How I chortled over Jaimie's Journal headed with "Linking up rail and sea", (see the last issue No.91). In the balmy month of August last I decided to attend a music festival in Banbury, Oxfordshire. My chosen mode of transport naturally would be train; well, after catching the ferry from Hoy obviously. Thurso to Inverness, Sleeper to Euston, Marylebone to Banbury, and so began the consultation of timetables. Ah, timetables, a fast vanishing breed (see last edition also), but so delightful to consult at the planning stage.

Now with the ferry arrival time in Scrabster, "All change for Thurso," as they used to cry, a serious decision has to be made. Either catch the first available train and spend the hours before the Sleeper's departure mooching about in Inverness with all the shops closed, or catch the later train, spend the hours in Thurso eating, drinking tea and visiting the museum, and then arrive in Inverness with approx 30 mins before the Sleeper leaves.

No need for decisions: the ferry was late. Phew! I had the "fall back" of the later train, and now the prospect of tea and cakes in Thurso to look forward to. Not so the other passengers, to say they were "all at sea" is really too trite and I really should have resisted it, but there was indeed real consternation. Consternation for missed connections onwards, onwards to South and home.

Oh I caught my Sleeper and arrived in London two hours late and with little available food on board, but that is another story.

This year a pal and I are off to Chatham to visit the National Lifeboat Museum. Naturally I was espousing the virtues of Senior Railcards and train travel. Once more the delights of planning and timetables to pass an idle winter's hour or two beckoned. But my pleasure was short lived and replaced by consternation. Oh what delights the Fates take in frustrating the labours of man. Now the "fall back" train service, and I use the last heavy with sarcasm, arrives 15 mins AFTER the Sleeper has departed.

With a cab booked in advance, the 30 mins between on time ferry arrival and train departure at Thurso can easily be accomplished. However now with no "fall back" train if the ferry is delayed, ("adverse weather", "leaves on the line", you know the sort of thing) it is far too close to call. So now anyone living North of Inverness is disadvantaged, should they wish to use the Sleeper service, and don't wish to pass the preceding waiting hours before departure in one of Inverness's fine hostelries.

"So how are you getting to....?" We are driving and flying! Herumph! (and using the Southern Railway when we get there).

I admit my tone may be "light", but that is for your benefit dear reader. The salient point is that if you want people to use the railway, so far as timetabling is concerned, it is not just the thinking that has to be joined up, but also the service offered. There, I have gone and used that "service" word again.

What a comfort it is to know that as you disappear into the bushes to answer a call of nature, due to the unstaffed station's facilities all being locked, an algorithm in Dunfermline is keeping an eye out for any suspicious platform behaviour.

Whilst the obvious enthusiasm and dedication of the staff of the Dunfermline Customer Service, as reported by Ian Budd in the last issue, is to be applauded, I hope that it is seen as an adjunct to, and not a replacement for, printed and displayed timetables. In an age where the answer to any question can be obtained simply by "Googling" it I fear that the skills that were in the past learnt by being told to "go and look it up"will be lost. How often, when you consulted a dictionary to confirm the spelling of a word, were your eyes drawn further down the page to discover other curios? The exactitude of "Google", whilst answering the immediate, negates the experience of discovery. The same applies to consulting timetables. (Viz. Mogg's Cab Fares, Patterson's Roads and of course Bradshaw.) Without even wishing to know it, one becomes aware maybe that perhaps the northbound trolley service terminates at Helmsdale in order that the Inverness return may be caught and the trolly operative can return home to Inverness (shades of The Mound catering car). A silly example I grant you, but by "looking" one can often discover possible alternatives and answers to questions one had never thought to ask, and certainly not ask when having a conversation with a "speak your weight" machine on a draughty station platform. The introduction of a remote intermediary, albeit with the best of intentions, between the question and the answer is not always the success one may hope for.