Just another uneventful train journey...

Usually, it's a simple seventy minute trip on Greater Anglia from Ipswich, where I work, to Liverpool Street, our London terminus. However, it isn't the most resilient piece of railway line, and when things go wrong, they can go spectacularly wrong. As a result, and because I normally have to commute from Stowmarket to Ipswich and back, I am a keen observer of Greater Anglia's Twitter feed, watching out for delays and cancellations.

Except that, on Thursday afternoon, I was distracted by that 'work' thing. You know how it is, you're in the midst of a project and lose sense of time? Like that. I had a train to catch, the 18.13, stopping only at Colchester en route to the big city for a dinner date with Ros.

And so, at six o'clock, I set off for the station. On arrival, a Greater Anglia staff member asked if I was heading to London, saying, "If you run, you'll catch the train on platform 2!"

I didn't hesitate, and threw myself onto the train just in time. But what was I on? It wasn't the 18.13 - it was only 18.10 - so I checked the Greater Anglia app. No sign of the train. We were due to call at Manningtree, Colchester, Chelmsford and Stratford. No sign of this train on their live departure boards. It was going to London though, and that was good enough.

So, what had happened? It was a lovely afternoon in Ipswich but, apparently, it hadn't been so good in Norfolk. Lightning strikes and flash flooding had paralysed the signalling systems, and the overhead lines were damaged between Norwich and Diss. Thus, trains were all over the place.

I had been lucky this time. Whilst the train was slower than usual, I was only ten minutes late into Liverpool Street and on time for dinner. Greater Anglia had got me there...

Greater Anglia: is it wrong to like your rail franchise?

Regular readers will be aware that I had a love/hate relationship with National Express East Anglia when they held the East Anglia rail franchise. Well, I say love/hate, in that I hated the way they ran the franchise into the ground, and loved to criticise them for doing so.

So, you can imagine my joy when it was announced that the franchise would be taken from them. Actually, you probably can't, so pleased was I. And, whilst my dream scenario of the franchise being awarded to Deutsche Bahn did not come to pass (on time trains, beer, wurst and pretzels), going Dutch was the next best thing.

They did get off to a nightmarish start as snow played havoc with their first days, but the signs were promising. Announcements are better, the information is more accurate, and their app for the BlackBerry allows me to buy tickets painlessly and follow the progress of my train. And I find myself thinking, "I kind of like these people.".

Now, based on my experience of rail franchises across the country - and remember, Ros and I did most of our travelling during the Presidency by train - this is an unfamiliar feeling other than during my trip to Craven Arms on the late, and much lamented, Wrexham and Shropshire.

That saddens me, because I rather like trains. I enjoy the view out of the window, I enjoy the sense of movement, I enjoy the arrival at new or different places.

So, I want Greater Anglia to succeed. Admittedly, I'd really like the restaurant car back and a proper cooked breakfast, but I'll settle for a train service run by people who understand the notion of customer service.