The 17:48 from Paddington does not, on first sight, seem exceptional. Overhard seats, overbright lights and a scramble for the ticket barriers: none of these are special. The modern Hitachi trains are solid but dull. Only Isambard Kingdom Brunel\u2019s great arching iron roof adds splendor to the scene. But pause by coach L on the daily London to Carmarthen express and you might notice a small miracle.<\/p>\n
This train is one of the very last in Britain to carry a proper dining car. To its immense credit, GWR, the route\u2019s operator, cooks and serves decent meals on six services a day: three at lunchtime and three in the evening, on its lines from London to Wales and the West Country. Tables are laid ready for three courses, glassware clinks, there\u2019s a wine list, port with cheese and a sense of shared adventure among those lucky and hungry enough to take part.<\/p>\n
Anyone is welcome to join, even those with the humblest discount advance standard tickets, as long as there is space. First-class travelers can book their place in advance. Staff talk proudly of their \u201cregulars.\u201d I\u2019m told there\u2019s an elite WhatsApp group among Exmoor residents where you can work out who to dine with on the trip back to Tiverton Parkway from London.<\/p>\n
\nThe rumor on the platform is that Treasury bureaucrats do not look kindly on employing onboard chefs<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Heading to Wales for work the other evening I joined a small group of diners. Cheerful waiters with Welsh accents bustled about taking orders for wine even before we had left the platform. There\u2019s no messing about on GWR: half-bottles are the smallest they do, though it\u2019s thought polite to share on a table for four. The winter menu \u2013 \u00a340 for two courses and \u00a349 for three \u2013 offers soup, smoked salmon or chicken p\u00e2t\u00e9 followed by Oxfordshire steak, seared hake, chicken or celeriac. It\u2019s real cooking, not reheating.<\/p>\n
By Reading I was on to my main course. We rattled through Swindon at speed, where, until 1895, every train had to stop for a few minutes while locomotives and passengers refueled in an infamous scrum. Beer, mutton chops and cake were crammed down in three dining rooms, segregated by class of travel. Standards were not high. \u201cI have long ceased to make complaints at Swindon. I avoid taking anything there if I can help it,\u201d Brunel wrote to the manager. \u201cI was surprised you should buy such poor roasted corn. I did not believe you had such a thing as coffee in the place; I am certain I never tasted any.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Swindon stop gave way to grand GWR dining cars of which today\u2019s Hitachi IEP units are the sole British heirs. Lunch and dinner have been served on the route for 130 years. Menus haven\u2019t varied much. In 1926, there was fillet of sole, roast beef and apple tart. Today the chicken is \u201cumami glazed\u201d and the tart has given way to apple and pear crumble. The coffee has improved since Brunel\u2019s complaint.<\/p>\n
Even in the heyday of onboard restaurants, only the smarter expresses offered a full menu. The 4:50 from Paddington, which stars in one of Agatha Christie\u2019s stories, \u201cwas not much patronized, the first-class clientele preferring either the faster morning express, or the 6:40 with dining-car.\u201d But as late as the 1980s, proper onboard meals were still common on British Rail. There were protests when kippers were removed from the breakfast menu. Privatization brought a brief resurgence of glamour. On the east coast line from King\u2019s Cross one operator, GNER, offered a proper restaurant on almost every train. But cutbacks began in 2006 and by 2011 they were all gone, replaced by free food and drink in first class, served at your seat, sufficient but dull.<\/p>\n
One by one the dining cars went until GWR stood alone in England. The Welsh government, in a curious use of its devolved budget, continues to support restaurants on a handful of services from Cardiff to Holyhead and Manchester. Three courses with a full bottle of house wine cost only \u00a342 which, given Pret will charge you at least \u00a315 for a meatball hot wrap, a smoothie, a damp bit of carrot cake and a bag of crisps, is the ultimate onboard bargain.<\/p>\n
Back on the tracks last week my slightly late GWR express ran parallel to the Welsh service as we headed west from Newport, two dining cars side by side, a sight that\u2019s rarer than a rhino with its horn intact. Is it one we will be able to spot for much longer? GWR backs its dining cars but it won\u2019t be long before the private operator has to hand over to nationalized Great British Rail.<\/p>\n
The rumor on the platform is that Treasury bureaucrats do not look kindly on the cost of employing onboard chefs so a handful of passengers can eat properly while watching waves splash over the Dawlish sea wall. There\u2019s talk that the last call for the dining car is about to be sounded for good. I hope it\u2019s not true. We don\u2019t need to make everything in our world mundane. My advice is hurry while you can to the magic ofthe GWR.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 17:48 from Paddington does not, on first sight, seem exceptional. Overhard seats, overbright lights and a scramble…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":904500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,254492,1144,41909,280,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":["post-904499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","category-uk","category-united-kingdom","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-gwr","tag-northern-ireland","tag-railways","tag-restaurants","tag-scotland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116430640754959107","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/904500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}