AN East Lancashire charity cyclist's Scottish rail nightmare has been taken to the top at Westminster by Pendle MP Gordon Prentice.

He was outraged to discover the problems faced by Colne teacher Malcolm Redford, his son James and his friend Jack Howard when they attempted to ride from John O'Groats down to the border as part of a trip to Land's End.

The 48-year-old and the two 14-year-olds were attempting the 1,000-mile journey to raise cash for charity.

Mr Redford lost his kneecap in a climbing accident more than 20 years ago but that was not a problem -- unlike trying to travel on the train with bikes in Scotland.

Now Mr Prentice has called Transport Secretary Alistair Darling to intervene.

Mr Redford, and his doctor wife Caroline Palmer, made several attempts to book bike places through Burnley railway station on both Virgin and ScotRail trains to get to Inverness to start the ride.

However, confusion over whether you had to purchase tickets and book bike places at the same time led to Mr Redford, of Woolpack, Lenches Road, in Colne, buying his rail tickets to the North of Scotland twice to try and secure bike bookings - once at the station and once on the phone.

But when they got to Scotland, the ScotRail train guard they needed to proceed north from Edinburgh refused to allow more than two bikes on the train.

In addition his assistant was deeply offensive, according to Mr Redford, so the trio were forced to cycle north and book into a bed and breakfast in Tain rather than stay at the previously booked B and B in Inverness.

The following day they reached John O'Groats but were eventually forced to abandon the Scottish leg of their journey and return to Colne.

After completing the journey from Colne to Land's End, a furious Mr Redford passed an account of his journey to Mr Prentice who sent it to Alistair Darling.

He called for a major shake-up to have a proper integrated transport system which allowed people to take bicycles by train.

Mr Prentice told Mr Darling: "I have to say, I read Mr Redford's letter with growing incredulity and it really does beggar belief that the system could be so unco-ordinated, with one hand not knowing what the other is doing.

"This was truly appalling and I want Mr Darling to tell me what he is going to do to sort it out.

"What should have been a simple operation of taking bikes on a train to do a charity cycle turned into a nightmare.

"The whole thing is a mess and something needs to be done to stop this sort of thing happening again."

A spokesman for Scot Rail said: "When we receive details of Mr Redford's ordeal either from him or Mr Darling we will fully investigate it.

"We are very concerned about this sort of thing and we will look into it thoroughly and then contact Mr Redford."