Actor Sir Laurence Olivier and his wife, Lady Olivier (actress Joan Plowright) are pictured in the restaurant car of the ‘Brighton Belle’ train during a trip from London to Brighton in 1970. Daily Mail photo.
20 MAY: An overnight train leaves London’s Kings Cross station at 7.30pm local time today on a milestone journey to the Midlands city of Leeds.
It will be the last train in Britain to feature full restaurant dining.
For more than a century, the words ‘Last call for the dining car’ have rung out for lunch and dinner on trains throughout the country.
Read more
When private franchise operators took over the British Rail system 17 years ago, there were 249 restaurant carriages on various routes.
For profit reasons, they’ve been replaced by airline-style servings for first-class passengers in their seats.
The same is about to happen on the London-Leeds route.
Standard-class travellers will get microwaved burgers from the buffet car.
Passengers on tonight’s train will sit down to a valedictory meal of smoked haddock, rib-eye steak, leg of lamb or fillets of trout, followed by blue cheese, apple and walnut strudel and ginger and rhubarb pavlova.
A FOOTNOTE from rail enthusiast Ken Coulter: "Whilst sadly main line trains in the UK will no longer have on board dining many of the Heritage Railways do still operate ‘fine dining’ trains ...such as the ‘Bluebell Railway’ in Sussex. Details of all the railways and their ‘fine dining’ can be found on the Heritage Railways Association website (www.heritagerailways.com)
Remember all but one of the railways are volunteer operated".
