Speeding through Britain on the election trail – but at what cost?

Oh the joys of electoral campaigning Britain. Sudden unannounced journeys to Ellesmere Port, Hull, Luton and beyond.

If today is Tuesday it must be Dartford.

The wonderful thing about today’s modern train journeys is that they all seem to be fast getting out of London and painfully slow ever returning. Last night I looked at my watch. It was 10.55 pm. I pondered – it must be Milton Keynes. How will they spin it out to get us to Euston at two minutes to Midnight?

You never know until just a few hours before, quite what you will be doing. One moment you are going to Birmingham to observe the launch of the Labour manifesto, the next to Cheshire to interview the leader.

The journey up was as fast as it was expensive. A flight to Boston, Massachusetts, would have cost less.

At least there was evidence of life at the Vauxhall plant – the venue for a segment of the day’s electioneering.

At Crewe station after we had done the programme, there was less than life. It had the reek of a place where God had died. That awful contest between hunger and a plastic bagged cheese roll, was won unwisely by the roll.

The five minute battle to find someone to pull half a pint of lager in a place so cold and uninviting it wasn’t worth the wait.

Crewe station, designed for the golden age of steam was alleviated by the smooth subtle arrival of the Pendolino from another world. At £359 return, not a soul in first class. Rather more in the £150 return second class. Who are the ‘they’ that are trying to price rail travellers out of using trains? These prices are beyond scandalous. Then to find that a journey took us a mere two hours coming up, takes nearly three hours going back.

The Pendalino is so fast that it has to dawdle between stops – and then at Rugby, another Crewe, we linger in the deserted station to try to stay within the unambitious timetable.

At least the recession delivered taxis by the truckload at Euston. As I tumbled into bed I wondered what Britain I had just traversed. At least I could thank the ingenuity of Italian train builders for the few minutes of shut-eye I had succumbed to on the journey, to add to my short six hour night.

So to Dartford.