SIR – Of greater immediate importance than HS2 is the electrification of the Midland main line from St Pancras to Leeds, in order to enable fast trains (not high speed trains) to run on it.

The whole “northern powerhouse” concept, so keenly and rightfully advocated by the Chancellor, would be brought to fruition much faster if the line from Liverpool via Manchester and Leeds to Hull was electrified and given a good frequency of service with multiple-unit trains.

Roger Lascelles

London W14

SIR – Five years after plans for HS2 were announced, the project still represents the inability of our Government to make sound decisions on transport infrastructure.

HS2 is a plan for a railway that will go from not the centre of London to not the centre of Birmingham and will miss out our major airport, Heathrow. It is not based on a national transport plan but rather cobbled together without proper consultation.

Our five-year parliamentary system encourages glitzy and expensive infrastructure projects that can be superficially spun in the media for short-term political purposes. We need to change this failed approach to infrastructure decisions.

Responsibility for the initiation, planning, consultation and setting of budgetary constraints for transport projects should be devolved to regional government, which is directly answerable to the public who use the services.

Instead of white elephant vanity projects like HS2 we would get much improved local commuter services. These would benefit millions of people rather than the privileged few who will use HS2.

Simon Morris

South Heath, Buckinghamshire

SIR – The Government should stop spending our money on trying to upgrade 200-year-old railway technology for the 21st century, and instead use it to develop a British version of Hyperloop – Elon Musk’s revolutionary pneumatic transport system (report, March 1). That would include abandoning plans for HS2 and HS3.

Something similar to Hyperloop could be built in stages as an overlay network above existing railway lines in Britain. Passengers would be able to use it as and when sections became available, falling back on old railway lines when necessary.

This would also allow for the technology to be introduced, proven and improved upon over decades, instead of in one almighty and expensive bang.

Bob Fastner

Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire

SIR – Andrew Gilligan (“Coming down the tracks: chaos for railway passengers”, report, March 8) expresses concern at the slow progress exhibited in the project of electrification of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western main line.

Residents of Bath and other sensitive locations are right to question the long-term aesthetic price to be paid for this permanent change to the landscape.

Some 50 years after the electrification of the busy West Coast main line, many trains have regressed to diesel traction, particularly since privatisation. At the southern end of the route the observer would note for some two thirds of long-distance freight trains the overhead power supply has no involvement in the progress of trains. Many long distance expresses to and from Euston, which could utilise electricity for a significant part of their journeys, are powered by diesel train units. Amazingly, this includes the 400-mile run to Glasgow and Edinburgh, which is electrified for the entire route.

R J Copping

Duns Tew, Oxfordshire SIR – It would be interesting to know what alternatives the residents of Bath have proposed in place of running masts and wire across their treasured viaducts.

One suspects that Brunel himself would have given such nimbyism short shrift.

Peter Vine

Tonbridge, Kent