Just like that

Had been mildly looking forward to this evening’s journey to London, usually the low point of the week. At last, the long-anticipated Sunday through train had been reinstated by Virgin, so I could settle back in my seat, read my newspaper, surf the net, do a bit of work and generally take it easy all the way through to Euston on a journey scheduled to take well under four hours.

As was, in retrospect, all too depressingly predictable, the train came to a halt at Crewe, where the train manager announced it was terminating. Just like that, as Tommy Cooper used to say. No explanation, no apology, nothing. We were told to make our way across the bridge to catch the Euston train.

Much as recent happy memories are evoked by the very word "Crewe", I could have done without the 20 minute wait on platform 5 with hundreds of other equally aggrieved, equally inconvenienced passengers. Matters were not improved by the Tannoyed announcement that the train would be 15 minutes late because of the inevitable “signalling difficulties”.

Travelling about our country on a weekend by any means of transport other than air has become an obstacle course. If it were not for the glorious weather this evening, and the fact that this is my 500th blog post, I would be very bad-tempered indeed.

Journey Home

Very long and messy day.

Started with breakfast with other Welsh MPs and vice-chancellors of Welsh universities. Very interesting and instructive.

Later, in the afternoon, the Welsh Select Committee took evidence on the Vulnerable Children legislative competence order. The procedure is appallingly Byzantine and serves only to underline what a dog’s breakfast the devolution settlement is. It is slow, ponderous, time-wasting and clunky. Peter Hain lashed it up in an attempt to paper over the internal cracks in the Labour party. It works very badly indeed.

Received BlackBerry e-mails from my PA all through the meeting, reporting on the state of the railways. There were signalling problems at Bletchley, meaning that I might not be able to get home tonight. Turned up at Euston nonetheless and was relieved to find that the Holyhead service was running.

Collapsed in the train with the Evening Standard. The journey started well enough. Then the train manager announced that there was a circuit failure at Nuneaton. The service was being diverted via the Midlands, meaning an extra 50 minutes at least.

As I type, the train is waiting to pull into Stafford. Another miserable journey home, relieved only by the glory of the British countryside, with its green fields, Hereford cattle and hawthorn hedgerows heavy with blossom.

This is the worst bit - indeed, the only bad bit - of being an MP. But, looking out of the window on such an evening, I have to say that even this is pretty good.

Night Train to Colwyn

The journey home continues to be challenging.

Last night, the 7.38 from Euston – one of the faster scheduled services – was delayed for almost an hour south of Lichfield. I ultimately got home a quarter of an hour before midnight.

Also this hanging around is, of course, unbelievably boring, so I nodded off somewhere around Chester. In an encouraging manifestation of cross-party co-operation, Chris Ruane, MP for Vale of Clwyd, who was also on the train, woke me up at Rhyl. Otherwise, I might have carried on sleeping until Holyhead.

Virgin on the Rocks

I know I keep banging on about it, but travelling about this country on a Sunday is rapidly becoming impossible.

For the last few weeks, Virgin have operated a through train service on a Sunday evening from North Wales to London. It isn’t a very good service – it has a scheduled journey time of about 4 hours 20 minutes, and for the last couple of weeks has been significantly delayed because of jammed carriage doors and goodness knows what else – but at least you can sit on the train and know you won’t have to move until you get to Euston, whenever that may be.

Now it appears that, with Christmas approaching, Virgin have decided to drop the service. No warning, no explanation. I have just tried logging on to the very clunky online booking service, thetrainline.com, and discovered that there will be no through train next Sunday. That means arriving at Euston over 1 hour 15 minutes late, changing trains and running the risk of having to stand all the way from Crewe (which has happened to me more than once).

Our third-world Sunday train service from North Wales is a disgrace. We North Walians are very disgruntled. Richard Branson, please note.

Virgin of the Rock

Stuck on a badly delayed Virgin Pendolino en route back to the constituency, I glumly read the Evening Standard, the excellent newspaper that is one of the principal pluses of London life.

The front page headline is depressing: "House Price Crash Fears". The Standard reports the biggest monthly fall in property prices for more than 12 years. There has also been a sharp drop in the number of mortgages granted and the governor of the Bank of England has described the economic outlook as "highly uncomfortable".

The news in the financial pages is just as bad. Lloyds TSB has apparently decided to pull out of the bidding for the Northern Rock, leaving Virgin Money with a virtually clear run.

The Virgin bid requires that the Treasury leave a loan of £11 billion of taxpayers' money outstanding with the company for the foreseeable future in order to keep it going. The collateral? Why, the Rock's mortgage portfolio, of course.

Alistair Darling must therefore hope that today's property and economic stats are only a blip.

He should also devoutly pray that Virgin prove to be better bankers than they are train operators.

At the time of writing these words, I am stationary somewhere near Flint.