Where to find the railway minister on his tour Britain visi

 

Tuesday, Apr 14,2009, 11:41:06 AM   Click:

Nothing beats first-hand experience when you are responsible for an important public service.

So tonight, while Parliament is in recess, I went over a period of five days national rail tour, from midnight on the sleeper from Paddington to Truro, then zig-zag across Cornwall Great Britain join Inverness, on Friday and return to London on Saturday through a few hours at the National Railway Museum in York, where the new steam engine Tornado May make an appearance.

The Times asked me to write a column on my travels, so here goes.

Like a train in the use of many of my Voyage of central London, I know that the main inter-city roads and south of services very well. My plan this week is to get some of the service lines and I have rarely or never used, including the provincial and the east-west lines, which are increasingly important to national transportation system for passengers and freight.

Along the way, I will be accompanied by railway staff, MPs, journalists and members of groups of users of the rail, which will not tell me what is good and bad about their services. I will also probably hear what passengers have to say.

I start tomorrow at Truro - after a decline in car-bed at 7 o'clock in the morning - breakfast with Matthew Taylor, Lib Dem MP, who was a friend at university before becoming the youngest member of ten years. Then it's up and down the line from Newquay By Dan Rogerson MP, another Lib Dem, and the rail user group.

For I to take the main line to Exeter in Cornwall, a Devon tour and meeting with groups of passengers, and then Yeovil where David Laws MP gives me a lift to Yeovil Junction on the line from London to Yeovil Pen Mill on the cross country line from Bristol so I can proceed to the south of Dorchester and Wareham.

Jim Knight, MP Dorset Wareham answered me for an hour trip on the preserved Swanage Railway, which is the search for a primary connection. In the evening I was in Southampton and Brighton, arriving just after 11pm, if all goes according to plan, the only party welcoming be (hopefully) a concierge at the hotel next to the station.

Wednesday Brighton is the route (from 5:30) of Norwich, to achieve a more civilized 5.30pm for a visit and meeting with users of the railway before dinner with Charles Clarke.

I get to Norwich by a roundabout route along the coast of Sussex and Kent, joined at various stages of my colleague the Minister of Transport, Paul Clark (MP for Gillingham), Norman Baker ( member for Lewes and the indefatigable Lib Dem transport spokesman) and Roger Gale (North Thanet MP for) so that I can visit the cities that will be later this year, benefiting from the new high-speed services St Pancras station.

A jump into the Thames on the Tilbury to Gravesend ferry takes me on the line to Shenfield (terminus of the east-west Crossrail line soon under construction) and Ipswich (for tea with Chris Mole MP), to Norwich through the lines of the province Beccles and Lowestoft.

Thursday is another train-crack of dawn, 5:52 in the Norwich Liverpool - extraordinarily long cross-country service - which I leave in Peterborough through the connection to a visit to Birmingham New Street, one of the post-Beeching rail planning disasters of the 1960s, soon, fortunately, be replaced by a new £ 500 million, with a doubling of the passenger station and facilities best suited for a large city.

At Birmingham, I also met Pete Waterman, the nation Trainspotter chief, who joined me for the ride to Shrewsbury and then north of West Chester (branch briefly in Wales).

Chester is at the junction of Railway Crewe to catch a train to Manchester Airport and the visit of the station has recently expanded. After a Trans-Pennine Express Travel in Yorkshire, he was back in Manchester at the end of the west coast main train in Carlisle and a possible night with Eric martlewis MP, chairman of the all-rail group parliamentarian and member of the city.

On Friday morning I left Carlisle on the beautiful west coast to the east coast line to Hexham and Newcastle for a Tyne and Wear tower and a circular return to Newcastle via Middlesbrough, Stockton and Darlington, the birthplace of the railway . Then, at 3pm, it is The Highland Chieftain - one of the few survivors named trains - for the five-hour journey through Edinburgh, Stirling and Perth to Inverness, the only day the longer route of travel.

Danny Alexander MP and its user groups railway premises to meet me at the station, and then I try to get a early night before boarding the 4:57 train on Saturday from Inverness to Aberdeen via Edinburgh, connecting to a train on the east coast to arrive in York at 1pm - the welcoming party will be my family together for a tour of the National Railway Museum and the minister - and hopefully Bettys tea - before we embark on the final express train to King's Cross, in pursuit of the tornado, which put out a few hours before.

In all, nearly 2000 miles on some 40 trains over 70 hours. Or to the plans. What happens in practice, things will be the column in the coming days.

As for costs, I expect to do any travel, standard class, for £ 375 - plus an extra berth for the first night - with seven days' all rail rover. This is a ticket no one seems to have heard, perhaps because it is poorly advertised.

It invites the thought that we should be marketing these tickets more widely, at least for young people (who can buy the ticket just seven days for £ 245) so that they can learn about their own country the same way they and their predecessors (me included) have learned about Europe's inter-ramp summer holidays. But perhaps after five days on the road - sorry, railways - which seemed a good idea.