"The Citylink Experience - fast, reliable and comfortable" - Hmm...

As a long time disliker of long bus journeys, a last minute attempt to buy cheap rail tickets for a hurriedly arranged visit to Inverness prompted me to give the bus a fair trial.

There is no way I can disguise my pro-rail bias so I won't even attempt to. This is a totally subjective account of the experience. Booking online was easy, however the confirmation email containing the tickets didn't materialise until I thought to check the spam folder. Good start.

Having found suitable times, not very much slower than the train (what a sad reflection on the Highland Main Line) I then had to purchase an earlier ticket due to a hastily arranged lunch meeting in Inverness.

I say "purchase" because, although I have a Scottish over 60s concession card entitling me to free bus travel, booking a ticket triggers a booking fee of £1.00. Consider this a donation towards the cost of the Citylink website.

We left Buchanan Bus Station on the dot. However, after starting and stopping several times for Glasgow's many traffic lights we reached the M8 and then took the M80, however, we soon hit 4 miles of extremely slow traffic passing Cumbernauld. The driver in his frustration took a comedy detour to try and overtake the blockage. Knowing Cumbernauld quite well I knew this was doomed to failure, but it was fun while it lasted. We came back on one junction later, and probably further back in the queue.

My journey involved a change at Perth. However, on Bus Planet, "at Perth" means "at the park and ride", whose less than lavish facilities amount to a very small bus shelter and a very welcome toilet block, which did at least also have a three-seater bench for a lucky few waiting passengers. We had arrived several minutes late and I wondered whether the five minute connection had been held. I needn't have worried because the extremely helpful and friendly dispatcher (if that is the correct term) was able to inform me that I hadn't missed the Inverness bus as it was running about 25 mins late.

It eventually arrived but it turned out that a coolant warning light was on, so it wouldn't be proceeding until an engineer had arrived to fix it. The kind staff member suggested we all get on the bus anyway, since it was a warmer place to wait. He thought it unlikely that the bus would be fixed before the next service left, so we could probably all squeeze onto that. The next service was ironically the one I'd booked on in the first place. It duly arrived and we all just fitted on board and left quite smartly. I was now running over an hour late so lunch was looking unlikely.

We arrived in Inverness 1 hr 20 mins later than I'd planned, so I caught the last few minutes of lunch, and the planned chat with colleagues was much curtailed. I'm pleased to report that the afternoon return journey was uneventful, we left on time and arrived in Glasgow 5 mins early, having taken 3 hr 40 mins. On board facilities were acceptable - i.e. there was a toilet, and plenty of room for luggage, both handheld and suitcases etc. Buses, like trains, have USB and three-pin sockets for charging. I didn't try these on the first bus, but the second one had a broken USB socket at foot level on the back of the seat in front - hardly surprising that it was bent, and half out of its housing, probably someone had accidentally put their foot on it while something was plugged in. The USB socket on the third bus looked pristine, but was dead.

As the point of the exercise was to compare bus with rail we have to talk about comfort:

Having travelled many thousands of miles by coach in many countries doing my job as an orchestral player, and found most of them pretty uncomfortable, I was not optimistic on this front. The Citylink buses do look very nice and the seats themselves were about as comfortable as my local Class 385's seats - i.e. not very. However, the ride on all three buses was bumpy, jerky, noisy and generally unpleasant, with continuous rough vibration; the noticeably hard suspension sharing every road surface imperfection with the passengers. This was much worse than the foreign tour coaches I used to dislike so much. I see now why our management always referred to them as 'luxury coaches'.

Add to the discomfort the irritation of having to take lengthy detours to stop at the only two towns served, Pitlochry and Aviemore (Perth is hardly 'served' since Broxden is so far from the city centre) and the bus alternative becomes even less attractive.

I often travel from Bishopbriggs to Inverness and back in a day. Usually when I get home I sit down, glad to be back, but otherwise unharmed. On this occasion, after spending most of the day trying out the bus service, I collapsed gratefully onto the sofa, still feeling the effects of being shaken and rattled for hours. That was the point at which I said, "Never again if I can help it - why would I subject myself to that voluntarily?"

I have often pondered the necessity to have train routes duplicated by buses, usually concluding that it's because buses are able to stop at places rail doesn't reach, and so for some parts of any given route providing a useful service. However, the Citylink service which duplicates the Highland Main Line doesn't provide any such extra facility and only manages to serve two places already served by rail. This leaves one remaining reason to choose bus over train - cost. If you're under 22 or over 60, and resident in Scotland, it's almost free, if not it is still cheaper than the train. For me the decision between the two is similar to buying a pair of shoes - I'd rather spend a bit more on something comfortable, than suffer.

I'm glad to have done this experiment, as it has removed my worry about being automatically prejudiced against bus travel - I now have an excellent reason for postjudice - as I messaged to my waiting lunch colleagues on my way to Inverness, "This bus is seriously uncomfortable!"