Looming demise of our glorious train journeys - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: Jack Gooch, Market Weighton.
Mark Casci’s fine article on the suicidal damage that the rail unions are doing to the network (The Yorkshire Post, June 16) struck a real chord with me.
Conscious of the slow strangulation of the railway system which before too long will consign railways to the same historic dustbin as the canal system, I decided that for an impending necessary journey from Beverley to Scarborough I would forsake my car and use the train.
And what a glorious journey it was.
Speedy, prompt, comfortable, clean, spacious – and with my lovely Yorkshire countryside spread out before my eyes in a way that the road system can never provide.
I was delightfully reminded how much the ‘Broad Acres’ headline so aptly describes the glories that we are surrounded by.
So nostalgia – yes, but also sadness at the looming demise of this national treasure, brought about by the greed and intransigence of the few.
The conversion of tracks to footpaths, farmland, housing or private nature reserves will never compensate for the loss of its railway system.
Britain and its people will be all the poorer when, not if, it happens.