Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder and if you're kind enough to be a regular listener you will think oh he's on a flipping train again and that's exactly right but this is not a train as you know it. I am aboard a test run of DartART. Now, what is that?

It is.

Well, I'm just going past an airplane there, actually,

and there's a easy jet one just taxiing away.

This is the link that connects Luton Airport

with Luton Airport Parkway Station.

And if, like me, you have been a long time sufferer of the Luton Airport Transport Link,

then you will be absolutely overjoyed.

And my goodness, I'm now getting an unprecedented view,

looking across the entire valley that Luton fills so

attractively and I'm on this well it's effectively it's a high speed cable car that is running a shuttle train

like service looks like a kind of fairly modern tram.

It holds 170 people.

This, as I stress, is just a test run.

From next Friday, the 10th of March, there are going to be services on this,

running from about 2 in the afternoon till seven in the evening

and that is just going to be a trial they're hoping that by the end of March they got the thing up

and running which will mean those really not particularly reliable not particularly fast or

comfortable buses hopefully will become a thing of the past.

Just pulling into the railway station end of the line, it's a very, very smart station.

It feels a bit like a kind of fancy ski lift and...

You can reach the train. There was an engine on the left hand side.

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