NEWS

➜ Demolishing historic bridges is the second major blunder

IT REALLY is unbelievable that a Government department is about to make its second major mistake, in the form of the Highways Agency Historical Railways Estate (issue 276) and its decision to demolish many railways overbridges and infill the cuttings; a green light for the developers to fill the entire cutting, thus severing the track bed. Many of these railways will need to be recovered if the nation is to achieve its ‘green’energy target.

The first mistake, of course, was in 1963 when Transport Minister Ernest Marples, with his interest in the construction of motorways, instructed Dr Beeching to close the Great Central Railway, a vital main line link from Manchester to Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester and London. It was a route constructed to the Berne loading gauge; today it could have carried the double-deck carriages, as used on the continent, and become the first HS2 to the north. The railway today could have been diverted at the London end to a junction with the Channel Tunnel route as the original builder in 1899 envisaged.

There is no reason why northern passengers should have to change trains in London, a city bursting at the seams, and leaving freight to complete the journey by rail instead of the 40-ton juggernauts spewing out their diesel fumes. This railway would have saved the cost of today’s HS2 now ripping the heart out of the country.

Derrick Martin, Hornchurch, Essex.