SO it will cost a colossal £18-million to restore the railway link to Plymouth. Think how many extra buses or other services that could provide! A brief 'back of an envelope' calculation will show how irrational this proposal really is.

Take Tavistock's working age population, estimate how many work in Plymouth and then deduct all those working in Roborough, Marsh Mills and on the factory estates. There cannot be more than a few hundred working in the city.

How many will find the station convenient at both ends of the trip, including hiking up a hill in the rain or finding a parking space at the station? I reckon fewer than 150 – being generous. How many will find that the cost, and the very limited timetable, suits their needs better than their current means of commuting? Surely no more than 50.

£18-million divided between 50 commuters, 200 working days and £50 for a return taxi trip works out at 36 years. Yes, 36 years of taxi trips for every commuter just to build the railway – of course the commuters still pay and we will all subsidise it through our taxes until it is closed again. It would be more rational to fund the taxi fares!

Don't make the mistake of thinking that the restored railway would be a vital link to the London trains or to Bretonside coach station: it will be too slow, too expensive and too infrequent to be of any use. The number of tourists who might catch a train to Tavistock and then manage without a car will be negligible.

Please, councillors, think very carefully before you approve this harebrained scheme. If you would like to borrow my envelope I would be glad to assist.

Ann Keelan

Whitchurch Road

Tavistock

I WAS not suprised by the views expressed in one letter to your newspaper. It's interesting that back in the 1850s when the first railway came to Tavistock there was great celebration amongst Tavistock folk that their town would be put on the map and it would enable them to have better communications with the outsideworld. They even went as far as to con-

tribute funds to bring the project to reality.

Now it seems the desire of those who come to live in Tavistock (Cranford?) is to turn the clock back and exist in a strange early Victorian isolation. It is sad that the views of those lucky enough to be able to escape this pseudo reality, (ie those who have access to cars - which by the way choke the town for most of the day) will probably hold sway and curtail any real effort to restore the rail link.

I dont recall many people applauding when the route was closed and ripped up in the 1960s and that included those who lived near it.

Richard Lillicrap

Lockyers Quay

Plymouth