Who gets right of way?

Hundreds of people from Shropshire and the Marches Line enjoyed an excellent day out on a visit to Minehead recently, courtesy of a fully booked Statesman Rail train.

On the return journey we left Hereford well ahead of schedule, which was gratifying after a long day. However, just one mile before Shrewsbury, we were put into a siding for almost half an hour to allow a following train to overtake.

Yet our train was going forward to Crewe with only a single stop after Shrewsbury, while the following train was making six intermediate stops and was around 20 minutes behind us.

What this meant was that a fully booked train of 11 coaches was held for a handful of late evening passengers to pass, which would then inevitably delay the charter

train further all the way to Crewe.

This was a golden opportunity for hundreds of people to promote the virtues of rail travel, but instead we were literally sidelined while having to bow to a jobsworth mentality seemingly neither willing nor capable of understanding the bigger picture.

It seems that too many Network Rail staff have an innate inability to be flexible. They would doubtless claim pathing requirements, but that is a poor excuse when most services are about to finish for the day.

Government and senior rail management need to think carefully about their frequently claimed interest in the promotion of sustainable travel. Chris Oldham, Shrewsbury