TRAINS have the ability to be by far our best means of transport.

They’re environmentally friendly and have the potential to be much more convenient than road travel.

There’s just one problem – the people who run them, at least in this part of the world.

I have some experience. As a boy I spent more than five years jostling with London commuters as I travelled to school by train every day.

I’ve also travelled the length of India on a fantastic network, which manages to move millions against unimaginable odds, and enjoyed the modern, split-second efficiency of services in Germany and other parts of Northern Europe.

What a contrast with East Lancashire where rail travel is every bit as stressful as dodging your way down the M6.

Here are two examples from the past week.

First, those long-suffering folk who travel to Manchester by train rather than clog up the M61, It’s a weekday, around 8.30am.

The train from Preston to Colne is running late (not an unusual thing – this time something to do with ‘crossing gates at Bamber Bridge’).

Passengers who get on at Cherry Tree and Mill Hill and change in Blackburn for the Darwen, Bolton and Manchester train nervously stare out of the window as we trundle over Darwen Street bridge.

They are trying to see if they have missed their connection.

A joyful air fills the carriage as we enter the station and they spot the Manchester-bound train still standing at the adjoining platform.

Our train pulls up and the conductor quickly opens the doors to let them out.

Then just as the hapless passengers get to the halfway point in their 50-yard dash between the two platforms the Manchester train pulls away leaving them breathless and exasperated.

The way all hope was snatched from travellers as they were within couple of seconds from their goal could almost have been choreographed by a film director.

Secondly, the winter timetables came into effect last week.

You may be one of the many people who found out about them the hard way – when the train you were awaiting shot straight past without stopping.

“Quite a few people have been caught out,” said a Network Rail employee almost gleefully as “my train” went through the station at about 50mph.

The large timetable on the board hadn’t changed, but the fact that after October 3 quite a few trains would no longer stop at a number of stations between Preston and Burnley during the day was there – in the kind of small print banks use for credit card interest rates.

The reason given is that leaves and frost on the line during the winter make it difficult for trains to keep to timetables if they have to keep stopping and starting.

The obvious extension of that kind of reasoning is that trains could avoid any delays at all if they went direct from Preston to Colne and missed out all the stations in between!

Such a system would be totally useless for travellers that hardly matter.

After all, trains these days are run for the convenience of rail operators rather than passengers, aren’t they?