Rail link is vital

YOU reported (Observer January 28) that Bexhill's MP and BRAG are continuing to put pressure on Southern Railways to try and maintain parity between East/West Sussex and the attention given to the Brighton Line. Subsequently it appears that performance figures are being 'massaged' to avoid penalties using High Speed Train data that is not made publicly available (local TV).

It does seem to me that the train companies will be happy continuing to “divide and conquer” while more or less doing as they choose.

Understandably price, timetabling and journey times are the immediate priority for all those revenue providers/voters unfortunate enough to have to commute at peak times but the December snows also highlighted the dangerous and disruptive effect of a failure to provide the contracted service in adverse weather conditions.

Only one MEP stepped forward to comment on this (local TV) and question why cheaper and effective technical fixes were not being deployed regarding the third rail system instead of an abortive £3 million experiment?

Although this situation has now receded it is actually key to the whole service.

It’s no good getting the other matters sorted if trains are not ice-proof and bits of track falling off (as happened recently) can cause chaos at random.

Now is the time to pursue these matters even more vigorously, not waiting until this part of the country is suffering another Groundhog Day winter during which East Sussex finds itself desperately cut off from essential supplies and resources.

The local rail link is potentially vital in an area of relatively limited infrastructure and keeping it running should be the absolute priority.

Promises to “provide more information” (the usual response) aren’t much good if nothing is moving!

DAVE WALSH

Rotherfield Avenue

Bexhill-on-Sea