Sir, I have endured the frustration of rail delays as much as the next man but I regard your report and leading article (February 22) to be cheap shots against Network Rail.

My analysis of “network road” is that it kills many more people on average per year than on the railways, even with the tragedies of Hatfield and Paddington; pollutes and congests on a far greater scale; covers a great deal of this overpopulated island; costs the consumer more per passenger mile, taking into account fixed costs of motoring, than does the rail service; does not pay compensation when its users are delayed — unlike the rail service; and seems to command the attention of the Government at the drop of a hat, as can be seen by Gordon Brown’s current antics in China (reports and leading article, February 23).

I commute on a weekly basis from my home in Somerset to a contract job in the North West. At first I travelled by car. I switched to travelling on the much-maligned Virgin West Coast service because my journey home on a Friday afternoon could take anything between five and nine hours, depending on the chaos I encountered at the M5/M6 intersection.

I can now generally count on getting home in 5½ hours door-to-door. On only one occasion in the last two years have I been delayed by more than an hour.

Yours faithfully,
JOHN BENNETT,
Orr Farmhouse,
Chantry, Somerset BA11 3LJ.
February 23.

From Mr S. G. Davey

Sir, I recently tried to book a trip home from my job in the Netherlands. Having booked my flight from Amsterdam to Gatwick, I was unable to book reasonably priced “fixed” tickets for specific trains because the bookings for certain services were not open. The train company concerned was unable to tell me when the bookings would be open since it had to wait for Network Rail to disclose when it would be carrying out engineering work.

There is apparently no fixed deadline by which Network Rail must disclose such engineering work, and the train companies are unwilling to sell tickets if the service then has to be cancelled or re-routed.

Consequently, despite carefully planning my journey long in advance, I was forced to buy expensive “open” tickets with the result that my train journey cost more than my flight (before airport tax).

Yours faithfully,
STEPHEN DAVEY,
Helperwestsingel 88,
9721BH Groningen, The Netherlands.
February 23.

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