• WHEN West Coast Main Line train services from Euston were cut back in the 1990s because the lines were being upgraded substitute trains were run from St Pancras to Manchester, forking west between Chesterfield and Sheffield onto a lightly used and run-down partly single-track line across the Peak District to reach Manchester, after stopping only at Leicester.

These trains were acceptable to passengers but subject to delays because the deficiencies of the route across Derbyshire.

If this Peak District line was upgraded and electrified, along with the endlessly postponed electrification from Bedford north to Sheffield, then capacity to Manchester, and to Leeds via Sheffield, could be vastly increased without the need for HS2. And at a fraction of the cost.

A further benefit that diesel trains would no longer be stinking out the northern end of St Pancras station and polluting along the line through north London and onwards.

STEPHEN LEE,
WC1