BRITISH RAILWAYS DEFAULTS ?
SIR,—On Monday, September 12th, British Railways ran an excursion from Torquay to Guernsey. I had bought a ticket, and on arriving at the quayside a quarter of an hour before the time of sailing I found about 60 people waiting to go aboard but prevented from so doing by an official. At nine o'clock the gang plank was lowered, and as the ship began to move away another official stated that the agents had over-booked the ship for the journey.
I should have thought that it was customary for British Railways to know how many persons such a boat held and to issue no more than that number of tickets. It would be interesting to know who had the authority to print tickets in excess of accommodation. A similar incident occurred when I booked two seats on a train from Paddington to Torquay on September 10th. My reserve ticket stated that the train left London at 10.30 a.m. When I bought tickets the night before and enquired of the arrival of my 10.30 train I was told that there was no such train.
In neither case was there any apology. Instead, the booking clerk had the audacity to say that he could not be held responsible. It would be interesting, in this case too, to know that, if British Railways are lot to be held responsible, who is.
The tourist is bound to form a lasting and distasteful opinion of Englishmen when he encounters such irresponsibility.—Yours faithfully,
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