RAILWAY TRAVELLING

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 156, 20 March 1923, Page 8

RAILWAY TRAVELLING

Sir, —May I through your columns direct attention to the confusion and inconvenience caused by the system .of reserved seats in mail trains, and as an example state that in travelling from Hastings to Palmerston a day or two ago, after buffetting my way through the whole \e ng th of the train on cumbered with hand impedimenta, and being met on every hand by the forbidding “Engaged,” at length fqund a compartment with no fewer than six seats marked “Reserved” which wore unclaimed and unoccupied during the earlier hours of the journey. And, furtherinore, be permitted to express my'belief that the legality of the Department’s action in disposing of the travelling public’s rights to proper seating accommodation with the minimum of discomfort implied in the issue of the ticket, is open to question, to say nothing of the case of family parties in the same circumstances. And be permitted to suggest as the more economic way of raising revenue and reviving failing patronage and trade, the dowering of fares, freights, and prices, instead of sealing their doom bv raising them, not to mention the effect of which liberal policy on employment, by reason of the impetus that would thus be given to trade.— I am. etc., TRAVELLER.