Colleagues threw a surprise party to celebrate a train chef’s 50th year working on the railway – and he has no plans to stop yet!
73-year-old Avanti West Coast employee Mohammed Yousuf, known as Yousuf, prepares food in the first-class kitchens onboard the operator’s Pendolino fleet, which runs on the West Coast Main Line between Euston and Scotland.
His colleagues threw a surprise party for him at London’s Euston station to mark his half-century milestone.
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He described how he felt “fortunate to be doing something that I love every day”.
He said: “The railway has changed a lot over the years, but it’s the people that make it great.
“I don’t plan to stop cooking yet.
“My advice to those who wish to join the railway is to give yourself time.
“When I started on the trains, I was alongside three or four colleagues who joined the same time, but within two months they left.
“I stayed and I am so happy I did.”
Yousuf has fond memories of cooking for chef Jamie Oliver, who was travelling on a train he was working on.
He said: “He wrote me a letter of thanks on a serviette, which one of the crew brought into the kitchen for me, and we were able to meet him and get a photo.
“To receive thanks from a chef like him was a fantastic honour.”
After moving from Pakistan, Yousuf began his career on the UK’s railway by working as a kitchen porter at a British Rail-run restaurant inside Euston in October 1975.
He started cooking onboard trains in 1991, initially on British Rail’s Motorail services, which carried passengers and their cars between London and Glasgow.
These services were suspended in the mid-1990s but Yousuf continued cooking onboard long-distance passenger trains.
Paula Large, Avanti West Coast’s onboard manager for catering support, said: “Yousuf is such a pleasure to work with. He comes on the train every day with a smile on his face and he lightens the mood.
“He treats everybody so kindly, and it is fantastic that even after 50 years, he still loves his job.”
