Congratulations to the Malvern Gazette for arranging the meeting to improve rail services. As you admit in your editorial (February 27), running a railway is difficult!
One important item aired at the meeting needs further emphasising. Central Trains deputy managing director Mike Haigh said it was easier to stop a train short of its destination, turn it round and go back on time, than to continue running late. He said the Strategic Rail Authority actually encourages this and stated the criteria for such action.
I have experienced this more than once, and it has seemed the decision to terminate at Worcester was made locally, perhaps even by the driver, and one wonders whether the head office gentlemen in suits ever heard of it.
I have always been able to get home, albeit with inconvenience, but the biggest problem has arisen with the cancelled return train from Hereford to Worcester. The lady stranded at Great Malvern while her 11-year-old daughter waited at Worcester will never forget her distress.
Of course, that involved Thames Trains. Let us hope that First Great Western will do better. Please keep the pressure on!
Ray Bardsley, Homend Crescent, Ledbury.
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