(27 Aug 2015, 4:42 pm)aureolin wrote It'll be interesting to see how it takes off. I just hope it's not to reduce the staff, as I find on board staff already seem to be at a bare minimum.

I think just about every TOC could do a lot more when it comes to catering. It's expensive and often poor quality. I generally pop into a station shop before I board, as most of them now do a meal deal of some sort, which tends to be a lot nicer! It's also a gripe of mine that they try and serve you warm 'chilled' drinks.

I think it'll be quite the opposite - to make the people who operate the trolley at the moment work a bit more and increase their productivity by bringing in more money this way. 

As for staff on board, it's always been, more or less, a team of three providing service when I used to do SHF-DHM/SUN. My issue was that on some services, you wouldn't actually see the train manager at all. If they work on commission, like other TOCs do, you think you would. On their sister company, Grand Central, who I use pretty much every other week, you constantly see them passing through the train after every stop to take fares and check tickets.

I honestly think the worst thing they did was get rid of the shop, though. I concur with the expensive and rubbish quality statement. Have you been on Eurostar of late? They're supplied by Waitrose. Yes, it's expensive but the food I had last year was top notch. Although, it's not a patch on the SNCF TGV food. Mmmmmmm.