IT has been revealed that there’ll be no buffet cars for the new high speed trains due on the London-Swansea line from 2017, writes BARRIE HUDSON.

Our favourite train firm was quick to reassure us that there’d be a trolley service instead.

The tone of the announcement suggested the company expected a fierce backlash from customers, so I hope the distinct lack of public outrage was reassuring.

If anybody reading this happens to be in charge of such matters, I have some news. Try not to let it shock you.

We’re not all that bothered about buffet cars.

The burgers and other microwaved meat products taste like parts of creatures which perished in some nuclear catastrophe. We can at least comfort ourselves with the knowledge that any bacteria will have been destroyed as thoroughly as a fly on the wall at Three Mile Island.

Meanwhile, the magma-like temperature of the fillings in the heated sandwiches means we can’t taste them properly. That is probably just as well. However, the fact that the coffee tastes like the tea, the tea tastes like the coffee and neither tastes like anything derived from any natural bean or leaf on God’s good earth is a wee bit disconcerting.

The only stuff that tastes anything like it’s supposed to is the stuff that comes in packets, but even that is avoided by sane people.

Short of having been trapped in a bank vault without food for a fortnight, there is no inducement strong enough to make sane people pay 87 quid for a bag of ready salted or half a dozen custard creams.

There is only one reason why most of us enter the buffet car of a train, and that is to purchase alcoholic beverages.

Even then we only do so if we haven’t had the presence of mind to bring supplies of our own, such as a bottle of ‘spring water’ whose contents have been replaced with something that sprang from a distillery.

You see, when we’re thoroughly leathered, it makes us less anguished about life’s little inconveniences, such as the train stopping at random in the middle of nowhere for several hours.

As long as the new trolleys are stocked with strong drink, we’ll be fine. Indeed, we’ll be better than fine because we’ll be able to anaesthetise ourselves without the inconvenience of getting out of our seats and standing in a queue.

Also, we won’t have to worry about gathering up all of our stuff for the trip to the buffet car, in case we come back to find it’s been nicked or we’re about to be arrested for leaving a suspicious package.

Nor will we have to worry about returning to find our seat hijacked by a maniac ranting about the Illuminati or minestrone soup or whatever.

Now that’s the sort of progress we can all get behind.