Don’t just give us Lego train stations

DEAR Editor, The news that Moseley, Kings Heath and Hazelwell may have new railway stations by 2021 is great news... if it happens.

But I suspect that they will be unstaffed and will quickly become the lonely, windswept places that other stations have become in recent times. I use the rail network a lot and many of stations have either no waiting room or toilet facilities because of vandalism or cutbacks.

My plea is that the new stations be individualised by the use of hanging baskets, murals or signs telling passengers something about the stations. So often we travel through many stations that are indistinguishable from any others because they all have the same Lego-type design.

And before the bean counters at Head Office say that it would add to the cost, I say look at Leamington Station. It has a large garden at the end of one platform that is cultivated by volunteers. Warwick Station has plant boxes which a local school has adopted. No doubt other rail operators in the UK have similar arrangements with their local communities.

So West Midlands Rail Executive, Transport for West Midlands, West Midlands Railway and Network Rail, please do not simply plonk a few corrugated iron roofs and benches down; use your imagination to help brighten up the new stations (and please make the platforms long enough to take six carriages). K Carton, Kings Norton,

Birmingham