I am enjoying a southeastern train which is going all the way to central London,

Charing Cross in fact the most central of all the London terminus stations.

But what's interesting about it is that I'm in first class.

Oh yes, I am.

There's somewhere to plug in my laptop.

There's four comfortable seats across, instead of in some configurations five.

And, well, I'm the only person in this compartment.

And that is because Southeastern have scrapped first class.

And that is a really interesting move because it is kind of going against the grain. We've actually

got the number of classes on trains increasing across the UK, but let me tell

you what southeastern have done.

They run trains from Charing Cross, Cannon Street, London Bridge to southeast London,

Kent and East Sussex.

The next station is Swanley.

Thank you.

And those trains are mostly for commuters and people travelling in for the day.

Now commuters are the sorts of people who would get first class, because if you're

travelling in from Swanley and you think, hang on, I've got to guarantee a seat, I've got to get

some work done, it's worth me paying the extra 50% to travel first class, well, then you

would be buying your season ticket in first class.

But after the pandemic, Southeastern found that there were only 28 people on the entire network

who were buying first class season tickets. And frankly, that is, that running first class ceases to be worth anything. I mean

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