Travel Concessions.

Although the Home railways are straining every nerve to effect economies, it should not be thought that they are adopting anything approaching a cheese-paring policy. The four big group systems are spending vast sums on improving their way and works, and in introducing new and improved services to meet public needs. To cover the new situation which has arisen out of the phenomenal development of passenger travel by road, the Home railways have introduced cuts in passenger fares amounting in some cases to as much as fifty per cent. More liberality also is being allowed travellers in respect of week-end bookings, and other reduced fares, these concessions giving a wider range of facilities for travel than have ever before been offered in Britain. As illustrating the cheap travel now available, the Great Western Railway are running express excursion trains from Paddington Station, London, to Plymouth and return (226 ½ miles each way), for 11s. 6d. return, or at the rate of nearly four miles a penny. Fares such as these are much lower than those offered by even the most enterprising of road carriers, and the reduced rail fares now in operation, coupled with the higher degree of safety and comfort assured the rail traveller, should go far to bring back to the “Iron Way” much business which has recently gone to the road.