Leeds to London ... via Pluto

Simon Calder’s Travel Week [View in browser]( [The Independent]( [Travel] Simon Calder’s Travel Week [Simon Calder]( Written by Simon Calder | November 19, 2021 As with the dwarf planet Pluto, so with platform 17b at Leeds station: these are entities so remote that many believe them to be permanently beyond the reach of humanity, while others doubt their very existence. This week, I finally managed to track down on one of them (platform 17b, not Pluto): so far from the main body of Leeds station that I must have surely strayed into another galaxy. After station planners reach platform 17b yet still need to squeeze more capacity from a city-centre station, they must delve beyond the natural order of platform numbering. The only place to go is backwards. At Leeds, that is exactly what has happened: on the far side of the West Yorkshire solar system stands a newly created platform 0. Coincidentally, zero is also the approximate benefit that High Speed 2 will bring to passengers using the station after the government scrapped the eastern leg of the mega-billion project. One step beyond: the fabled platform 17b at Leeds station To assess the challenges facing rail travellers after news of the castration of the eastern portion of HS2, I joined commuters crowding aboard the 5.09pm that spluttered south via Wakefield to Sheffield and Nottingham – shadowing the planned course of the now-amputated line. HS2 was intended to relieve the capacity crunch on our Victorian rail network by moving fast inter-city services onto a high-speed network of their own, taking the load off the creaking 19th-century infrastructure to allow more local, regional and freight trains to run. The need for space was evident as the two-coach diesel train stuttered through the congestion through Wakefield and Barnsley. It arrived in Sheffield well adrift from its unambitious schedule – anyone in a hurry could have done better driving down the M1. I watched the clock nervously: missing my connection at Chesterfield would mean a wait of 24 hours for the next direct service. The Derbyshire town has a 13-minute link to the next station down the Midland main line, Belper. Unbelievably, though, only one train a day in each direction runs between these two stations. No HS2 – no space for more. Dream time: an artist's impression of the HS2 redevelopment at Leeds, which has now been axed I made the train and counted the passengers who left it at Belper: just half-a-dozen. You could conclude there is clearly no point running more trains from Chesterfield. But I infer that with just a once-a-day service, people are choosing alternative transport. Next stop, Derby, where I hooked up with the legendarily awful Nottingham-Birmingham link. This is the dud train that the government is using to proclaim the virtues of HS2's truncated network. A stump of HS2 east will run from Birmingham to Nottingham in 26 minutes, compared with the ridiculous 74 minutes at present. But that latter journey time is partly because the train spends nine minutes doing nothing at Derby while the driver changes ends on the train. It would not take two decades and billions of pounds to get a 10 per cent improvement on the trip – just tweak the schedule. We dawdled to Birmingham, but fortunately the final train, to London, was also late. Next time I'll try Pluto. Destination of the week: Courtauld Gallery, London Distant shore: Monet's Antibes 1888, now back on display in London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) After three years of closure, the Courtauld Gallery reopens today. Its home is the beautiful Somerset House on the north side of Waterloo Bridge in central London. Visitors can once enjoy a fine collection of Impressionist art that includes inspiring vistas such as Claude Monet's Antibes 1888, as well as Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Manet’s A Bar at the Folies Bergère. [Book in advance](to be sure of admission (price £11). Don’t miss my daily travel podcast [Green List Travel]( For all the latest travel tips, advice and news analysis, listen to ‘Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast’ – available from Monday to Friday for free on [Spotify](, [Apple Podcasts](, [Pocket Casts]( or [Acast](. Deals of the week: 55-plus rail bargain in northern Britain, and - Anyone with the fortune to have been born on 19 November 1966 or earlier can, for the next few weeks (until 12 December), travel for a flat fare of just £20 return on the TransPennine Express network. [You need to book a day ahead]( for a journey anywhere on a network stretching from Liverpool to Newcastle, and also serving Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds and Manchester. - Cardiff airport rarely pops up as the cheapest starting place for package holidays, but next Saturday 27 November you can fly from there with Tui to Alicante, staying a week in a self-catering property at Calpe for just £191 per person based on two sharing. Includes flights (with baggage), transfers and accommodation. Travel voucher of the week [Voucher]( [£100 off selected Canary Island holidays at TUI]( Question of the week: When to book US flights? Question: Do you think capacity to the US will increase next summer? When would be a good time to book flights? Answer: Compared with the summers of 2020 and 2021, transatlantic flight capacity in the year ahead will undoubtedly grow. But there will still be fewer seats between the UK and US than before the coronavirus pandemic. I predict like-for-like fares will rise to 30-40 per cent above the corresponding prices in 2019. And with Norwegian withdrawing from the UK-US market, budget options are thin on the ground. Knowing how airlines tend to behave, though, if revenue at remains high and sustained then extra flights will be laid on. If a deal looks good enough (eg below £500 return for London-New York in April, or under £800 for a trip to Los Angeles in July) then I will commit. Otherwise, I will wait: knowing fares may rise still further, but hoping that would tempt airlines to lay on more flights to cash in on the strong demand. 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