I am travelling to Newcastle this weekend.

Unbelievably, my cheapest and quickest option, door to door, is to drive myself alone in my car. And, of course, it’s the door to door element that makes the difference. Yes, a plane to Newcastle would take around an hour – but we all know how much time you have to allow now to get to an airport and be processed.

The train would be the most expensive option, if the cost of getting to and from the stations is added.

My car enables me to leave when I want and go door to door, without the stress of passengers ignoring the ‘quiet carriage’ restrictions or hurtling their seats backwards unexpectedly, spilling hot coffee in my lap.

When I was a young man, even with a car, public transport was the first option I considered because it was invariably cheaper and just as quick.

In fact, you didn’t bother looking at timetables because you knew the bus to take you into town and the station would never be more than a few minutes away.

My bus fare into Rochdale town centre two miles or so away was a ha’penny in proper old money, which I believe equates to 5p in our current decimal system. Try and travel a couple of miles on a bus now for five pence, without a bus pass!

The default position we all have now of using our cars to go pretty much everywhere will be hard to change even if public transport were to both improve and get cheaper – and I am not talking about headline-grabbing HS2 projects, I mean passenger-grabbing local lines re-opening and buses to rural areas that travel at times and frequencies that real people need. But I venture to suggest a lot more of us would start to use them than do now.

Just look at the excitement generated this month by the reconnection by Chiltern Railways of the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway to the national network, and the running of a regular shuttle between those towns for the first time in 57 years. Dependent on volunteer drivers and crew, and masses of local support and energy, it showed what could be achieved if the will was there.

Now if the Wycombe to Bourne End link, closed in 1970, were re-opened, linking to Maidenhead, imagine the use it would get today.