Siberia shows us how to do it

Last week's News of the World carried a good little story about comparisons between how our transport systems copes in the cold and that of Siberia, where temperatures have fallen as low as -58C with daily snowfalls this winter.

In the city of Novosibirsk, a transport official confirmed that despite the adverse weather conditions, there were no delays over the seven time zones and 5,753 miles on the Moscow to Vladivostok railway line. Not bad eh?

He poked fun at the fact that the Eurostar service had been stopped because of fluffy snow and also at our levels of service. "How could a railway stop working because of snow - what would happen to the passengers?" he commented.

It's fair to say he's got a point.