Travel: UK: Get on the bus, Gus

Hugh O'Shaughnessy recommends coach travel over a Virgin experience

WE WERE bowling up the M6 in the dark when Ted the driver strolled down the coach to the lavatory at the back. "It's alright, lads, she's on autopilot." If they hadn't noticed that Gary the relief driver had hopped on at a service station a few miles back and taken over at the wheel, the two elderly Irish ladies sitting in front of mine might have had a nasty turn.

We were aboard Resa - so named, Jody the young steward announced as we left London, from the letters on her number plate. Jody, too, was a bit of a card. He told us that if we wanted to set fire to the coach, and he sincerely hoped that we didn't, we could use the exits front and back and the one on the roof. We should try not to put litter on the floor and just sit back and enjoy the journey.

It would be unfair to suggest that the 4pm service from Victoria Coach Station was some sort of slack operation. Not having used a long-distance coach service in Britain for decades, I had booked with trepidation. Would it be packed full, noisy, smoky, beery and generally purgatory, and take a lot longer than the scheduled four-and-a-half hours?

The booking clerk on the phone was polite and efficient, the pounds 12 fare was inexpensive and the tickets were ready when I collected them the night before departure at a scrupulously clean bus terminal.

There were scarcely a dozen of us on the spotless coach. We clicked on our seat belts and started from Victoria on the stroke of four. We hit the motorway at a smooth run and I settled down comfortably, tuning my radio to the PM Programme and dozing off.

I was awake again as the radio masts at Daventry appeared. Shortly before Warrington, Jody brought me a 60p cup of tea. In the dark the town took on a sense of mystery; the multi-storey car park at the coach station was a blaze of light, and there were strange glimpses of glistening water courses. Liverpool Coach Station appeared at 8.33pm. As Ted unloaded the luggage compartment, there was a cheery wave from Jody and Gary.

Because I love trains and wanted to compare performance by road and rail, I took the Virgin train back to London. Again I had some trepidation - but this time the foreboding proved comprehensively justified. Booking my ticket the day before departure brought the first shock. "That'll be pounds 61," said the booking clerk. "No," I said, "I only want a single, second class to Euston for the first train tomorrow." "That'll be pounds 61," came her reply, a little more crossly.

The next day I found myself a seat in a carriage which had no seats reserved and was inexplicably labelled as being in an "Orange Zone". At 5.45am we set off on the dot. Dave, the senior conductor, announced the station stops in advance but strangely forbore to say anything about catering, dining cars, buffet cars or trolleys. Having paid a mere pounds 61, a proper breakfast was denied to me and I bought a cup of tea and a "Delice de France Real Danish Pastry direct from Denmark" at the buffet counter.

We came to a halt in open country, the Chilterns stretching ahead of us. Another Virgin locomotive had broken down and we were in a queue to get past it. Eventually we did, passing a train full of miserable souls waiting despairingly for a new engine. My pounds 61 got me to Euston breakfastless and half-an-hour late. No one told me that my ticket entitled me to free tea. Nor did anyone offer me - a 64-year-old who many say looks older - a senior rail card.

A newspaper advertisement recently offered return air fares to the Canaries for pounds 59. I could have flown to islands off the coast of Africa and back for pounds 2 less than the Man with the Grinning Beard charged for carrying me unsatisfactorily from Liverpool to London.

National Express: 0990 808080

Virgin Trains: 0345 222333