Long before Governments and more recently MPs expenses became the butt of all jokes and continual moans and groans, the railways enjoyed that notoriety.

The crowned jester of the railways that was always guaranteed to get the biggest belly laugh was joking about “refreshments.”

The people of Swindon ought to be proud that they have given generations of people in this country a good laugh, as it was Swindon that invented railway refreshments and opened the world’s first railway refreshment room at Swindon station.

Trains had a 10-minute stop to allow passengers to alight and grab something. This was, as you can imagine, quite hectic and the scene was captured by many cartoonists of the day who mirthed that it was now a quaint custom of the English!

Brunel famously wrote about refreshments at Swindon station, that the coffee was inferior and tasted like it was made from roasted corn. He signed off the letter by saying: “I have long ceased to make complaints at Swindon. I avoid taking anything there when I can help it.”

Some refreshment establishments employed a staff consisting of a matron, seven very young ladies to wait on passengers, four men and three boys to assist and a one man cook, his kitchen maid, two scullery maids, two house maids, a still maid (who worked in the room where drinks and jam were made), two laundry maids, a baker’s boy, a garden boy, and finally an “odd man”.

This was quite an intensive service to warrant so many staff, and demonstrates the lengths that the companies went to to shake off the image that Brunel so eloquently wrote of.

In the Steam museum there is a silver coffee pot, which it is believed served Brunel with such inferior coffee – it is in the shape of a broad gauge locomotive.

In the 20th Century the railway, in an attempt to enhance its reputation, began to build in luxury and laid on buffet cars on the Pullman lines in the roaring 30s. The buffet car became the place to be on a long journey and there are many photos that show the glamour of a railway buffet car.

I remember at the beginning of the 1980s, when I was a policeman in London, the peculiarities of railway refreshment/licensing laws meant that you could get an alcoholic drink in any of the big London stations any time of the day or night – closing time did not apply to railway station refreshment rooms or in fact for passenger trains as long as they were in motion.

Oh how things have changed under privatisation, with sandwiches crisps and smoothies. Please bring back the bacon and eggs!