Railway Bookings

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31381, 29 May 1967, Page 12

Railway Bookings

Sir,—On May 4 I travelled by railcar to the West Coast. 1 had reserved a seat in a smoking carriage days before departure, but on reaching the station was informed that this carriage had been taken off, and we would have to change our seat tickets on the I platform. I was given a seat in a non-smoker, there being none available in the smoking carriage, I was told. To my amazement, when 1 went through to the smoking carriage after morning tea I found it occupied mostly by women and young children. Is not the reason for having smoking carriages on trains to keep children away from cigarette smoke? I think the guard on the train should have the authority to do a bit of reshuffling, when he finds smokers having to stand between carriages to smoke, while children occupy seats in the smoker.—Yours, etc., G. KING.

May 16, 1967. [The General■ Manager of Railways (Mr Ivan Thomas) said that the twin-unit railcar scheduled for the West Coast run on May 4 had to be replaced at short notice by two Vulcan rail-cars. Although the Vulcan rail-cars had a slightly larger seating capacity than one twin-unit railcar, the arrangement of the seats in four separate compartments instead of two compartments complicated the reallocation of bookings into clearly-defined smoking and non-smoking categories. As a result, some overlapping was inevitable. The presence of children in the smoking compartments was accounted for by the fact that many parents travelling with their families specifically requested “smoking” seats. Mr Thomas said he was sorry the correspondent had been inconvenienced, and assured him that the department’s staff endeavoured to ensure that the individual requirements of passengers were met

wherever possible. However, when alternative arrangements had to be made at short notice, as in this instance, it was unfortunately not always practicable to satisfy all personal preferences.]