Railtrack appears to be doing its bit for the war effort by deliberately confusing passengers about the destinations of trains.

During the Second World War, all road signs and station names were removed so that if the Germans dropped in they'd have no idea where they were.

And, while we don't appear to be expecting Taliban forces to be parachuting in over London, it seems Railtrack is taking precautions - just in case.

The trouble started when I was trying to catch the 10pm train from Victoria to Brighton one evening.

Was standing on concourse, having just purchased tuna baguette for supper, waiting for platform number to come up on board - which it did. Platform 17, it said, was the place to go to get the 10pm Connex Express to Brighton.

So I walked along to platform 17, only to find that the board on the end of that platform claimed the train waiting there was going to Epsom.

The station announcer was in on the plan to create deliberate confusion and proceeded to deliberately confuse everybody by announcing the train for Epsom was on platform 17 and would be calling at all the places on the way to Epsom, none of which are Brighton.

So went back to the main notice board again, which still maintained that platform 17 was the one for me. As the time for the train's departure was now imminent, decided I'd better get back to platform 17, just in case it was the right train.

As I went through the ticket barriers, the station announcer again announced that the Epsom train would soon be departing from platform 17 and, not wishing to end up in Epsom, I looked about for someone who might be able to clarify reports. I was in luck, as driver of whatever train it was was striding down the platform.

"Excuse me," I said. "Where is this train actually going to?"

"I've no idea," said the driver, which wasn't a good sign.

However, in their attempts to deliberately confuse and mislead the travelling public, the powers that be had forgotten they had left an enormous clue as to the destination of the train. Had this been the Second World War, the clue might not have been immediately noticed by Germans recently arrived at Victoria station but to any regular traveller to Brighton it was too enormous to overlook.

While those in authority were steadfastly maintaining that this was the Epsom train, the train itself was covered in trademark splodges of brightly-coloured paint and bore the giveaway words Brighton Express on every carriage. So I got on.

As I did so, the platform announcer again announced that the train on platform 17 was the Epsom train but I held my ground, confident that the paint-splodged train wouldn't be going anywhere other than Brighton, as did everyone else who had decided to ignore the attempts to deliberately mislead and trust the big noticeboard, which had originally told us that this was the right platform.

The train left on time (on time if it was the 10pm train for Brighton, that is) and, after a few minutes, the driver, who'd had no idea where he was driving to, announced that this was the Brighton Express, which would be stopping at East Croydon, Haywards Heath and Brighton only.

Which is when about half the occupants of the carriage I was sitting in stood up, looked around worriedly and asked the other half of the occupants if they were going to Brighton. We nodded and they panicked. They were trying to get to Epsom.