In training

Any place deserving of the name "university" is keen to show that it is going places. But isn't the new Liverpool John Moores University Express taking things a little far?

London-bound passengers leaping on to the train, named in the university's honour by InterCity West Coast, will have to supply their own reading matter since there are no plans to run en route degree programmes.

The project has nevertheless revealed university vice chancellor and keen rail enthusiast Peter Toyne to have something of a one-track mind.

Struggling to contain his excitement before launching the locomotive on Tuesday he said: "It will rival only my 50th birthday present when my wife Angela arranged for me to announce the train departures for an hour."