YOUR LETTERS: 'No increase in freight trains'
LETTER 1: There will not be an increase in the number of freight trains through Spalding as Andy Nicolson states when the underpass below the East Coast Mainline at Werrington junction, Peterborough, is completed.
It is being constructed so that existing trains do not have to use or cross ECML tracks for the three miles from Peterborough Station to Werrington, but instead use the separate Stamford lines, then pass under the ECML tracks at Werrington.
This will free up ECML tracks for the increased demand for more ECML trains.
In a recent article George Scott claimed that it would result in a lot more freight trains being re-routed through Spalding but this is not so as most, if not all, freight now runs through Spalding.
Why the chairman of the Petereborough and Spalding Transport Users' Forum is commenting on freight or level crossings is unclear but I suggest that it is so he and the beleaguered and forlorn can be made to look an important and official group by his continued posturings.
Readers should be aware that they have no accredited registered official status whatsoever.
David Mead
Spalding
LETTER 2: What planet is letter writer on?
Your letter writer Pip Dunn is obviously on a different planet to everyone else in Spalding who has to endure the endless trains running through this once peaceful town.
I often sit at the Woolram Wygate crossing waiting for the passenger train to Lincoln, then the passenger train calling into Spalding on its way to Peterborough, and I can tell you sometimes there are only two people on board.
Pip Dunn maybe a special transport writer but clearly has no idea what goes on in Spalding. The town grinds to a standstill for minutes on end and it’s no wonder the town is dying because everyone is fed up with the effort it takes to get anywhere.
Pip Dunn claims that if fully loaded the freight train is taking about 40 HGVs off the road - there is more to consider on this point a) the trains are never fully loaded and b) the containers will no doubt have to be transported onto the train and off at the other end!
Taking all this into account I dispute Pip Dunn’s claim that railfreight is good for society - how can it be? The pollution from the standing cars alone, let alone the pollution from the diesel trains, would no doubt put Spalding up there on the top polluted towns I’m sure.
I regularly join a queue of cars on Woolram Wygate that must stretch to nearly a mile - all spewing out fumes that children walking to the local school are breathing in - how can this be good for society?
And how can it be good when an ambulance is sat for what must seem like an eternity to the person inside needing urgent hospital treatment.
I believe if the railway provider wants to push more railfreight through the town - to relieve the main lines of these trains - they should be investing in the town to put in alternative routes for the road users or instead of a relief road perhaps we need a relief railway line - why not put a railway loop around the town for railfreight.
Victor Lewis
Spalding
