I get many opportunities to talk to passengers as I travel up and down the line to London, or off on ministerial visits, and when we get on at Pewsey or Bedwyn we can usually manage to get a seat.

I am very aware that many other passengers, by contrast, have to stand or sit on the carriage floor for much of their journey and I took the opportunity to squash on to some of the most crowded lines last week to talk to commuters about the challenges of their journey and the help that is on the way.

Part of the huge investment in railways over the next five years is to improve line capacity across the country so that more and longer trains can operate and there is also more localised help on the immediate horizon with the roll-out in the next few months of First Great Western trains where the Government has paid for the conversion of one and a half first class carriages to standard seating so that more people can sit down on their commutes as well as the great increase in capacity that the new Intercity Express trains will bring in the next two years.

As long as we operate our railways on a “turn up and travel” basis, there will always be people potentially standing on trains but we have to keep investing to meet the demand for travel and to ensure that more people get the comfortable commute to which they are entitled.

Another campaign in which I am involved is to get more women involved in the booming rail industry, especially in the driving seat where the total number of “Casey Janes” in the cabs is still very low at only five per cent of the workforce.

While musing over this fact I spent some time on doosteps in Durrington last Friday and it seemed like a happy coincidence when I met a train driving couple whose daughter was also a train driver, and had a good common-sense chat about the challenges and opportunities facing in the industry.

Sadly, common sense seemed to be in short supply in some other parts of the country this week as like so many others I was aghast at the unfolding drama around little Ashya King.

It was chilling to see what happened when the full force of the law was unleashed on the family and we should instead be prosecuting those who have chosen to travel as British citizens to commit Jihad in Iraq and Syria and leave the King family to support their son.