THE buffet car, one of the few remaining civilised pleasures of travelling on Britain’s overcrowded railways, is to be axed on several routes between London and the West Country.

First Great Western, the country’s least punctual train company, claims that doing without a buffet will reduce delays by allowing its services to run faster. But the news has been greeted with outrage by many of its well-heeled passengers who do not relish the prospect of an aisle trolley as a replacement for the more generously stocked buffet.

The train company says that the removal of a 35-tonne carriage, not to mention a few dozen bacon sandwiches, will shave eight minutes off the trip from London to Bristol by making the train lighter.

The company is also removing many of the tables from the remaining carriages to pack in more seats.

Seats at tables take up more room than airline-style seating but many passengers prefer tables because they can work on laptops, do paperwork and stretch their legs.

The routes affected by the removal of 22 buffet cars are London to Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Hereford.

Some longer-distance trains will keep their buffet cars and will stop at those stations. But most services will have only trolleys from December.

The loss of the buffet cars and tables has outraged frequent travellers, especially those living in Bath.

Karl Jaeger, the director of the International School of America, based in Bath, said: “Eliminating the buffet car will detract from the whole experience of travelling by train.

“It is deceitful of First to claim that the trolley will be a good substitute. It cannot carry anything like the range of products and passengers will have to wait while it is hauled all the way down the train.

“Trolleys also have an annoying tendency to be off-duty when you want them.”

Mr Jaeger said that the loss of a buffet would make train travel less attractive to visitors, who were more likely to drive to Bath and clog its Georgian streets with more cars. He added: “But First knows that people who rely on the train will have no choice but to put up with an increasingly rotten service.”

Chris Irwin, the chairman of Travelwatch Southwest, the region’s passenger watchdog, said that it was absurd to try to reduce delays by making the service less comfortable.

First Great Western has the worst punctuality record of the 25 train companies by a considerable margin, with just over a quarter of trains at least ten minutes late in the year to the end of March. It was one of only four companies to show an increase in delays over the previous year.

The company said that the eight-minute saving from running with seven carriages instead of eight would be used only to reduce delays, not to cut the published journey times. The company hopes that the move will result in lower penalties for running late.

Removing the buffet cars will also bring savings on fuel and train-leasing costs. The company is under pressure to reduce costs because it agreed to pay the Government £1.1 billion to run the franchise for the next ten years.

A spokesman said that only one in eight passengers used the buffet. He said that most people would prefer to be served at their seats rather then leave luggage unattended.

Passengers on First Great Western will, however, be better off than those on the King’s Cross to King’s Lynn route, operated by the same company. It lost its buffet car long ago, and the company recently cancelled the trolley service.

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