Nowadays we’re used to being able to grab a bite to eat and something to drink on the train. The same was true for those travelling on the Stage Coach: passengers were accustomed to being able to eat, and drink on the move. As well as to break their fast at the numerous Inns on the route when the horses were changed. The coming of the railway changed all of this. For a start journeys were much quicker, with no need to change horses. Secondly the new railway stations functioned very differently from the old Coaching Inns – they didn’t serve food or drink for a start!

The Board of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway banned the sale and consumption of alcohol on any of its property. But this didn’t stop enterprising publicans who had Inns or Beer Houses near to the line from selling to railway passengers: the Bury Lane Tavern in Glazebury sold food and alcohol to passengers. It became, in the words of the Board Minutes, a ‘severe evil’ in not only delaying trains, but because in 1831 a second-class passenger fell oat of his carriage and was run over there. Even worse, liquor had been served out to the locomotive crews! The problem was almost endemic with even Company Gatekeepers who worked the level crossing gates over the line were found to be selling ginger beer to passengers. At this time ginger beer was alcoholic.

To sort all of this out, in 1837 the Board of Directors passed a By Law which forbade the sale of any food and drink on railway property. This new law even extended to the humble Eccles Cake, which at this period in history, contained alcohol although much of it would have been lost in the cooking process. We know at Liverpool Road Station, Manchester, one of the various shops was fitted up as a coffee house and directly opposite the ‘Railway & Commercial Hotel’ which opened in 1830 was providing beds, meals, and ale to passengers. Despite the outright ban on persons selling food and drink on the platforms, the problem persisted into the 1840s.

Another problem was smoking. Smoking was not the ‘done thing’ in the 1830s, especially in public and in front of women. The Liverpool & Manchester forbade smoking in its carriage and on company premises, but as with the ban on beer and Eccles cakes, many passengers , particularly those travelling first-class,  simply flouted the ban. They could afford to pay the fine. Passengers travelling by the second-class trains which whilst they had a roof and the ‘ends boarded up close’ and were otherwise open to the weather, smoking was much less of a problem.