February 13, 2001 9:50: SO Central Railway has asked John Prescott for a "special bill to avoid the public inquiry" into Central's plans for a noisy, high-speed rail-freight service through South Bucks' major Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty thus, among other things, turning it into an Area of Outstanding Unnatural Mechanical Noise, 24 hours a day, every day. (See Free Press, February 2).
I have a better idea. As Central Railway obviously object to the idea of freedom of democratic speech, let us all ask Mr Prescott, instead, for a special bill which will avoid Central Railway's amateurish plans from being heard or considered by Parliament at all. That's fair, isn't it?
"Amateurish"? What else can we call a plan concerning which, for four years, Central claimed that we could have all existing Chiltern Railways passenger services, plus 70mph 2,000-tonne freight trains every few minutes, on the same two rail tracks while actually "enhancing" the Chiltern services
The result of such confident assertions is, I suggest, fairly easy to foresee. A packed commuter train is pulling out of the loop at, say, Beaconsfield Station, and is hit by Central Railway's freight train as both try to occupy the same one-way track. Let's not forget Hatfield, Southall, Clapham and all; compared with which a Chiltern/Central rail crash would be a national catastrophe.
John Clarke, Denham
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