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Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Mon May 16, 2022 7:58 pm
by Del.Monte
It's been on a downward trajectory for decades but since out-sourcing and the move away from real trains to ICR buses on rails,,,but if this news item is correct: https://www.msn.com/en-ie/travel/news/i ... 475d960be9 it's the end.

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Mon May 16, 2022 9:29 pm
by Hairy-Joe
Well while I'm sorry for the staff, I'm not surprised.

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Tue May 17, 2022 7:12 am
by DeletedUser
The blanket alcohol ban on trains is ridiculous.

There’s nothing like a Friday pint in the Galway Hooker and then getting a couple of carry outs for the train - we’ve lost a lot of simple pleasures the last couple of years, I don’t see why they can’t restrict it to the dodgy trains like they did pre-Covid.

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Tue May 17, 2022 8:12 am
by isha
Have to say though, Plane Seeking, that the reek of burped Heineken and a rushed fag off your traveling companion on a crowded train ranks pretty highly in my least favourite experiences 🤢

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Tue May 17, 2022 8:22 am
by 95438756
"Disappointed and not surprised"

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Tue May 17, 2022 8:30 am
by Del.Monte
Ah for the good old days in the 1970s,,,expensive but at least the option was available.

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Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Tue May 17, 2022 8:37 am
by Del.Monte
I wonder if any of these railway refreshment rooms will be reopening under Barry Kenny's master plan? :mrgreen:

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Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Tue May 17, 2022 9:01 am
by Del.Monte
https://irishrailways.blogspot.com/2009 ... ravel.html

From my "Irish Railways Now" blog - March 9th, 2009.

The blog is currently private for legal reasons.

Recent postings on the Rail Users Ireland message board triggered me off on another of my pet hates - CIE's rail catering or the lack of it. As long as I have been using trains - just over four decades - this has been a disaster. Sky high prices, poor quality food, badly motivated staff (remember all the sackings amongst catering crews caught fiddling the books in the 1980s) and now the dire outsourcing to Rail Gourmet.

For as long as I can remember passengers have resorted to bringing their own food with them which is surely an indictment of the service provided. CIE/Irish Rail have never seen the marketing possibilities of offering rail travel with cheap/cost price meals. Better still a rail ticket with your meal thrown in FREE - see the Norfolk Line advertisement here.


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Of course Norfolk line is not in receipt of gigantic subsidies from the Irish taxpayer! Instead CIE/IE resorted to charging fewer and fewer passengers more and more for the meals on offer. Now the limited number of trains still offering full meal services no longer have proper distinctive dining cars - the rot set in here when the awful 'MacDonalds' type seating was removed from the MkIII dining cars and replaced with seating identical to the rest of the carriages. If they get away with it full dining facilities, even for 1st class passengers, will soon dispensed with to be replaced with the overpriced trolley service. This service will also be discontinued eventually - as night follows day! I will return to this subject shortly but for now I would welcome comments.

My predictions have come true faster than I had expected...

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2022 1:44 pm
by Del.Monte
A picture paints 1000 words... :mrgreen:

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Below, Irish Rail's most recent catering and even this joke of a service may not return until well into 2023.

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Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2022 3:36 pm
by DeletedUser
The trolley is back on Enterprise services going North - but bugger all for us culchies coming back down from the schmoke.

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2022 3:59 pm
by Del.Monte
PlaneSpeeking wrote: Tue Aug 02, 2022 3:36 pm The trolley is back on Enterprise services going North - but bugger all for us culchies coming back down from the schmoke.
Different operator on the Enterprise. Rail Gourmet, or whatever they were called, were unable to keep their end of the contract up as Covid restrictions lifted. Anyway, the trolley service is a very poor substitute for proper dining cars and, indeed, proper trains. The catering should never have been outsourced but with the majority of trains on CIE/IE now operated by glorified sardine cans ......

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2022 7:23 pm
by DeletedUser
Del.Monte wrote: Tue Aug 02, 2022 3:59 pm Different operator on the Enterprise. Rail Gourmet, or whatever they were called, were unable to keep their end of the contract up as Covid restrictions lifted. Anyway, the trolley service is a very poor substitute for proper dining cars and, indeed, proper trains. The catering should never have been outsourced but with the majority of trains on CIE/IE now operated by glorified sardine cans ......
100% agreed! How they have the brass neck to sell “first class” is beyond me!!

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2023 9:58 am
by Del.Monte
According to the Indo catering is coming back in March on the Dublin/Cork route: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/d ... 42455.html

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Got to love the photo which shows 1st class with passenger (obviously in wrong carriage) as her feet are on the seat - and she's wearing runners! :o

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2023 10:44 am
by Fratello
She's got the camera ready to photograph the locomotive.

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2023 11:07 am
by quodec
Looks like Jamie Lee Curtis is trying out the in-house facilities!!

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2023 4:50 pm
by Hairy-Joe
Feet on chair? Check!
Taking the whole table? Check!
Bag on another seat? Check!
Eating a fashionable pastry? Check!
Random unrelated stuff on table? Check!

Typical modern advertising.

It's completely false as it's clean and not crowded....

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2023 9:18 am
by Del.Monte
According to RTE some sort of catering offering is to return on Dublin/Cork services in April: https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0222/13581 ... -catering/

However, I would still pack the sandwiches and drinks if travelling long distance. Rail catering has been overpriced for as long as I'm travelling by train (late 1960's) and there's no reason to expect this to change anytime soon. Descriptions in some media reports about the return of the "beloved" trolley service beggar belief and would indicate that they were penned by somebody with no experience of travel on Iarnrod Eireann.

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2023 12:20 pm
by 95438756
Soft Drinks and Alcohol were the famous rip off down the years.
Get a transparent plastic cup for free.

And don't antagonize the trolley porter with a € 50 euro note.

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2023 1:04 pm
by DeletedUser
Remove the alcohol ban and treat us like adults!!!

I pay near 4,000 a year to travel - I should have a gargle after a long busy week!!

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Wed May 24, 2023 7:42 am
by Del.Monte
So the bottom of the barrel has been scraped and found to be empty: "Cork-Dublin rail passengers to get access to onboard vending machines" https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41143600.html Really, CIE couldn't organise a proverbial piss-up in a brewery.

I noticed on my recent whirlwind trip to Dublin that the AMT Coffee outlets at Bray, Dun Laoghaire and Connolly (in the suburban subway) are all closed and have been for sometime. Surely this shows the folly of allowing important services to be controlled by a single entity - why not multiple independent operators?

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:42 pm
by Del.Monte
And just when you thought Irish Rail couldn't mess things up any further we have this:
https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22258995/

Cashless catering - it's been tasteless and overpriced for years and now this. :roll:

Re: Rail catering staggers into oblivion....

Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2023 5:08 pm
by marhay70
Del.Monte wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:42 pm And just when you thought Irish Rail couldn't mess things up any further we have this:
https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22258995/

Cashless catering - it's been tasteless and overpriced for years and now this. :roll:
Took an Aer Lingus flight to Faro recently and the catering was cashless too. Have to say the prices compared very favourably with those in the terminal and probably with Ryanair too, couldn't say the same about the price of the flight itself though.
I'm not sure I buy into the argument about the older generation and technology, there's a certain element of truth in it but when I look around at my peers, there are none of us who I would say are completely computer illiterate, we may not be as fast or as up to date as the younger generation, but I'd say 90+% of us could pay for a cup of tea with a smartphone. Whether we'd have the means to do so is a different matter entirely.