3 JUNE 1949, Page 5

There is a tavern in a train, in a train.

And most people, myself included, profoundly wish there wasn't. What possessed whom in British Railways to imagine that the travelling public want a buffet- car to look like an inn parlour passes conception ; they want it to look like a buffet-car and nothing else. A tavern buffet-car is plainly a sham. However, it is fair to say that I have not myself seen one of these bright ideas gone wrong, and someone who has tells me it is not as bad as it sounds. It can still be pretty bad, even so. I trust that the bright idea may henceforward be forgotten and that the tavern-cars already constructed will be assigned to some part of the railway system that I never use.