Europeans are rail passengers; we are customers

From: ME Wright, Grove Road, Harrogate.

VAL Kent writes of the most unsatisfactory toilet arrangements at Leeds Station (Yorkshire Post, August 5), comparing them to the “spotless and free ones in Malaga” and on the same day Coun Elizabeth Nash recounts the third world-style horrors of Kirkgate Station, Wakefield.

Both these highly justified complaints arise from the organic difference between the UK and mainland Europe: there, we are passengers, for whom reliable and affordable services are provided, to serve the wider interests of the country; here, we are customers, from whom money is to be extracted on every pretext, to serve the wider interests of directors and shareholders.

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Val Kent wonders what foreign visitors think of us: the polite answer is “not much!”

Having been grossly ripped off for an erratic London-Leeds trip (more than double the comparable cost in France), a French friend asked “Why do you tolerate this?” A good question; why do we? And why do we tolerate the collusion of politicians who continue to insist that more of the same is the answer?

At least my friend didn’t experience the Great British joy of going for a bus, only to find that it had been withdrawn or re-routed at the caprice of some faceless, profit-crazed accountant.