On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 21:49:03 GMT, Neil Williams put finger to keyboard
and typed:

[1] It's a pity that M&S Food[2] seem to have an almost-monopoly on
station supermarkets, though. A small Tesco or Sainsbury's would be a
lot more useful for a "get a quick shop on the way home" type
diversion - which is why the latter is very welcome at Manc Picc.

That's an interesting point. I've always seen station retail as
catering primarily to departing travellers, and thus focussing on
goods (mainly food, toiletries and reading material, plus a few
over-priced gifts) that are useful to someone who is waiting to get on
a train. That's certainly how I use station retail facilities, anyway
- either to eat before I get on the train, or buying something to take
on the train with me. By contrast, when I arrive at a station on a
train, I only ever want to get out of it as soon as possible in order
to complete the journey to my ultimate destination by whatever method
(car/bus/tube/taxi/walk/etc) will take me there. The idea of using
station retail facilities for a quick shop on the way through after
arrival hadn't occurred to me. But, given that I do most of my
supermarket shopping on the way home from work (by car), it's not
unreasonable for rail commuters to want to be able to do the same
thing when arriving home by train. The obvious locations, though, for
station supermarkets would be commuter stations at the "home" end of
the route, rather than the city centre destination stations.

Mark
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