Sir – I recently bought a first-class, peak-time rail ticket from Avignon to Paris. It cost £43.50 for a journey of 426 miles. It is for one of their splendid TGV trains.
You have a guaranteed seat reservation, and, unlike in this country, you do not find a large, heavily-tattooed person already sitting in your seat with no prospect of removing him (or her) unless you are the sort of person whose heart leaps with joy at the prospect of a fight on a train.
Additionally, people bring sweetmeats to your seat, and young women peel grapes for you. In this country, we have a surly trolley service (if you’re really lucky), dispensing ‘coffee’ which, if served in France, would justify a call to the police.
Out of interest, I checked the price of a first-class, peak-time single ticket from Oxford to Paddington. At £49.50, it is just £6 more for an eighth of the distance.
What is going on? Don’t tell me it’s for ‘investment’. I travelled extensively by train in the 60s and 70s, and the service was much better than now.
Someone, somewhere, must have a gratifyingly-bulging bank account.
Nigel Clarke, Oxford
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