Do trains really need Premium Economy?

At least in olden days, airlines used to try to fill up their aircraft by giving some travellers free upgrades to business or first class. Perhaps our railways should do that on crowded trains.

I think the last time there were three classes of travel was much, much earlier than 1956 – probably before 1910.

In the nineteenth century there were three classes of travel 1st, 2nd and 3rd, but most of the railway companies had abolished 2nd Class by the turn of the century leaving just 1st and 3rd and this persisted until 1956 when 3rd Class was reclassified by British Railways as 2nd Class. It was later renamed Standard Class.

When I travel up to London I usually go off-peak and book advance First Class fares at much reduced prices. The coaches on the existing trains are rather tired and worn – like this passenger – and the at-seat refreshment service somewhat intermittent, but you do get a more comfortable ride in a 2+1 seat formation with a table and individually controllable lighting and window curtains so you can customise the environment to a small degree. The armchair style seating is not well designed but that is a minor quibble. Speed is the same, of course, but the noticeable benefit is how quiet the saloon is with a lower density of occupation. Travelling home late at night is much better in First Class and well worth the higher price.

New trains are due to appear on the Norwich to London main line in the coming months and it will be interesting to see whether they are more comfortable. They will incorporate many new safety features and systems that will greatly improve travelling conditions for people with reduced mobility or other impairments.

Possibly worth it on very long distance services, but on commuter services definitely not! It’s bad enough having empty 1st class carriages without another “class”, leaving even fewer seats in rush hour. That said Thameslink’s idea of first class is the same extremely uncomfortable seats with slightly wider spacing, tables and power sockets. Hard to see how they could do a premium economy anyway.

Scrap first class altogether. On many routes it is often less than 1/3. The result is that those passengers are playing less for carriage space than the other passengers. Treat everyone equally and let businesses and government employees spend less on their rail travel. The whole concept of classes on trains is one that should be relegated firmly to the past.

As someone who uses trains to London from an extremely busy train station, I think it’s a great idea. At the moment the differential in price between standard and first-class is often between 100% – 300% at peak times which often results in half-empty first-class carriages whilst standard carriages are crammed to bursting with some people left on the platform because they can’t actually fit onto the train at all. A mid-price point should help alleviate this issue without breaking the bank for most commuters.

Stop the HS2 rail link and spend the money on the infrastructure up north, help those who have been flooded recently, stop spending money on London and the North East, Boris Johnson needs to rethink what he has decided to do ie The HS2 Rail link, is it really worth all that money ? I question it ?

I agree that we probably don’t need a third class of travel and it is likely First Class could be curtailed a bit for shorter journeys/commuter trains. However I would like a decent service for passengers from all train companies. I know this is relatively trivial compared with what other passengers must endure, but it did make me cross: I recently booked a First Class Airport Advance Single from Manchester Airport to Edinburgh. I couldn’t book a seat at the time I booked the train and assumed this was a glitch on the website and contacted TPE about this.

I received this reply:

Thank you for contacting TransPennine Express regarding your seat reservation, I was sorry to learn of the circumstances that prompted you to get in touch.

I can confirm that you are booked on a counted place service, a counted place service is where you book on to a train but not given a specific seat. Not all of our classes of reservable trains have the facilities on board for either physical paper labels or electronic onboard systems. It also allows us to sell Advance Purchase tickets as the services have to be reservable for the ticket to be retailed.

As there is no indication for the seat, this means you may sit in any available seat on the service and on this occasion we are unable to book a specific seat for your journey.

Once again thank you for contacting TransPennine Express and I hope you have a pleasant journey.

I responded to TPE expressing my surprise and dissatisfaction at this “counted place service”. Although this would not make too much difference to me, travelling on my own, I can imagine that two or more passengers travelling together might find this a real pain, particularly if children or other dependent travellers were involved. I still can’t believe that there are no facilities aboard certain TPE trains where neither physical paper labels nor electronic systems can be used. I was blissfully ignorant so this is to warn other people who may consider booking with TPE.