
British Rail’s short experiment with travelling pubs - edward
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2020/04/14/british-rails-short-experiment-with-travelling-pubs/
======
PaulRobinson
The real problem here is cask ale - the preferred pint in Britain - is ruined
by movement. Casks are left to settle in pub cellars for days or weeks before
being hooked up to the hand pumps in the bar.

The only way this works for beer is to use kegs, which is what most of the
World uses but the largest consumer organisation in the UK - CAMRA, the
Campaign for Real Ale - was created to fight against. And with some success -
cask brewing is now a massive growth area in the UK.

That said, this looks considerably better than the over-priced plastic
nonsense from the "onboard shop" or "at seat service" we have to suffer today.

I don't think I'd want to go near one without a British Transport Police
officer nearby if a bunch of football fans were making a journey to an away
game.

~~~
twic
> cask ale - the preferred pint in Britain

Not really - according to 2018 on-trade numbers, ale is 24% by value of beer
sold, and cask is 55% of ale, so cask ale is just 13.2% of all beer:

[https://www.marstons.co.uk/docs/reports/2018/on-trade-
beer-r...](https://www.marstons.co.uk/docs/reports/2018/on-trade-beer-
report-2018.pdf)

(this is published by Marston's, but i believe the data is for the whole
industry)

Train passengers who want a drink are not necessarily the same demographic as
pub-goers, but i'm not sure i'd expect them to skew significantly towards cask
ale.

> is ruined by movement

Which is why the cutting-edge high-technology solution of "bottles" has been
invented. Honestly, i find bottled beers usually better than the cask
equivalent, even when i'm not on a train, i think because cask is so sensitive
to keeping, whereas bottles usually reach you in mint condition. Although it
might just be because the bottled versions are sometimes stronger:

[https://www.adnams.co.uk/articles/adnams-broadside-cask-
and-...](https://www.adnams.co.uk/articles/adnams-broadside-cask-and-bottle-
whats-the-difference-and-why.htm)

~~~
smcl
Those numbers are from 2018. The train-pub in question was from 1949, and at
the time ale would have been overwhelmingly the beer of choice - I suspect
pilsner/lager wouldn't have been widely available in the UK.

I'm actually surprised cask ale is as high as 13.2% of all beer sold. While
"craft beer" (I hate that term) is en vogue and has made people curious to
more traditional style beer, the default pint in most pubs will be something
lagery like Carling, Tennents or Carlsberg (all three pretty bad, but
Tennent's has a nostalgia factor for me).

~~~
Nursie
If you think about our most notorious pub chain - 'spoons - they generally
have a decent selection of cask, so I'm not that surprised that it makes up a
decent amount.

~~~
bmsleight_
Could never use them again after how they have reacted to the pandemic.

~~~
dTal
The reasons to boycott Spoons have been piling up for years. The strongarming
of breweries, the use of the pubs as a pro-Brexit platform... and the bloke in
charge is a notorious bellend.

Wetherspoons is cheap, but it's not a net good. (Truth be told I stopped
eating there after being served a frozen curry - literally solid ice.)

------
sandGorgon
Umm....we still have this in India. But far far more luxurious. Think gin &
tonic in a Presidential Suite, traveling on a train in between sand dunes...
with wifi and instagram.

And infinitely better food than a British pub ;)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharajas%27_Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharajas%27_Express)

[https://www.the-maharajas.com/maharajas/maharajas-express-
ph...](https://www.the-maharajas.com/maharajas/maharajas-express-photo-
gallery.html)

~~~
fnord123
>And infinitely better food than a British pub ;)

This is an old trope. Like the English language, British cuisine takes all the
good bits from everywhere and if you go to pubs in England you can find some
terrific food. Of course, it can very variable, but all in all I'd say London
is shoulder to shoulder with Naples as the food capitals of Europe.

~~~
shrikant
You're right, British cuisine does take all the good bits from everywhere, but
then brings them down to its level ;)

While I've definitely had great food in pubs and I agree that London has
spectacular food options, I'd still opine that across England as a whole,
"good pub food" is the exception rather than the norm.

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
It's 100% the norm in plenty of areas of Britain.

Here in the Cotswolds we're spoilt for choice - there's at least one good food
pub in pretty much every village. The same's true of the Yorkshire Dales, much
of Mid-Wales, much of the South-West, and so on.

Generally in the ex-industrial areas it'll be less impressive. Pub food in
much of the Midlands, for example, is essentially whatever's offered by the
owning chain (often Marstons or Greene King). But it's not necessarily
terrible, and there are some smaller chains who are pretty good (e.g. Brunning
& Price). It's more a function of the fact that the pub is ubiquitous in
British society - you wouldn't expect haute cuisine from a bar in the Midwest
either.

~~~
DanBC
> Here in the Cotswolds we're spoilt for choice - there's at least one good
> food pub in pretty much every village.

To be fair for every Green Dragon (Cowley) or Tunnel House (Coates /
Sapperton) there are plenty of tourist traps selling pre-made cook-chill food
from microwaves or tired carveries.

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
The Tunnel House is great. The Daneway at the other end is very different in
character but equally enjoyable.

I think the tourist trap pubs are largely restricted to the few honeypots -
Bourton-on-the-Water springs to mind, but then I've had good pub food in both
Stow and Broadway.

------
lqet
The Swiss federal railways experimented with rolling supermarkets [0], a
rolling Starbucks [1][2] and a rolling McDonald's [3].

[0]
[https://www.srf.ch/static/cms/images/960w/3527cc.jpg](https://www.srf.ch/static/cms/images/960w/3527cc.jpg)

[1]
[http://media7.news.ch/news/680/339117-c0ed039d03cc1b9f5e5986...](http://media7.news.ch/news/680/339117-c0ed039d03cc1b9f5e59869205902b44.jpg)

[2] [https://img.blick.ch/news/2535226-v4-starbucks-
mitarbeiterin...](https://img.blick.ch/news/2535226-v4-starbucks-
mitarbeiterin-in-einem-sbb-
zug.jpg?imwidth=1000&ratio=FREE&x=0&y=0&width=640&height=480)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRYaL_A4ftM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRYaL_A4ftM)

------
Zenst
British Rail was the name of the railnetwork in the UK before it got
privatised and split up (many still don't think that was a good thing either).

Was before my time and I do recall the buffett cars and resturant cars and
could buy cans of alcohol.

Though in many parts (whole London area for sure) you are now not allowed to
drink and it is illegal. Which for many, disagree with. Though you are not
allowed to smoke on the platforms at stations either, which is a good thing
IMHO - though it was darn handy to work out were to stand at a station so when
the train stopped you would be near the doors to embark as you could see the
grouping of cigarette butts grouping on the tracks near the door hotspots.

Would this work today - nope as in many of the routes, they can't even provide
enough seats and often see services that are the polar opposite of what we
class as social distancing by today's standards. Indeed, the game sardines
would be a step-up on space for many services.

Alas rail - least in the UK, is expensive, crowded and sad when you can get a
return flight from London to Scotland for less than a single ticket from
London to Birmingham - much less alas and also quicker.

~~~
ashtonkem
I find it surprising that a country as geographically small as the UK wouldn’t
find a way to make rail more attractive than flying.

~~~
cstross
You don't need to be surprised -- rail _is_ more widely used than domestic air
travel. (Reminder: regular express services run at up to 125mph; the HS1 --
Channel tunnel -- route maxes out at 180mph, and the HS2 line in development
is due to hit 220mph eventually. This isn't Amtrak!)

The real competition for trains is automobiles and coaches, due to road-
building having been prioritized since the 1950s. Also, rail fares have risen
faster than inflation ever since privatization, and the surplus were siphoned
off to the private-sector owners rather than being reinvested in
modernization. Hence the current poor state of affairs.

~~~
pmyteh
This is right. Generally, rail dominates air for journeys of up to three
hours, and is competitive up to about 5. Many of the domestic air routes (and
closer international routes like London to Paris) are really only for people
connecting onto long-distance flights rather than a popular way of going city-
to-city. The more general-purpose flights are either longer (London to
Scotland, or Exeter to the North) or over water (mainland to NI, for example).

The main competition for medium-distance routes is absolutely road, which has
the majority share (cheaper, but normally slower on the main intercity
trunks).

------
maelito
The 4th and 14th bar wagons in the french TGV (high-speed train) are such a
bonus compared to planes (for national trips) and the car !

~~~
jerven
Yes, and the Swiss restaurant cars are even nicer in the long distance trains.
I often end up eating or at least having a drink when I travel with them.

~~~
maelito
Cool what makes them nicer ? Luxury ? The new TGVs have some seats.

~~~
jerven
Tables with seats and white table linen and at table service. Better food
options than TGV Lyria which I have recent experience with.

------
fit2rule
When I moved to Germany, I was immediately impressed with its train/rail
systems.

It was delightful to take a day and visit the Schweberbahn of Wuppertal, a
hanging rail system that has resisted modernity for more than a hundred years.
It is a delightful, little trip, even if it took all day to drive to Wuppertal
to try it out.

And then there was the time I got on the wrong train to Munich, from
Dusseldorf, ended up in Hamburg, and had to take the night train across the
country. The DB booze wagon was a veritable club, replete with a DJ and plenty
of grog to keep the conundrums away. The fresh air out the window, somewhere
in the middle of German Greenland, at 3am in the morning - this was a safe,
adventurous drinking session. Thank goodness for 'die Kabine', lock and key
and all.

A Friday afternoon jaunt from the Rührgebiet to Amsterdam Central - not the
best food by far, but a restaurant on the way, nevertheless, to finer treats.

I came to believe that Americans, for all their faults, could not be forgiven
for adopting the freeway instead of the railway as their most virulent
expressions of freedom. Nothing quite like spending the badly needed 3 hours
before a meeting, staring out at the landscape slinging by, while your
presentation is uploaded in comfort and class ..

------
whyleyc
This is still a thing!

In Hampshire (UK) you can catch the Real Ale Train (RAT)[1] - an old fashioned
steam train which potters up and down a few miles of track, serving beer from
local breweries, via an on-board bar. It stops at various stations which have
been preserved as they would have been in the 1950s.

You don't actually go anywhere, but the experience of quaffing ale with
friends whilst watching the world go by on a balmy summer's evening is
amazing.

[1] [https://www.watercressline.co.uk/product.php/139/real-ale-
tr...](https://www.watercressline.co.uk/product.php/139/real-ale-train-rat)

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originalvichy
Helsinki, Finland has a pub tram that does the rounds occasionally:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sp%C3%A5raKoff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sp%C3%A5raKoff)

~~~
m4rtink
There is also a pub tram here in Brno in Czech Republic:

[https://www.salina-pub.cz/](https://www.salina-pub.cz/)

It is on a regular schedule in the evening - well, when a pandemic is not
going on.

------
ape4
USA and Canada had the "bar car"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_car](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_car)

------
zwieback
When I was growing up in Germany we had the Skiexpress that would go to the
slopes in the Alps. On the way back there was the "Discocar" with dance music,
drinks, strobe lights and disco ball. Good memories.

------
chrisseaton
British trains are already pretty boozy places, not sure we need more people
getting drunk and rowdy. Probably makes sense in first class though.

