THE scene, a First Great Western train, running 30 minutes late… Typical, I can hear some hard-bitten commuters muttering, but on this occasion FGW was blameless for the delay — a broken-down track machine had held up weekend engineering work — and rather than a regulation commute into Oxford I was heading for Cornwall and enjoying a silver service meal in a restaurant car.

FGW is unique among Britain’s train operators in the range of services it runs, from London commuter services and high-speed expresses to branch lines serving resorts in Devon and Cornwall and overnight sleeping car trains.

It is also the last railway firm offering fine dining, with meals that are cooked on the move, in Pullman restaurant cars, which run on the route between London and the West Country.

And rather than abandoning restaurant cars as other rail firms have done, FGW has given the service and menus a makeover this year, in partnership with Devon chef and restaurateur Mitch Tonks, of the Seahorse, in Dartmouth, and added two more daily services.

These offer breakfast on the morning Golden Hind express into London Paddington and lunch on the midday Royal Duchy service back to Cornwall.

Lunch is also available on two trains from Penzance and Plymouth to London, with dinner served on the evening Golden Hind and Armada expresses from London.

The Pullman restaurants, which run on weekdays only, are open to all passengers and although first class ticketholders get priority, there are normally seats available for standard class passengers as well — 11 of the 17 seats available were taken on the day I travelled.

I travelled on the lunchtime service from London, joining the queue that was already forming for seats as the restaurant car crew quickly laid tables and got the kitchen ready in a matter of minutes after the inbound train arrived in London late, due to the aforementioned engineering work.

This was blocking the route from Reading to Westbury, so the train manager warned us as the train wound its way out of Paddington that we would be delayed due to the extra mileage involved in diverting via Swindon.

My mind was already on other matters though, as I studied the menu — there are three menu options, which rotate on a bi-weekly basis and are built around ingredients from the area served by FGW’s trains.

All offer a choice of three starters — smoked salmon features on each menu — and four main courses — with a Somerset fillet steak and a fish dish being mainstays here. There is always a vegetarian starter and main course.

To round off the meal, there is a choice of a hot pudding or a West Country cheese selection, plus complimentary tea or coffee.

I opted for a goat’s cheese bruschetta to start, followed by a grilled sea bass fillet, and a sticky toffee pudding for dessert.

The generous helping of goat’s cheese was full of flavour but not overpowering, which can sometimes be the case, and the sea bass was cooked to perfection. Other diners enjoyed steaks or a Singapore West Country chicken curry.

The sticky toffee pudding was magnificent and accompanied by — what else, on a trip to the West Country — clotted cream.

Despite the motion of the train as we sped through the Wiltshire countryside, the crew serve all this up in proper silver service style, on special china bearing the Pullman crest, along with a selection of seasonal vegetables, which again were cooked to perfection, despite the chef having to operate in a tiny galley kitchen.

A selection of wines chosen by Mitch Tonks are available to accompany meals, along with beers and ciders.

Once the meal is over, the crew quickly turned the dining car back into a normal first class coach as they packed up ready to leave the train at Plymouth, where they are based, while I sat back to enjoy the views along the Devon coast as we left Exeter and headed west, entering Cornwall at Saltash over Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Royal Albert Bridge.

And despite that delay, I made my connection for the branch line train to Newquay at Par station — a shift change meant the driver for the branch was travelling out from Plymouth on the same train as me.