WHAT else could I write about this week, other than trains, planes and automobiles? Well, mainly trains and automobiles.

We often use the phrase "traffic chaos" in the media — and to be truthful, the scenes are rarely chaotic.

What we mean by traffic chaos is that the roads are really busy — usually because of roadworks or engineering works on the tracks — and everyone is mightily cheesed off.

But this week — such is the perfect storm of road and rail works that will soon be hitting us — the term traffic chaos seems like an understatement.

Unless you have been on Mars for the past six months, you will know that there are plans afoot to electrify the railways in the north of England.

I don't know what prompted this act of benevolence from our London-centric government — it must have been that one of the ministers came up north and had to suffer the ignominy of travelling on one of our dirty cattle truck diesel carriages.

He probably hoot-footed it back to Westminster (First Class, of course) to tell the PM that "those poor old chaps north of Watford have got it terribly bad — they might even vote for us if we can sort things out".

I digress. Finally, we will gain electrified trains (arriving at a platform near you some time next year). But in the meantime, we must put up with a whole lot of pain.

This weekend, just one solitary train will stop in Bolton — the 7.11am to Southport today.

But who on earth wants to go to Southport at the crack of dawn on the Saturday of Easter weekend? So, essentially there are no trains this weekend.

This is just a taster of what is to come. The station will be fully closed at the weekends for FIVE MONTHS from mid–May to the start of October.

And there will be just four services a day during the week — every other scheduled train will be replaced by a bus.

Inevitably, more people will switch to the roads — but unfortunately, this electrification malarkey is affecting the roads too.

Work to transform the Farnworth tunnels means the A666 will be made into a 40mph zone for the same five months. Great.

Finally, Orlando Bridge also needs sorting out — so that's going to be closed for a full eight months, while they knock it down and completely rebuild it.

The powers that be tell us that there is no other way of achieving this wholesale upgrade of our crumbling rail network.

But if someone had thought about all this 20 years ago, then maybe the improvements could have been done in a much more structured way — bit by bit — rather than now having to inflict such upheaval on us all.