NINETY YEARS AGO.
It is ninety years ago since the Great Western Railway made what was probably its worst bargain. A contractor offered to build the station at Swindon and to maintain it perpetually provided *he was given a lease of the refreshment room at a peppercorn rent for 99 years, that the company built no other refreshment room between London and Bristol, and that it stopped every train at Swindon for ten minutes. Foolishly the company agreed, and the contractor had not been running the refreshment room for many years before there were numerous complaints about the cost of food and drink there. One man complained to the chairman that he had spent 7s 6d on a few sandwiches and a bottle of ale. Some modification of the condition regarding other refreshment rooms on the line was connected as the years went on, but stopping the train for ten minutes while hungry passengers were served became at last such a nuisance that in 1891 the company was glad to pay £250,000 to annul the agreement.
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Bibliographic details
Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXXII, Issue 2804, 23 November 1931, Page 7
Word Count
176NINETY YEARS AGO. Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXXII, Issue 2804, 23 November 1931, Page 7
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