Express delivery and a chicken tikka to ride at Platform 3

Well not quite, but this new restaurant and takeaway next to the railway station is causing eyes to pop.

To motorists driving by it looks like a real train, painted red, white and green, as it snakes around the bottom of the new multi-storey car park on Suffolk Road.

And it’s got a pretty good buffet car which would put Midland Mainline or Great Northern Railways to shame. You can take your choice from roast and fried chicken, pizzas, king prawn tandoori, curries and kebabs.

Owner Shawkat Hashmi got the idea after seeing restaurants near railway stations in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Already Platform 3 is something of a landmark and a bit too convincing. General manager Mohammed Yasin says: “People come in because they can’t find the station. One man asked for Platform 1!”

Shawkat called the place Platform 3 because it serves food from India, Italy and England.

“We do fish and chips on Fridays.”