Don’t get me wrong, at heart I am a petrolhead, and have enjoyed some fast, exotic, gas guzzling motors over the decades of my long driving life. I still hanker after my Maserati, Porsche, open top Jags and Alfas. However, old age, realism and concern for the environment has tempered my tastes.

The alternative is to take the train wherever possible. I love train journeys. It gives one a sense of travel and you can look out of the window, see the countryside and nosey into other peoples’ back gardens. With any luck you might be served with a meal but more of that later.  

I have travelled a lot in Europe by train. Their rail system is efficient, punctual (it wasn’t just Mussolini that made the trains run on time, ask the Swiss, you can set your watch by them), and they are very comfortable, smooth with wider carriages and more legroom. I travelled from Paris to Barcelona on a double decker train that went over 300 kilometres per hour – fantastic.

I have journeyed to Narvik in on the Artic Circle Express through fantastic scenery, and unbelievably the sun shone, not always guaranteed in Norway even in the summer. One year we went Corfu by train. Yes, it did involve taking a boat from Venice, but the journey via Zurich to Milan on the tilting train (the one we failed to run in Britain) through the Swiss mountain passes is another great journey with unforgettable views. 

The trains in India are a different experience. Sometimes trains travelling the length of the country can be a day late, and for all our anxt about colonial rule and exploitation, we did leave India with fantastic rail network. I avoided the food and the lavatories are basic, sometimes just a hole in the carriage floor. The wonderful narrow gauge railway to Shimla in the foothills of the Himalayas was completed in 1903. Shimla was where the English rulers spent the hottest months of the year to govern in cooler climes after exiting the steaming heat of Delhi. The railway is a feat of British engineering and one of the greatest rail journeys you can ever experience. The slow little train winds its way through jungle and ravines, their doors open to get the cooler mountain air as it climbs to just under 7500 ft.

On a more prosaic note, a couple of days ago, I had occasion to attend a publishing event in central Manchester and decided that a train would be the quickest and easiest method of getting there from North Yorkshire. Fortunately, I had booked a seat both ways as it is a notoriously busy route and often slow route. The train arrived at the station with three carriages short of what was meant to be a six carriage train. My booked coach was one of the three that was hooked up so I got my seat. As the journey progressed though York, Leeds and Huddersfield the coaches became progressively full with standing in the corridors and lobbies. There was no chance of getting a coffee from the refreshment trolley as it was unable to pass through the train. For some passengers this was a two hour journey. In short complete chaos.

The return journey was no better. At least it had the requisite number of coaches. Shortly after leaving Manchester the train came to a grinding halt. We were told there was a trespasser on the line. The train stopped and started for twenty five minutes as this individual walked up the line to the next station at Stalybridge. Why he was not removed earlier heaven only knows.

I used to travel from Yorkshire to London frequently on business and the breakfast train use to serve a full English cooked breakfast or kippers if you preferred from the galley on the train. The lines were throwbacks to Victorian times with the ‘clickety click’ sound, when the trains hit the points at Doncaster (if it was through train) your coffee used to spill into the saucer. A small inconvenience to cope with while you were plying your way through delicious bacon, eggs, sausages, black pudding, tomato, mushrooms and toast. And on the way home a full cooked dinner with gin and tonic aperitifs and a bottle of wine. That was the way to travel.

Cooking on the train has not been completely lost as some first class services still have microwaved food, not a patch on the properly cooked fare of old. A few years back I got the sleeper from Euston to Fort William that served dinner and more importantly a breakfast brought to your sleeping cabin in the morning. My father ,who used to travel from London to Scotland in the ’20’s, regaled with tales of the porter knocking on his door at Crianlarich at six o’clock in the morning with a cup of tea. Imagine my joy when at the same time the porter knocked on my cabin door at Crianlarich with a full English breakfast for me to enjoy in the privacy of my sleeping quarters while admiring the Scottish highlands pass by. Nothing better, and time to enjoy the views that I would not have seen while driving my car.