Passenger-train Services.

Little by little, as the first uncertainties of wartime operation disappear, the ordinary passenger-train services of the Home Railways are being stabilised. At the outset, many of the long-distance expresses were withdrawn, or re-timed so as to permit of stops en route at the principal towns. Restaurant and sleeping-cars ceased to operate, adn everywhere ordinary passenger-trains had to be withdrawn to permit of the passage of troops, supplies, and the like. To-day, page 26 page 27 while preference naturally always is given to Service requirements, it is being found possible to place improved train connections at the disposal of the ordinary traveller, and restaurant and sleeping-cars are being reintroduced in many long-distance runs.

Actually, there is no restriction on civilian railway travel in Britain, nor have there been any increases in passenger fares. Journey times are naturally somewhat longer than in ordinary circumstances, and excursion facilities were withdrawn on the outbreak of war Limited excursion facilities, however, will probably have been resumed before this letter sees the light of day, especially to enable parents to visit their evacuated children in the country at week-ends. Night travel by rail was, for the first month or two of the war, something of an adventure. Because of the necessity for a complete “blackout,” interior lighting of passenger compartments was sometimes impossible, while in other instances only dim lighting was permissible. Now a standardised system of carriage lighting is being developed, both on the main-lines and on the London local systems. In the case of the London Passenger Transport Board services, there was sometime ago installed standardised lighting for use during the “black-out” hours on open sections of line, this applying to the District Railway, and the Northern, Piccadilly, Bakerloo and Central Tube Lines. The regulations allow three special low-wattage lamps, with the lower half of each painted dark blue, to be fitted in each car. In the tunnel sections, full lighting is maintained.