A colleague has made the interesting suggestion that it may be time to rethink how classes of service on trains are described or branded. He comments that the standard of accommodation on many first class train services is similar to premium economy on an aircraft.

He also speculated that occupancy might rise if the service was branded Premium or Business Class, since most companies have a travel policy which is aimed at finding the best business class service.

In addition, he raises the question of airlines which offer a rail service as a complimentary feeder service between airport and specific domestic destinations for certain fare types. Should this be a premium rail service for a premium air traveler? This is likely to depend on the traveler profile and the policy of the individual carrier.

Fascinating stuff!

As an economist, I approve of the concept of providing a number of classes and therefore a number of prices. It helps to maximise revenue, and it improves customer choice.

However, one needs to be culturally aware - in particular, of what to call the two classes.

In Japanese trains, there is Ordinary Class and Green Class. On some, you pay less if you have to stand: you can also have a compartment in Green Class which costs more than the ordinary Green Class, effectively making 4 classes.

On the Dubai Metro there is Gold and Silver Class.

I'm glad the UK rail network changed form Second Class to Standard Class: the argument was that you shouldn't be calling 80% of your passengers "second class"!

Heathrow Express had a big debate about what to call its classes: they decided on First and Express (and the term 'Express' was my idea!). First and Business was decided against, on the grounds that lots of people weren't travelling first class and were not travelling on business!

Amtrak provides coach and business class on the Acela Regional trains, and business and first on the Acela Express.

I was fascinated to learn recently about the Club Car on New Jersey Transit. A group of people pay to have a dedicated car attached to one peak train each way: the car has more comfortable seating and more leg-room than the average commuter car. Passengers pay their fare to NJT and a supplement for travel in the Club Car. You can pay by the day or for a month.

Moving on to the second point, I'm pretty sure that those airlines which offer complimentary rail travel in conjunction with a flight only offer first class. I also understand that the take-up of rail is good - at one stage, people like Virgin Atlantic and Emirates were offering their preferred passengers a choice of a limo or Gatwick Express to London, and most chose the train because of its reliability.

On both the Stuttgart and Cologne to Frankfurt and the Brussels Midi - Paris CDG air-rail code shares, all rail travel is in first class.

One reason for the unpopularity of the short-lived code-share between SN-Brussels and Thalys on the Paris Gare du Nord - Brussels Airport sector was that rail travel was in Confort-2 class and not Confort-1.

I'm not sure what happens on other rail-air code-shares.

It was also interesting to see that American Airlines now offer what they call Express Seats! Customers can buy seats in the first few rows of Coach, including bulkhead seats. In addition to sitting in the front of the main cabin, the Express Seats option also includes being in Group 1 of General Boarding, providing the benefit of being among the first Coach customers to board the plane. Express Seats can only be purchased at airport Self-Service Check-In machines between 24 hours and 50 minutes before flight departure, on flights within the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

This has been done by Ryanair for a while - passengers can pay a priority boarding fee to be among the first to board - and therefore to have the best choice of seat. I do not know whether there is any limit on the number sold - could everyone buy priority boarding?

So what do you think? Should first class rail be re-branded? To what?

As the new class 377 trains have been introduced onto the Thameslink route (connecting Luton and Gatwick Airports to London) I've been hearing but not really noticing the announcements on platforms as they approach.

One thing I did notice last night - and started to think about - is an element of laziness.

The 4-car units have a first class section at each end.

But regardless of whether the train has one or two 4 car units, the announcement is always to the effect that 'First class accommodation is at the front and rear of the train'.

So it is, of course, but if it's an 8-car train it's also in the middle! And there are plenty of stations where you might wish to alight and you might wish to be in the middle of the train rather than at the front or rear for speed of egress. Especially with ticket barriers making it more of a scrum to leave the station!

Is this someone taking the easy way out and ignoring the passengers? Especially the premium passengers?

The current management seem to have cracked this counting business: if a 4-car train is announced, it's likely to have four coaches. With the previous guys, you knew that there were two kinds of 4-car train - those which actually had four coaches and those which had 8. There were also two kinds of 8-car train, which was sometimes distressing because it necessitated a sprint!

Now that counting has been cracked - or so it seems - it ought to be possible to have separate announcements for 4 and 8 car trains. The next Great Leap Forward!

I have blogged before about the new trains being introduced to First Capital Connect's Thameslink route connecting Gatwick and Luton Airports to London.

They look nice, and they are air conditioned.

A downside I have noted before is the lack of seats - they have about 50 fewer in a 4-car unit than the class 319s they replace (although at some time in the future they will run as 12-car formations, when all the platforms on the route have been lengthened).

Another is that they ride very firmly - downright roughly in places, almost to the point of being alarming. I've only sampled them north of the Thames - I wonder what they are like to the south, where the railway is even more heavily used?