From the Southern Travellers Handbook for 1965/66 #6

First-Class passengers

Although comfortable enough, there is little sociability in a first-class carriage on a railway; everybody seems to have an idea that he is the only one who is really entitled, by payment and position, to a seat therein, and so is afraid of compromising his dignity by speaking. There is consequently no conversation: the heads of the four corner occupants are usually looking out of the windows, and the centre ones look at each other.