In British popular culture, the British Rail sandwiches were the sandwiches sold for consumption on passenger trains of the former British Rail (BR), during the period of nationalisation from 1948 to 1994. Comedic references to the sandwiches established it as emblematic of the unappetising fare then available aboard Great Britain's railway service.
According to former BR caterer Myrna Tuddenham, the poor reputation of BR sandwiches likely derived from the practice of keeping the sandwiches "under glass domes on the counters in refreshment rooms until the corners turned up".[1] Despite the many jokes at its expense, British Rail documents show that in 1993, its last full year as a public company, eight million sandwiches were sold.[2] Historian Keith Lovegrove wrote that it was "a sandwich of contradictions; it could be cold and soggy, or stale and hard, and the corners of the isosceles triangle-shaped bread would often curl up like the pages of a well-thumbed paperback".[3]
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
NRMwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Bunyan, Nigel (22 November 2002). "Revealed: the secrets of a British Rail sandwich". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 22 February 2009.
- ^ Keith Lovegrove (2004). Railway: Identity, Design and Culture. Laurence King Publishing. p. 86. ISBN 1856694070.