I was so sad to read articles in the Scotsman and Observer this weekend noting that the restaurant cars on East Coast trains have been sent to the great railway heaven in the sky.

I can’t claim to have been a regular of the silver service dining cars – it has been at least three years since I made the journey from Waverley to Kings Cross at all – but I have some wonderful memories of them from the early days of my and DorkyDad’s relationship.

Back in those pre DorkySon days, we sometimes used to trundle down to London for the weekend, and usually tried to time it so that we had lunch on the train. It wasn’t exactly Michelin standard, but there was something very romantic about sitting at a proper table with a white linen tablecloth and silver cutlery, while we sped past fields full of cows and horses.

I was always filled with huge admiration for the staff members, who, despite the shoogling and shaking, managed to delicately transfer bread rolls from basket to plate without dropping them, and pour generous glasses of wine without spilling them.  Oh how they must have laughed at this fine dining novice, the time she knocked a large tumbler of water into DorkyDad’s lap… Continue reading →