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food on trains
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| COMMUTER SURVIVAL: this is the so called 'Midlands Ploughmans'. Some say it is entirely fictional |
If you're a bit of
a foodie, by which I mean someone who likes to eat things that are recognisable and at least partly digestible, train travel
is essentially a gastronomic desert. Some have described it as a culinary hell.
If you feel confident enough to
leave your personal belongings behind and can manage to stagger through to the carriage that serves food and drinks, you won't
find many options for your discerning palate. It's odds on that the coffee machine isn't working and that the device
that processes payment cards is down, so you'll need cash. Your choices are as follows:
• A tea
bag which contains only a light dusting of tea with a string that breaks and disappears into your cup along with the cardboard
tag. Not easy fishing it out with a little lolly stick made of wood. Tastes of absolutely nothing except the distinct flavour
of UHT milk which has been thoughtfully provided in a container that is almost impossible to open and ends up all over your
jacket. Also the lolly stick thing doesn't even have a joke printed on the side. Swizz
• Pies with very
soggy pastry and almost no filling, but fine if you like abattoir floor sweepings
• Rice cakes which taste
of ceiling tiles. Some even have a chocolate layer on top. What?
• Sandwiches which are made with very very
dry bread. There is usually an attempt to offset this with liberal amounts of industrial grade margarine and cheap globby
mayonnaise
• Burgers that can be microwaved - enough said
• Wine that has the magical effect
of bringing your arse up to your elbows upon the first mouthful and makes lemon juice taste smooth in comparison
• Bananas
that are entirely green and can effortlessly separate your gums from your teeth on the first bite, if that it is, you can
manage to peel the skin away from the edible bit
• Bits of fruitcake in a cellophane packet selected because
their shelf life is around 14 months
• Three tiny biscuits also in a cellophane packet that purport to be shortbread
and contain raisins. You will have come across these before - it's what your distant elderly aunt used to offer you when
your Mum made you go and visit her in her warden assisted flat when you were six. And yes, the train ones also taste musty
and stale just like her and her flat
• 'Grab' bags of crisps which are three times the size of normal
packets of crisps to ensure that you pay loads more, even though you don't want that many
• Kit Kats and
the odd Twix, which will have been kept at a temperature of 25 degrees centigrade for a prolonged period. For entertainment
you can bend them around corners without them breaking, if that's preferable to trying to eat one
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| COMMUTER SURVIVAL: Virgin Trains breakfast (in your dreams 1) |
There's also the curse of the food and drink trolley, where
a poor employee is expected to manoeuvre a set of flimsy metal shelves with wheels along an 18 inch gangway full of people,
luggage, big feet and occasionally, dogs. You may be able to get coffee from a hot water urn which doesn't contain very
hot water, but it's granulated coffee which for some astounding reason floats and doesn't mix with water properly.
If you're on one those trains that provide catering for first class passengers, I wouldn't get too excited.
You used to be able to get a pretty decent breakfast at one time, with orange juice and Kellogg's fruit 'n' fibre
cereal to start followed by freshly cooked scrambled egg, a sausage, two rashers of bacon, tomatoes, hot buttered toast and
even a choice of poached haddock if you really wanted to annoy your fellow passengers. This provision has been severely curtailed
presumably for profit boosting reasons.
The breakfast is now a rather sad looking bacon or vegetarian sausage
sarnie and a choice from a bread basket that has cold toast and stale croissants. On the way back at night you could count
on getting a decent glass of wine, beer or gin and tonic and something hot to eat if you were going to be very late home.
Again this no longer exists and you have to make do with a wine that Pete Doherty would turn down, dry sandwiches or a plated
hot dinner that wouldn't look out of place at a maximum security prison. They do offer fruit but no one chooses the apples
because they've been touched by too many people in an environment of toilets with no running water.
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| COMMUTER SURVIVAL: Virgin Trains dinner (in your dreams 2) |
Survival tips
If
you're on a short commuter journey, the best option is to avoid eating altogether so as not to annoy your fellow passengers.
Especially bags of very crunchy crisps. However, if it's a long journey the absolute top tip for any commuter is to buy
food before getting on the train, preferably before arriving at the station. Not only will this save your stomach lining and
preserve your bowels but you won't have to pay 90p for a Mars Bar. If desperate, go for a can of beer or a spirit with
mixer and peanuts - they arrive on board untouched and if they're inside their 'sell by' date, there's almost
nothing they can do to ruin them other than serve them too warm. Coffee is mostly passable if you're desperate but add
four teaspoons of sugar to soften the extreme bitterness.
If you're on one of those trains that provides the
ironically termed 'waiter service', best avoid the Euston to Liverpool Lime Street trip in first class. Liverpool-based
crews don't really have a grasp of customer service and are disparaging of management and passengers alike - they make
no distinction. One podgy passenger asked for some crisps and was told: "No love, it's Weight Watchers tonight".
Scouse wit eh? What would we do without it?
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