Comfortable Third-Class Travel.

It is significant that in these new Home railway excursion trains only eighteen seats are provided for first-class travel, as against 511 third-class. Broadly speaking, first-class travel is dying out. There are several reasons for this. One is the competition of the private motor car, and another that third-class travel now is as comfortable as anyone could wish for. First-class is a relic of the “good old days” of the stage coach, and it will probably disappear altogether as time goes on, just as the old second-class has been abandoned on most routes.

On the continent of Europe, first and second-class travel still flourishes in many lands, and third-class is often a very uncomfortable business, spelling wooden seats and similar hardships. In one or two European countries, however, third-class is almost universal, as in Britain. Sweden and Denmark are two cases in point. There is one snag associated with third-class travel in Denmark, a country formed of a number of islands, and employing train ferries for inter-communication. First and second-class carriages are usually run direct on to the ferry-boats, but third-class passengers generally have to alight from their carriages on one side of the water, and entrain again on the other side. Russia has replaced her first and third-class by a “soft” and “hard” classification. France has some very comfortable third-class stock, notably on the Northern and P.L.M. lines. Italy, in her desire to attract the foreign tourist, has made drastic cuts in first and second-class fares, so that the average traveller there will have no need to resort to third-class.