THE shooting season for that game bird, Central Railway, has gone on for a long time, by courtesy of your columns. By now most of the powder must have been spent and smoking pen nibs laid at rest at least for the time being.

There is one issue yet to be resolved, however. No-one has yet shown serious recognition of the certain increase in cross-channel freight traffic (reliably forecast at seven per cent every year) or what to do about it if Central Railway does not go ahead.

I challenge your anti-railway correspondents to think positively. Are they able to come up with a solution to the inevitability of most of the northbound freight coming through these parts anyway?

A convoluting route through someone else's backyard is no answer. Do they advocate a much wider M40 or even another motorway to parallel it? Perhaps, by closing their eyes, they hope it will just go away.

Alastair M Dyer

Holtspur Top Lane

Beaconsfield