TRANSPORT Secretary Ruth Kelly realised one of her dreams when she joined a woman driver in the cab of a busy, pre-Easter commuter train.

The Bolton West MP met Pauline Cawood, of Northern Rail, at last year's Labour Party Conference and was invited to join her on the `footplate'.

She sat in the cab of a Leeds to Sheffield service and said: "It's a dream come true. I was delighted to be invited to travel up front by one of the few female drivers in the country.

"There are almost 12,000 drivers on the rail network who, with other frontline rail staff, will be working hard on one of the busiest days of the year."

Pauline, who represented her union Aslef at Labour's conference, said: "Ruth enjoyed being in the cab - she asked lots of questions and was really interested. She sat in the driver's seat while we were stationary in Leeds station and I let her sound the train horn."

Pauline is one of 58 women out of 1,250 train drivers at Northern.

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