MR WILSON (Letters February 22) forgets that the route to Exeter is no rural railway, but a mainline suitable for the latest express trains.

Significant developments elsewhere in the county are also overlooked. Contenders for the new Wessex rail franchise between London Waterloo and Exeter are intent on vastly increasing capacity and will want to extend their fast new competitive services to Plymouth and Cornwall.

But Railtrack acknowledges the South Devon coastal line as a major bottleneck, already constraining capacity. A second route through Okehampton and Tavistock would be an easy way to accommodate more trains.

More pressingly, the recent pattern of violent storms may eventually render the vital coastal railway from Dawlish Warren to Teignmouth untenable. The Tavistock route might become the preferred option to retain a reliable rail link to Plymouth and Cornwall.

Either way, there seems a fair chance that the railway will be back in a decade or two. Of course, if the incidence of damaging coastal storms increases and compounds to wreck the vulnerable coastal rail route, we may see the track-laying machines in Tavistock somewhat sooner.

John Watt

6 Deer Park Lane

Tavistock