For the ordinary traveller a "Continental Bradshaw" is as useful a railway guide as any, especially if his knowledge of French is limited, but the time tables published by Chaix and Cie. are also most excellent in every way. Of these the best and most expensive is the "Livret-Chaix Continental," price 2 frs, containing all continental railways and a complete index. A cheaper time table is the "Indicateur des Chemins de Fer," published by the same firm, price 1/2 fr., which gives the French railways only, with map and index. Besides these, all the principal lines have time tables of their own, price 30 cents.
It is advisable, when people are travelling as a party, that they should have their luggage all weighed together, presenting the whole of the tickets at the same time; this not only frequently saves expense, but, as the number of persons is marked by the luggage clerk on their baggage receipt, it is a guarantee that each has bought a ticket, which saves trouble if one should happen to be lost.
When people are stopping the night en route at a place, and do not wish to take their registered luggage to the hotel, only to have to bring it back for re-registration next day, they have simply to leave it in the station, and when starting again on the morrow to tell the porter—when they give him the baggage ticket—that it was left overnight (for which the charge is 1d. per package), whereupon he will register it without further trouble.
If a ticket is taken for the wrong station (by mistake) and the luggage is accordingly registered wrongly too, the passenger must represent the same to the station-master and ask him to allow a change to be made; if there is not time to do this the luggage clerk may take the responsibility—if the urgency of the case is made argentiferously clear—but the plan is not recommended. It is important to know that if a traveller misses his train he must present his ticket at the ticket office to be restamped in order to make it again available—otherwise it is liable to be forfeited.
Travellers will also save themselves much trouble by settling which hotel they intend to go to, before arriving at their destination; and it must be fully understood that for the carrying of small parcels taken into the carriage, the aid of porters can never be counted on. See Chapter XI.
Luggage not exceeding 30 kilogrammes (i.e. 66 lbs. Eng.) is carried free; 1d. being charged for the registration thereof.
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Routes from London to Paris.
Route 1.—Via Dover, Calais, Montreuil, Abbeville, Amiens, Claremont, and Creil: the quickest route.
Route 2.—Via Folkestone, Boulogne, Montreuil, &c. as above.