Nailsea]

There is an interesting list of comparison prices in this article: http://www.walletpop.co.uk/2010/06/29/tea-for-how-much-are-you-being-ripped-off/ 

[inspector_blakey]

In the days of the 'first' Great Western and in the early days of British Railways, station refreshment charges were on a par with those outside.

When was the last time you tried buying a cup of tea in any high-street cafe along the lines of Starbucks/Costa Coffee etc etc? In most of those I'll wager you'd find yourself paying well north of GBP1.49 for a cup of tea. And it probably won't taste like it's been freshly squeezed from a ferret, unlike the swill the most vending machines spew out.

Quite frankly, I really do think that there are bigger issues on the railways than the price of tea. If you find it so offensive that these prices are bring charged, you can exercise your choice as a consumer and not buy it. Or invest in a thermos which given the supposedly extortionate pricing should pay for itself inside, what, 10 - 20 cups...? And it hasn't "got to stop", nor will it. Sorry, but you're going to be sorely disappointed if you believe it will.

[JayMac]

Just to show that complaints about station refreshment facilities are nothing new (not price, but quality in this instance) here's a letter written by some engineering bloke in 1842:

Dear Sir,

I assure you Mr Player [the manager] was wrong in supposing that I thought you purchased inferior coffee. I thought I said to him that I was surprised you should buy such bad roasted corn. I did not believe that you had such a thing as coffee in the place; I am certain that I never tasted any. I have long ceased to make complaints at Swindon. I avoid taking anything there when I can help it.

Yours faithfully,

I K Brunel.

[fanara]

When I want a cup of tea "outside" I don't patronise Starbucks and similar eastablishments. I patronise a cafe that sells tea at what I consider to be a reasonable price. Rail travellers are trapped inside the system until they get to the end of their journey. As to exercising my right not to buy over-priced refreshments, this is difficult when the service falls to pieces and there are long delays. Before privatisation BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) issued refreshment vouchers to passengers delayed by one hour or over due to the railway's fault. It is now two hours, "to bring us in line with the airlines". When are the railways going to stop trying to ape airlines? There is no reasonable comparison that can be made between train and plane. Thermos flasks are heavy and I don't need extra weight in my hand luggage.
These companies might be privatised but they are supposed to be providing a public service.