Not another train strike. It's enough to drive you around the bend.

Not another London train strike. It's enough to drive you around the bend

Crikey! Did you see those hordes of people stuck outside the closed London railway stations? I have to tell you here and now that they all have my deepest sympathies. Time was of course that big crowds and congestion was something you found at football matches or the M25 but it all looked very uncomfortable and quite obviously annoying.

It's at times like this that I begin to wonder what it was like during the age of steam and locomotive trains when huge billowing clouds of smoke would soar into a grey, bleak January sky and the rush hour workers would just sigh with exasperation because this was just a typical rush hour morning. The City bankers, complete with pin stripe suits and bowler hat, would open out their Financial Times, check their stocks and shares and then just stand defiantly with arms clinging on for dear life, pride more or less ruined and dignity just stripped. Then the whistle would go and it was all stations for Crewe, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Nottingham and quite possibly Clarksville.

But last night it just looked horrendous. People were milling around railway concourses like confused tourists wanting to know how to get to Piccadilly Circus and there was a general sense of disorganisation and chaos. There were those who had no idea when they'd get into work, those who were just complaining about the train strikes and the frustrating inconvenience it had caused. And then there were those who just seemed to smile and grin, perhaps resigned to the inevitability of their plight.

And so we return to last night's London Tube train strike. This really does seem to be turning into one of the longest, most epic, most boring and dullest of all sagas. Every year, at no particular time, the fires of anger and militancy suddenly erupt like an ugly rash. Now I'm not here to sit in judgment and become very grumpy and cantankerous but haven't we been here before? The train fares almost infuriatingly go up at the beginning of the year and then the train drivers decide to go on  strike.

This doesn't, admittedly, happen every year at this time but there's something very tiresome and frequent about these trade union squabbles that can never be resolved. We all know about  the lack of ticket offices and the shortage of  guards  but there is something slowly gnawing away at the remnants of trade union goodwill. But why oh why does it have to be on a Monday morning? Then there's the small matter of pay and work conditions which have characterised most historical strikes anyway. But this is such a familiar back story so perhaps we ought to be conditioned to it by now

But the look of bewilderment, shock and justifiable fury on those passengers faces made your heart weep. Those who were interviewed just tried to be brave in the face of adversity or just put it down to experience. Those union bosses have got a lot to answer for and besides aren't their workers paid a substantial amount of money anyway? In fact they're paid a ridiculously extortionate amount or are they? Perhaps they're deserving recipients of a million pounds a week plus bonuses. Who knows?

It's at times like this that you think of Thomas the Tank Engine. You can bet a million pounds that Thomas has never been affected by any of these deeply entrenched problems. Dear old Thomas. I bet he just pulls away from his station with a radiant beaming smile and just gets on with it. I'm sure he isn't burdened with trade- unions, ticket office altercations, poor pay and dreadful working conditions. He doesn't have to march up and down the London streets waving his placard and demonstrating his dissatisfaction into the small hours of the evening.

I'm willing to bet that Thomas the Tank Engine just gets on with his everyday business of carrying his passengers the length and breadth of Britain. I bet Thomas didn't have beer and sandwiches meetings with fuming trade union leaders. In fact Thomas would have probably told them exactly how he felt and they'd all reach a negotiated settlement with an extra sixpence in their pockets.

Thomas would have told them quite uncompromisingly that the public were totally reliant on the trains to get to work and that if they couldn't reach a sensible compromise Thomas would have to lay off and sack everybody for their utter disobedience and intransigence. Now go back to work and keep your grievances to yourself. Thomas would not have been a happy train.

And then finally the Tube railway stations gradually open up and everything returns to something like normality. Hundreds and thousands of commuters and rush hour workers will sprint into their station, thousands of feet tapping and pounding their way down the stairs, gingerly working their way down the escalators before inching their way painstakingly onto the platform. You could probably set this all to music because the feet have their very own rhythm.

There is a lovely sense of constancy and consistency about this daily Tube routine, It's hard wired into us from an early age and if somebody told us to stop doing it, we'd probably get all hot under the collar. We value and cherish our trains lavishing them with a kind of childish affection in the way we might have done as kids. They're part of our childhood. part of our rich heritage and part of our fundamental way of life, almost as integral to us as steak and kidney pie or red post boxes. How we'd miss them if they weren't there.

Well they weren't there for 24 hours yesterday and everything was well and truly locked up. The gates were up, the padlock and chain were firmly fixed and I missed out on my Evening Standard paper yesterday. Now how could they do that to me. It all seemed desperately grim and unfair. Maybe I should have aired my grievances to a radio phone in or just endure it all with a stiff upper lip. Perhaps I should have taken it to the House of Commons or my local MP. Maybe I should have rung up Thomas the Tank Engine for a full blooded discussion on the history of the steam engine. He'd have known what to do.