MP calls for restaurant car reprieve

Halifax MP Linda Riordan is leading a parliamentary campaign against the decision to remove the facility from services in May.

She claims that only four trains a day on Britain’s railways will have restaurant cars after May, down from 249 in the days of British Rail.

A motion tabled in the House of Commons and already backed by six other MPs expresses “dismay” at the decision by East Coast, the publicly-owned company currently in control of the line.

The measure is being introduced in order to cut costs in preparation for the line being returned back into private hands.

Ms Riordan claims train operators are putting “profit before passenger comfort” by removing a service which was available to passengers in both standard and first class, and says it will hamper the “passenger experience” on long distance journeys”.

East Coast has been running the line, which links Leeds, York and Doncaster to London and Edinburgh, since National Express handed back the franchise because it could no longer afford the payments.

A competition for a new, longer, franchise will soon be run to find a company that can viably operate the line. Virgin has already said it is interested in taking control and upgrading the line.