Sir, Leo Lewis enthuses about the award of the contract for new intercity trains to Hitachi (Commentary, Feb 13). He refers to the speed of Japanese bullet trains, admiring that there is “no shudder, no swaying, no bouncing and no sudden inexplicable stopping”.
Mr Lewis misses the key point: these new trains will not be running on newly built lines reserved only for high-speed services, as the Japanese shinkansen do, but will operate on the mixed-traffic lines of our current rail network. Almost all our main lines were built in the Victorian era. So there will still be freight trains crossing ahead of the new super- expresses, stopping or delaying trains, or being put ahead if there is a poor decision by the signaller.