BRITISH RAILWAY TIME-TABLES
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sza,—The sympathetic oreigner seeking for evidence that the people of these islands are the most long-suffering in the world might point to a whole string of curious phenomena— our Communists, our hotels, our income tax forms, our early closing mania. Yet perhaps the strangest of them all is the British railway time-table.
Why cause trains to disappear suddenly in the middle of a column and continue them three columns away ? Why not tell the traveller where he ought to change ? Why use the " through coach " sign to indicate Sats. only," in another part of the book ? Why not indicate clearly whether " a.m." or " p.m."- is meant ? Why not give complete lists of fares ?
We can travel from London to the Midlands in two hours. The Flying Scotsman races along at eighty miles an hour ; yet the good old time-table remains solidly very much as it was when time-tables first were.
Is it not somewhat incongruous that we should have the fastest trains and the slowest time-tables in all the world Y
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