FIRST-CLASS TRAVEL
SIR,—The publicity of your columns may help to discover, what the General Manager of the Southern Railway declines to tell me—namely, what the railways require their train and station officials to do when appealed to by a first-class season ticket-holder crowded ouf of first-class accommodation by third-class passengers. This situation sometimes arises, for instance, in expresses about to leave Waterloo. My wife '(long working in London and mostly confmed4to rush-hour travel) is from time to time obliged to stand in the corridor outside first-class compartments full of obviously third-class ticket-holders. Asked on one such occasion recently to help her find a seat, the travelling inspector collected in her presence four excess-fires -from third-class passengers in a single first- class compartment and, with apologies that he could do no more, left her standing outside. A protracted correspondence with the management, from which it appears that the inspector's action was in accordance with his instructions, has failed to elicit any sign of recognition of the essential dishonesty of reselling to a newcomer accommodation already sold ro a
season ticket-holder present and claiming it Now that the difficulties of season ticket-holders are to be intensified by the advance booking of seats and the reintroduction of restaurant cars (enabling one passenger to hold two seats simultaneously) it seems time to enquire what obligations, if any, the railway administration still recognises towards them.—Yours faithfully, W. B. MANLEY. Broad Green, Flower Walk, Guildford.
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