Letter: Direct rail link to the capital could run into real difficulties

Shrewsbury of course used to be a major rail centre, not least under the Great Western Railway, which gave direct access to Paddington. But perhaps Shrewsbury was incidental in that the investors at the time, wanted access to the Wirral and Merseyside; a different route from Birmingham was necessary because the LNWR had built what is now known as the West Coast Main Line.

Before we lost our direct link, I used to travel to London by train, but could not help notice that the Intercity train did not start loading to any degree, until it got to Wolverhampton. There was a slight delay there, whilst the diesel engine was replaced by an electric, and then we were whisked on our way to arrive at Euston.

When Wrexham and Shropshire were running, they accessed Marylebone which is not a whole lot better, except they used proper trains, and were direct to London. But finances could not have been good, as why else would they shut down almost overnight. Chiltern Railways, the operator, transferred all the stock to operate from Birmingham into Marylebone.

I cannot see that the proposed two Virgin trains a day service, of which only one would be any use for commuters, makes any sense, but if all those who sign the Star petition translate themselves into regular travellers things might just be worthwhile.

But to do this, Virgin are taking a leap of faith, as they would be taking two trains away from their normal job, and missing out on Birmingham as a seat-filler.

Regrettably the lack of foresight, during British Rail days saw us lose Intercity services, and since then we have had to put with second best.

If Network Rail is inclined to stand by their argument about lack of capacity on the WCML, then why not divert a couple of existing trains away from the WCML. Surely they know that there is a line from Crewe to Shrewsbury. That way, it would not be necessary to find any extra trains to run the Shrewsbury service.

Chris Brown, Westbury

• See also: Shropshire tourism 'needs a direct rail link'