Alexander McWhinnie (What's the story with . . . rail travel? April 14) asserts that rail travel is on the up. Lest your readers are infected by his optimism, may I please pour some cold Anglo-Scottish water on this notion. As an Englishman living in Argyll, I occasionally head down to Devon - by train, since my guilt at objecting to fast-breeding wind farms prevents me from taking the easy but dirty option of flying from Glasgow to Exeter.
Until last autumn there were six well-filled trains a day between Glasgow and Exeter, but they've all been axed. Now there's only one train a day, in one direction only, taking a two-hour detour via Edinburgh, Newcastle and Leeds.
This service "improvement" is brought to us by the train operating companies, with background manipulation by the Westminster Department for Transport - headed by Ruth Kelly, but represented on rail matters by Tom Harris, MP for, believe it or not, Glasgow South. Good on you, Tom - your website makes it so very clear how hard you're working for us.
I'm travelling from Exeter to Glasgow in June, with an hour's wait at Birmingham New Street and 40 minutes at Lancaster, where - if the previous train isn't too late - I hope I'll find a seat on one of those electric Pendolinos from London to Glasgow that - owing to rail travel being on the up - desperately need extra coaches, coaches for which the money is available, but coaches which Tom and Ruth refuse to allow.
Holyrood was consulted on the timetable "improvements" to cross-border services, and made its concerns on axing the trains from Glasgow very clear. Holyrood was completely ignored. Please, someone, tell me it's just a bad dream.
I have another dream, a fantasy really, which is - if my forthcoming journey becomes intolerable - to halt the train on the crossovers at that very busy junction outside Glasgow Central, jump off and nip over to Tom's constituency office to give him some South Glasgow feedback.
Robert Wakeham, Castleton, by Lochgilphead.
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