You’ll not have had your tea with ScotRail hospitality cancelled - Susan Morrison
A sad trip north to Inverness this week for an old friend's funeral. The drive through the Cairngorms didn’t appeal and so I thought I’d go mad and take the train.
Even I think it's a spectac-ularly scenic journey and I’m fairly underwhelmed by mountains. Seen one, seen ‘em all, as far as I’m concerned. Also, they tend not to have a gift shop at the top.
Inverness was weirdly hot, sticky and awash with torrential rain. After a beautiful service we possibly tarried too long. We said hurried goodbyes and raced to the station for the train home. It had been a long day. The possibility of even a rubbish cup of ScotRail tea was cheering.
Those hopes were dashed as we checked the departure board. Oh, the train was on time, so I guess that’s something, but, right up there was a phrase of almost comically Scottish grimness. I could practically hear John Laurie’s lugubrious tones intoning the terrible news. ‘There will be no hospitality on this train.’
I’ve seen this depressing little message before. In fact, it seems to be a ScotRail special. The last couple trains I’ve caught from Aberdeen have been tea-free and at least one from Dundee was a trolley desert.
Don’t get me wrong, I can manage without sustenance for short periods of time, and it's not like we’re ever really out of food retail range. Pretty sure nowhere in Scotland is more than 2 miles from a Greggs. We’re not crossing the remote Steppes or the Rocky Mountains. It's unlikely that the 17.26 to Waverley will be trapped by a blizzard and the passengers forced to draw lots to find out who they’ll eat first.
And we must be brutally honest. The ScotRail trolley offerings aren’t that great. The coffee has distinct overtones of sump oil. The tea is usually drinkable, but then, tea is fairly bulletproof, until you add that ghastly fake milk from the fiddly wee container.
But even if the coffee makes me murderous and the biscuit selection is sparse, there is something about sitting on a train that makes you want to dunk a biscuit or nibble a shortbread finger. You may even wish to go mad and have a dram.
Other railway companies seem to manage this hospitality thing on a regular basis. LNER practically forcefeeds you. They’ve got massive trolleys that could double as mini-tanks if the train ever gets invaded by zombies.
Missed the trolley? There's a buffet car so you can do that swoop and stagger dance back to your seat with a swinging paper bag filled with a selection of hot and cold beverages, confectionery and sandwiches. They’ll even bring the stuff to your seat.
It’s not cheap, but it is welcome if you had to dash to your train and didn’t have time to do a smash and grab through the M&S food hall to source two gins-in-a-tin, something involving quinoa and a packet of Percy Pigs. The quinoa thing was a mistake, by the way. Won’t do that again.
Presumably those pricey in-train purchases are welcome to whoever it is that’s running LNER these days. Nice little earner, I would have thought.
But no, welcome to the dreich presbyterian JohnKnoxRail. There is no hospitality on this train.