Traffic expert takes a Euro trip from Hell

A catalogue of traffic nightmares wrecked the first day of Liberal Democrat George Kershaw's visit to Oxford's twin city Bonn. The journey left him red-faced and flustered - and minus one civic dinner.

George's day of disasters included:

*Lengthy delays at Heathrow Airport

*Further delays at Dusseldorf Airport, making him even later *Missing two train connections

*Catching the wrong train.

He said: "There are some days you know are just not going to run smoothly - and this was one of them."

George could have been forgiven for thinking his journey had been some sort of cruel joke. "It was a nightmare trip in one way - but it was still quite an adventure," said George, who does not speak German.

He arrived at Bonn more than two-and-a-half hours after the main group had started a civic reception and dinner. George, from Headington, added: "My plight caused a fair amount of hilarity and good-natured ribbing, but it was a start to the trip I could have well done without."

And ever looking for a way to improve transport in Britain, George had the chance to admire the efficient German railway system.

He said: "It didn't do me a lot of good and the trains still ran late."

The trip to Bonn left at 7am but he had a morning traffic committee at 9am and could not leave until later. "It was my first trip abroad unaccompanied and just to help people identify me when I got there, I wore a shirt with a bright yellow flower on the front," he said. "It was pretty wilted by the end of it all."

After airport delays, he arrived at Dusseldorf and followed the signs to the trains - only to end up on a deserted underground platform.

He said: "It was dark and gloomy and in the bowels of the earth - and there was absolutely zilch in the way of staff or machines or trains. I'd never seen anything quite like it. Someone explored and spotted a sign saying tickets so we trekked up and down stairs until we found a hall. "But by that time I had missed my connection."

But there was more agony in store for George.

"When I got to the platform there was a train waiting and I asked if it went to Bonn.

"I was told it did - so I leapt on to it. When I spotted I was travelling through rolling countryside instead of city suburbs I asked again - and was told I was on the wrong train."

The disasters did not end there. He ended up in Aachen only to find he had missed a connection and had to wait around for another train.

Story date: Friday 03 September

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.