Save the Pullman dining car – it’s all that’s left of train culture

It’s one of the last vestiges of mainstream train culture. Great Western Railway’s 19.04 Paddington to Plymouth service with its single Pullman dining car, for which seats are fought for and purchased at vast expense.

And doesn’t it just sound so romantic? The opportunity to dine in splendour while making haste towards God’s own counties of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. It’s the most exquisite use of time.

The body has its necessary nutrition, the mind takes pleasure from the experience and you make actual progress. And the 19.04 Thursday service is the key one, because it heralds the weekend (don’t pretend your office is nothing but a barren desert on a Friday).

So, among the diners is a shared feeling of elation, of de-mob euphoria. Until, of course, you must curtail the cheese course as Taunton approaches. The bill needs paying and reality is set to return.

The menu offers the likes of soup, terrine, fillet steak, steamed cod, coq au vin, sticky toffee pudding and cheese. And there’s a tight wine list to match. All of which sounds promising.

Except that GWR, presumably in its constant quest to make journeys less comfortable, slower and more expensive, is considering curtailing the 19.04 service. Indeed, its assault on this has already begun, moving the dining offer an hour earlier to 18.03 for the entirety of April. Which is both inconvenient and uncivilised. Only wine-timid New Yorkers dine at six and only those who bunk off work early and eschew a pre-commute snifter can reach Paddington by 6pm.

So if you wish to dine after 7pm it’s the trolley service, that miserable cupboard on wheels doling out edible substances – Mini Cheddars, Dairy Milk, whatever shabby sandwiches remain – and only if the card machine is working (which it frequently isn’t).

If Greater Anglia trains can offer a café bar why not GWR? Maybe because it denies the opportunity of squeezing in more customers and rinsing them for revenue. And while we cling to the Pullman car, enjoy the camaraderie, relish the sight of the ever-friendly staff balancing soup as the train hurtles down the track at 125 miles per hour, it’s not exactly the Orient Express.

There is no design ethos. The Pullman car is just a first-class carriage with place settings. GWR’s deliberately mean approach, with its over-lit carriages and two courses for £34.50, offers no succour to the diner. No one thought to commission an actual dining car, to pretty the carriage up with some curtains or wood-panelling effect, or a different seating style, or indeed anything creative or imaginative that might lend the Pullman carriage an air of hospitality.

If Loyd Grossman could be hired to consult on NHS menus (of course, in the end, they thwarted and ignored his advice…) then is it inconceivable that a titan of British restaurants, or some bloke who runs a caff, or (here’s an idea…) a restaurant critic, could offer some tips on GWR dining?

The travelling public and tourists should be encouraged to use British trains. They should be a symbol of British excellence, progress and culture. Foreign visitors should return from this country proselytising about our railways. Yet what is offered instead is a PR disaster; a joyless and unreliable utilitarian amenity.

And while some may argue that getting a decent meal in a dining carriage is hardly a priority in 2024, I would argue that having food and service that we can be proud of is in fact a vital cornerstone of a decent country.

Now GWR MD Mark Hopwood might think he has enough on his plate, and that, while he runs a logistical battlefield of machines and staff, weather and the vagaries of the travelling public, he only ever hears the complaints. But perhaps he might think again. This can be an easy win. I know some cheffy types who would be happy to help with the menu, to add a little flourish to the dining experience. And if dinner was elevated, we’d be prepared to pay the price.

Let’s dine in the same way GWR advertises its service – as a Famous

Five adventure. Some good grub, pleasant surroundings, a decent wine list and a proper time to eat and we’ll be cheering on Hopwood before we reach Pewsey. Screw the delays. We’ll just have another bottle.

GWR’s mean approach, with its over-lit carriages and two courses for £34.50, offers no succour to the diner Meals on wheels: passengers use a Great Western Railway restaurant car in 1938