28 JULY 1950, Page 16

Meals on Trains

SIR,—Mak I be allowed to support G. Kirkbride's well-founded com- plaint about the new melancholy, depressing English railway dining- cars. Formerly one could mitigate the boredom involved by the eternal waits at meals by gazing out of the windows, but that solace has now been swept away by the designers of these cells.

The convenience and pleasure of the travelling public seem to be the last things to be taken into consideration by those same designers. We now have carriages with doors only at the two ends, so that passen- gers have to drag their bags along the corridors which are often obstructed by luggage and other people coming in. The windows in the compartment though large are.not made to open, as is the case on the Continent, where one can hand out bagh to porters on the platform. In fact, the general idea seems to be to make travelling as. burdensome as possible.—Yours faithfully, ALGERNON B. DALE. 'von House, Broad Chalke, Salisbury.