FUTURE OF FIRST CLASS.

COMFORT OF THIRD-CLASS RAIL TRAVEL

There is to be some appreciable alleviation of the passenger’s burden in the New Year. The railway managers have already announced a general reduction of fares by one-seventh from Jan. 1. Now the London and North-western Company state that on first-class tickets the decrease will be substantially larger. Whether all the other railways will follow this pleasant example is not known, but it is reasonable to suppose that there will be some further concessions.

LONDON, SATURDAY DECEMBER 2, 1922

First-class fares are, of course, not standardised. There is no “parliamentary” basic charge. One company may find it worthwhile to offer first-class at a lower rate per mile than another because the proportion of passengers ready to pay for more comfortable conditions varies on different routes. The increases of the war surcharges have, however, driven up first-class fares to such a height that the number of people who can afford this luxury has been much restricted.

The third-class ticket is an obvious and not too irksome economy, and has naturally been one of the first adopted in the inevitable policy of individual retrenchment and reform. The carrying capacity of a first-class compartment is, space for space and weight for weight, so much less than a third that the fare must always be much higher. The adjustment of that fare so as to provide a paying load must be a matter of very nice calculation, and it is futile to apply the usual general principles about cheapness making more business.

The logical conclusion would be the abolition of all special accommodation and the development of the railways on a system of one class for all. That has been often advocated, and the almost universal abolition of the second-class in England except for suburban traffic, may seem to point to it as a natural and inevitable development. The small proportion of firstclass to third-class passengers on any line has been urged as a proof that its completion cannot be long delayed.

DINING CAR PROVISION

It is indeed true that the third-class ticket provides the bulk of the revenue from passenger traffic. We find it hard to imagine the conditions which brought from the Board of Trade the solemn declaration, “it is questionable whether the interests of the proprietors of lines will ever lead them to encourage the development of a thirdclass traffic.” The proprietors have encouraged it so generously that some old-fashioned people ascribe the rarity of the first-class passenger to the excessive comfort of the third-class coach. But we may, perhaps, assume that the managers of railways know their business, and that the third-class passenger would never have had his cushions and his corridor, his lavatory and his dining-car unless there was a profit in all these luxuries.

But the pioneers of railways had no notion of such a thing. The original third-class carriages had no roof, no seats, their sides were only a couple of feet high. They resembled, in fact, old goods trucks. The only trains which carried a third-class coach started in the early morning or at night. Yet the companies complained that “persons in superior positions” had the effrontery to travel third-class for the sake of economy. Such meanness was not to be tolerated. Sweeps were hired to ride with the superior persons and to “shake out their sootbags” en route. The deliverance of the third-class passenger came in 1844, when Parliament established the statutory fare of a penny a mile by one train at least in every day.

It is almost fifty years since the Midland Railway announced that they would carry no more second-class passengers, but provide their third-class coaches with cushions. The predictions of a oneclass system as the next development seem plausible enough. But there are other facts to be considered. Of recent years we have seen in the South of England the provision of accommodation rather superior to that of the ordinary carriage at a small extra charge. There are now not only first-class but third-class Pullman cars, and the third-class passenger is eager to use them. Observation of railway working, therefore, suggests that a demand, and possibly a growing demand, exists for a greater degree of comfort than the third-class standard. We cannot doubt that the railway companies will, in the long run, find it profitable to provide for this section of their customers such adjustment of fares as will make the firstclass a luxury not too expensive for moderate means.