Sir, - When is a first-class ticket not a first-class ticket? When it's for the 7.40 a.m. Enterprise service from Dublin to Belfast - as I discovered recently.
The "musical chairs" approach to seating in the first-class compartments resulted in my being told I would have to move from my unreserved first-class seat to standard class in order to accommodate a passenger with a reservation for whom Irish Rail had failed to reserve a seat.
Why had I been targeted for removal to standard class? Was it mere coincidence that I was the only woman in an unreserved first-class seat in the compartment?
Why did I insist on travelling first class? Well - and this is the real scandal - because travelling first class on the Enterprise is the only way to be sure of getting breakfast or any other meal. Standard-class passengers, in my experience, are not offered dining facilities.
As it turned out, the passenger with the first-class ticket and reservation, on discovering that I would not be permitted to take the breakfast I had ordered into standard class, very kindly offered to move to standard class himself.
As a fellow-passenger observed: Irish Rail has a rather different attitude to first-class travel from any other railway company in the world! - Yours, etc.,
J. WILLIAMS, Ashbrook, Howth Road, Dublin 3.