For as long as I can remember, I’ve sought occasional sanctuary in station cafes - from intense cold at Chester, freezing fog in Selby, scorching temperatures at Exeter St David’s and more recently from torrential rain at Bolton Abbey. As a trainspotting youngster, it would also have been to rest tired legs and quench my thirst after a shed bashing mission, having run back to the station so as not to miss too many trains passing through during my absence. Sometimes it was to replenish supplies after my sandwich lunch had prematurely run out, as it had a habit of doing by about 11.30. Consequently, a station without a refreshment room was a much poorer specimen. A bustling buffet gave a station so much more credibility.
The word
buffet is French for sideboard. Traditionally and more generally, it is the
provision of a wide range of food laid out so customers can help themselves and
sit down nearby to eat. In a railway setting, the term has long been used to include
station refreshment rooms, however they were organised. In 1874, the Midland
Railway became the first company to include a dining car on a British train and
by the end of the century it had become an integral part of most important expresses
across the national network, as an “at your seat” service provided from an adjacent
kitchen car. In the 1950s and 60s, I remember the dining car attendants walking
down the train though the corridor stock and opening every compartment door in
turn to take bookings for lunch in the restaurant car. Buffet cars, themselves,
were introduced during the 1930s. Here, food was served and paid for at a
counter and eaten at tables within the same coach.
The
evolution of the railway buffet really began with pre-1830, stagecoach Britain.
Over the preceding centuries an established network of horse-drawn stagecoaches
had developed. The length of the stages themselves - around 10 to 15 miles at a
time - was dictated by the limitations of the horses. Consequently, some hostelries
along the route became well-known as coaching inns. They are often still recognisable
in larger villages and market towns today with wide, covered entrances leading
through to a yard at the rear, where travellers would disembark and enjoy the
hospitality on offer. The horses were relieved of their duties for a
well-earned rest and replacements readied for the next stage. In the evening,
dinner would be taken and overnight accommodation provided before travellers proceeded
the next morning. This was the established way of getting about the country
that the railway was poised to do away with as the 1830s began.
The
added attraction the railway provided was speed. Steam locomotives moved more quickly
than horse-drawn coaches from the start. However, the early railway companies were
in such a rush to get up and running that they rather overlooked the food and
lodging aspects of the system that they were keen to replace. Chosen rail
routes would be as direct as possible but were subject to the lie of the land
and subsequent engineering requirements. Nor did land owners necessarily want
them too close to home. Consequently, proximity to hostelries was not a priority,
neither was food going to be provided at railway stations as a matter of course.
It was
left to local pubs and inns to benefit by sending out employees carrying trays
of food to locations that were within reach of train stopping points along the
route. This practice obviously hindered the smooth running of the trains, as
they were delayed by the transactions taking place on the platform, though
their attempts to ban the habit were largely unsuccessful. To try to regain control
of the situation, the railway operators issued licenses to platform vendors,
giving them permission to sell their goods but still granting them only limited
time to do so before the train moved on.
As rail networks became better
connected and journey distances increased, the companies realised a need to
provide not just sustenance, but what would today be described as comfort
breaks. Early trains had no corridors, indeed, the design of even the most
luxurious of carriages on the first passenger trains resembled a series of separate
and formerly horse-drawn coach bodies resting on a series of flat wagons.
In Scotland, the Gartherrie Inn found itself next to the new terminus of the Glasgow and Gartnock Railway, and though it had been built to carry coal in the opposite direction, city-dwellers soon began to use the line for a day out in the country. Thus, the Gartsherrie Inn, cashing in on the new arrival literally on its doorstep, is credited with being the first ever railway refreshment room, dating from 1832.
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