Rockingham Racer wrote:First class exists on the Paris subway, as well. It's usually one half of one car in the middle of the train.Does it still? I thought it was discontinued under Mitterrand* for political reasons mentioned above by others (how can a socialist country have two classes?) I think that if all the other problems mentioned above could be solved, the political angle would still doom the idea. I'm assuming that the car remaining on the UP North Line (and I just read in First and Fastest that it was recently repainted in C&NW colors!), and requiring membership, is not what Southern Railway has in mind--rather the any-train-any-time availability as in Europe. At one time the S-Bahns in Berlin and Hamburg had 1st Class smoking and nonsmoking and 2nd Class smoking and nonsmoking in every consist, but those days are gone--and never existed in this country.
* And Mitterrand was the son of a stationmaster, and something of a railfan.