Sir - With reference to the letter from P. Hornby (August 17). We also went last week to the station to book rail tickets in advance.

The booking windows were marked, three of them for tickets for travel today' and two for advance booking and queries', so people wanting the former were not held up by those with complex travel problems.

We queued for about ten minutes and then were treated with the utmost courtesy and help and without any sense of pressure or need to hurry; we had in fact checked train times first on the phone, very quickly and easily, but I am sure this was not necessary and the booking clerk helping us would have done that too.

Maybe we were lucky but we did not experience any problems, in fact it was much quicker than on occasions when I have used the special advanced booking office in the past.

The only improvement I could suggest would be to arrange for two separate queues, very clearly labelled; this would prevent the congestion that formed at the top of the line, with people waiting for an' advanced booking clerk' to be free, blocking easy access to the travelling today' windows; and this would also reduce anxiety for those people, as they would know how many were ahead of them for tickets.

Nicolette Winterbottom, Oxford