Is it time to shunt the railways into the sidings?

The Golden Age of trains turned into the hell of British Rail for one simple reason: progress. In Brunel’s time, rail was cuttingedge technology; we now have a more modern alternative: it’s called a road. Rail is still sensible in cities, where it can be put over or under existing infrastructure, for airport shuttles and for getting minerals from mines to the coast. In terms of convenience, rail users have to get to a place they’re not in (departure station) to be dumped in another place they don’t want to go to (arrival station), while a road takes you door to door. economically, rail needs hordes of strike-happy employees to run it, while roads run themselves. Despite charging eyewatering fares, there isn’t a single rail system that shows a profit: they all need huge subsidies. The main case against hS2 is that it will saddle future generations with yet another mammoth rail debt. For distances up to about 250 miles, we need a good motorway system. Taxes paid by road users far outweigh the costs of building and maintaining roads. For greater distances, take to the air. Ryanair and the like can charge giveaway fares and still make a profit. Why we persist in pouring money into a discredited railway system rail is beyond me. R. RICHARDSON, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon. RAILWAYS are a necessary public service. In 1960, when Prime Minister Harold Macmillan announced they should pay their way, he was wrong. As a result of the Beeching cuts that followed, roads are overcrowded, town centre shops are in decline, suburban streets are full of parked cars. We import enormous quantities of petrol and buy foreign cars, to the detriment of our balance of payments. We’re tangled up in Middle Eastern politics because we rely too much on cars. I’m all for a people’s railway — let’s have the track in public hands and re-lay more of it.