WOO, WOO! SCOTSMAN ON FLYING VISIT

AS THE Flying Scotsman roars through Wales’ countryside the sun blazes down and all is right in the world.

My world, anyway. A pancettawrapped guinea fowl is on my table. I had champagne for breakfast.

The only upset so far is the milk jugs have gone missing. Other train operators have a lot to learn.

The world’s most famous locomotive is on one of its occasional outings across Britain.

It nipped into Wales earlier this month, when it went through Abergavenny and Severn Tunnel Junction.

This time it’s travelling from Crewe to Holyhead – though I’ve been aboard since Euston, after a diesel train pulled the carriages north.

It’s not all black and white movie romance, though. I’d imagined the passengers would be variants on Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn.

The reality is that they are pensioners and American tourists.

During my trip on Wednesday, Stuart Rutter was aboard with his dad Alan.

He’d surprised the 82-year-old with the trip as a Father’s Day present.

“I didn’t know I was coming until the other day,” Alan said.

He said he and his son were both fond of trains. Alan’s preference was for steam engines while Stuart liked diesel.

When the Scotsman joins the trip at Crewe it’s almost impossible to get near the loco. This is a celebrity train.

Staff tick people off for crossing the yellow platform line as the enormous green loco reverses to meet its carriages. Trainspotters grumble.

On leaving Crewe I’m upgraded from first class to dining class.

Who knew there was a class above first? It has little wingback chairs. Wingback class.

Steam puffs past the window like low-lying cloud. The whistle blows. Cows scatter. “Love them!” says a woman on the other side of the carriage.

“They think it’s a big monster. It’s the steam they’re not used to.”

Nor are the people. Crowds line the route. A drone hovers in the sky.

Children and adults wave. At one school every pupil has abandoned class to see the train.

It’s impossible not to feel slightly regal.

I ignore them and read in an I-always-travel-like-this manner.

Even the loos are posh. The sink is nicer than in my flat.

There is no graffiti. They are not blocked with loo roll. They don’t stink. There’s no vomit. Train operators take note. Meanwhile, English travellers are massacring Welsh place names.

One is recalling a wet holiday spent in Wales.

“That’s the English weather for you,” his pal says, oblivious to his blunder.

The graffitied Duke of Lancaster beached in Colwyn Bay, three enormous monkeys on one side, can only look surreal from the first train to travel 100mph.

Steam Dreams chairman Marcus Robertson joins me.

He looks pained because he’s pulled a hamstring playing cricket.

“To have the Flying Scotsman is unbelievable,” he says.

“We were in Scotland a few weeks ago. Going over the Forth Bridge was amazing and going over the border bridge into Scotland was just amazing because that was the first time this century. “The reaction was huge.” He reckoned “10,000 or 20,000” were out to see the train in Wales.

That would mean between 100 and 200 people every mile from Crewe.

“At some of the stations there e have been more,” he said.

“But I have only seen five peoplee I would describe as trespassing.

“It’s very selfish of them but it is s only a tiny minority.” This is Marcus’ bugbear. “With any luck they will be pros- ecuted and get a criminal record,” ” he says.

“Which is ridiculous for the sakee of a photo.”

He tells me the trip in my car- riage would have cost £249.

Google tells me this is almost t £50 less than a first-class return n from Euston to Holyhead.

“What you realise on these trains s is how much space people have,” ” Marcus said.

“Like on aircraft, slowly butt surely, space has been taken away..

“In these carriages there are 422 seats. In standard there are 64. . That is more but they are stilll around tables of four.

“You don’t get many of those onn the average train.”