RAIL union the RMT is planning a day of action on Saturday over fears that catering cars will be removed from trains and jobs put at risk.

The union believes new Intercity Express trains being introduced by First Great Western (FGW) will not have catering cars.

The demonstration, starting at 9.30am at Bath Spa, Reading and Paddington stations, aims to gain assurance on a list of points – including that buffet cars will be kept, there will be no job losses or demotions and that on-board cleaning will be brought in-house.

FGW denies any plans to remove catering services and says any new agreement over trains has yet to be reached.

But RMT general secretary Mick Cash warned industrial action could follow the protest, potentially disrupting services across the South West.

“RMT is far from happy with the vague statements coming out from First Group (the parent company of FGW) over the future of catering services, train crew and engineering jobs as a result of their being gifted a whole fleet of new Intercity trains, courtesy of the taxpayer and the fare-paying public,” he said.

Graham Ellis, of TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, said FGW was doing more to help standard-class passengers, including shrinking first-class capability from 2.5 to 1.5 carriages on the Chippenham-London Paddington route.

He said: “First Great Western is one of only two companies at the moment that have buffet cars, but they are disappearing from other trains in favour of trolley service.

“There is a huge amount of uncertainty around the future of rail travel. The rail companies don’t have a great deal of independence; it is like them being given the Titanic and only being able to rearrange the deckchairs.”

A FGW spokesman denied planning to remove catering services and said the new Inter-city trains were yet to be agreed.

“We have no plans to remove buffet services from our existing fleet of high-speed trains; in fact we are working to improve on and extend the range of catering offered,” he said.

“For example we have recently increased the number of Pullman fine dining services and reintroduced Pullman Dining to South Wales.

“While we continue talks with the Department for Transport about a five-year direct award franchise, which will see the introduction of a new state of the art Intercity Express fleet from summer of 2017, details have yet to be agreed.”