IT SHOULD come as little surprise that politicians play politics with Britain’s railways (Gazette, July 27, '£16m train plan scrapped'). That will always be the case, whether they are in public or private ownership.

The important issues are the decisions they take and the claims which they make.

Railways in the north of England have suffered at the hands of our politicians of all colours for years, in particular in under-investment, which for example has led to deterioration in our Windermere services by the incremental reduction of through services with Manchester Airport over recent years from ten to just one, because of insufficient train units.

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The eight services announced only go part of the way to restoring what we had, was always on offer as part of Arriva Rail North’s new ‘Northern Connect’ portfolio, and is certainly not part of the spin given in the statement by the Government as an alternative to electrification. It is not a new policy.

From May the timetable plans show that there will be very few journey opportunities between Manchester (our regional capital) and Windermere in either direction, other than the small number of through services, without the need to change twice en route or wait at Oxenholme for a very long time (50/5 minutes). This is quite unacceptable, and certainly doesn’t square up to improvements, which all of the additional foreign visitors arriving at Manchester Airport would expect of access to a World Heritage Site.

The belated environmental claim about the masts to support wires into the World Heritage Site is weak. These posts would not need to be of industrial-size proportion like electricity pylons or wind turbines, could be so easily camouflaged, and not as robust as those on the West Coast Main Line fit for intensive 125mph passenger or heavy freight trains.

The stronger counter-environmental case is that diesel propulsion will continue to be provided into the heart of the Lake District, when just one week after the announcement of abandonment of railway electrification, the Government stated that the public would be unable to purchase diesel cars in the future. There is no consistency or logic in policy here.

At the moment many of our services are operated by trains which are more than 25 years old - having experienced much newer rolling stock until last year – and are to be replaced by ‘new’ (claim) trains almost 30 years old; cast-offs from the South East deemed to be unfit for purpose down there.

So what of the then Conservative Transport Minister’s promise of electrification of the Windermere Branch four years ago and the follow-up announcement 15 months later by the Liberal Democrat Rail Minister of £16m ring-fenced for the scheme, promised to be complete by now?

This money ought to be invested on our line to provide enhanced infrastructure in the form of a passing loop to improve the service frequency; a better alternative to the 40 steps ‘access’ to Staveley Station; an increase in the 5mph speed limit over the unmanned level crossing at Burneside.

However, the money has almost certainly been diverted for use on the additional spend on London’s Crossrail 2 and the east-west railway restoration between Oxford and Cambridge.

Meanwhile north of the border in Scotland (where a different political party is in power) the electrification of the main line between Edinburgh and Glasgow is complete, along with brand new trains being delivered, and work has already started on electrifying the fourth route between the two cities. At the same time in the north of England both routes from Manchester to Leeds and the one to Sheffield continue under diesel power through an area which ought to be the lungs of fresh air for Greater Manchester, South and West Yorkshire, as indeed so should the Lake District for the world.

Robert Talbot

Lakes Line Rail User Group

Kendal