Train Travel Tips: Discontinued free crisps in first class on Anglian but buy Welsh snacks on the GWR service to Wales

UK flag, the Union Jack

I read that a train company, Anglian, is discontinuing free nibbles in first class because some customers were taking too much.

That's seems unfair. They just need portion control.

The solution is pretty simple. Obvious to me. You could get a free food voucher with your first class ticket. If you don't eat cancer causing crisps, you put your voucher in a box and those who want two packets can take a spare voucher. Everybody happy.

Alternatively, do the same as the hotels' club class lounges. Every hour bring out a bowl of free food. First come first served. If the member of the public misses out, they can wait around for the next serving.

Why take a train? You could fly to Scotland. Probably cheaper, depaending on whether you get your plane or train fair well in advance. That only works for city to city.

Want to pick up Scottish or Welsh or Irish? Plenty of time to get started on the train journey. Use the app duolingo.com which has about 12 languages for English speakers.

WALES
But I always take the train to Wales.Fishguard is the furthest you can go. Where the ferry still links Wales to Ireland. Remote Wales. To the clifftop Fishguard Bay Hotel. Fishguard and Goodwick - that is the hotel and the ferry link  The furthest you can go. Where the ferry still links Wales to Ireland.

I enjoy a long weekend Spring break at the annual Writers' Holiday, writing and performing poems or writing romantic novels or articles or illustrating books.

Fishguard Bay Hotel, on the clifftop overlooking the sea, Wales

GWR To Wales
The lack of crisps on trains - not my problem. I took GWR from Paddington to Wales in February to Writers' Holiday. On most, but not all, trains, a trolley comes round selling snacks. The stations have kiosks. The service to Wales has some new trains with seats in standard class, some at tables for four where you can sit reading.

At the far end I transferred to a local train. Less comfort. But a chance to chat to local people.

I had my own food on the way out from London.

The moment the train crosses the border into Wales you start to see Welsh signs. Your holiday has started on the train en route.

The first year I went to my Writers' Holiday in Wales, on the way back I found the GWR train's trolley sold Welsh cakes (like small scone shape cold pancakes) from a trolley. On the train back to London, after the hotel's Welsh cakes with butter at my hotel (Fishguard Bay Hotel) the cold ones on the train were not so appetising. But they are a novelty, if you want to buy something different and local.

The following year I was better prepared. On my way home to London from Wales, I had paid for lunch but train times meant I left before lunch. I knew from previous years that the dessert was healthy but disappointing.

My hotel made a packed lunch with just an apple for dessert. Not good enough. I could have bought that in the local Tesco.

If your hotel provides a substitute packed lunch, ask what is in it. At one hotel I asked them to wrap up a piece of the lunch time cake I was missing and had paid for. They protested that it was squishing and already on a plate. So I said, "Give it to me now to eat." They agreed.

On another occasion, I saved my cake from the three-course last night dinner and had it for lunch on the train next day.

Cream Cakes & Travel
If the cake contains cream, not such a good idea to save it more than an hour. You might need to put it into a fridge. Either in your room, or if none, in the hotel's fridge, but remember to collect it and hope nobody throws it away.

No hotel fridge - then where are you keeping pills? Overnight in a cool car, yours or a friend's? Outside a window - but beware of seagulls.

On one occasion I scooped a cake off the plate into my lidded picnic box. On the train, I ate the perishable items first.

Disrupted Sunday Service
I was jolly glad of it. Sunday train service. Change from train to link bus for part of the journey. Different train service on new route. No dining car. No trolley.

What about buying on the station? Running to transfer from train to bus and then bus to train - no time to go to buy food. I was not going to drag luggage up and down stairs. Nor would I risk losing the group and my place in the queue to get a comfortable seat with a view near the front of the bus to take photos.

DIY Picnic
The simple answer is make your own sandwich bag travelling in both directions. Take your own food from Marks & Spencer or Tesco. Not meat nor fish which can go off - unless you have a cooling device in your cool bag. I choose cheese or vegetables.

Carrying food, keeping it away from papers in a bag, and out of you bigger bag with clothes. This means a third bag ftor travel to remember - plus your brolly (British slang for umbrella) - and your phone. Pack light, travel light.

Sit Together On The Train
I also go to Swanwick in Derbyshire to Writers' Summer School. Many writers and would be writers take the train.

Try to get a seat which can be changed. Otherwise your friends will be on a different train an hour earlier or later, or at the other end of the train in a reserved on non reserved seat in a different carriage. Ideally, find out who else is going and car share or meet at the station to get seats together. On the way there you can discuss which courses you plan to take, or your problems with plots in your novels.

Re-Live The Holiday On The Train
On the way back you can indulge in a review of the courses you did not take, which your friend took. I am often amazed as I listen to their praise of world famous others I have managed to miss.

Also, not to be missed, the joy of hearing that the wonderful rival course you bitterly regret not taking was 'a waste of time!'. I sometimes sit open-mouthed, exhausted by days of travelling and writing and note-taking, not daring to interrupt the rants. I am too tired wo write or talk.

Even an ordinary looking, glum person can prove to be exceptionally entertaining. I just listen avidly to the character assassination of people you hardly know, the cutting and witty, hilariously funny remarks which everybody was too tactful to say during the holiday course.

A train journey can make you feel like a modern version of Chaucer.

Useful websites
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7039043/Train-company-axes-free-snacks-class-passengers-eating-much.html
https://www.greateranglia.co.uk/tickets-fares

TRAVEL & TOURISM
visitbritain.com
shopbritain.com

WRITING COURSES
writersholiday.net

LANGUAGES
duolingo.com

TRAINS
For trains London to Derby:
https://www.thetrainline.com/
For trains London to Wales

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.