I WAS interested to read in your opinion slot on Thursday, April 10, the feasibility study to reinstate the Leominster to Kington line.

Some years ago a similar exercise was carried out on the Hereford - Ross and Monmouth line, which sadly after many years of study fell by the wayside. It may be helpful to the people undertaking this project to re-visit the work done by the Hereford - Monmouth group to learn what the pitfalls are with this kind of project. As you rightly stated in your article under the Beeching cuts these branch lines were judged non-viable. The fact is they were never given the chance to become viable. With the introduction of diesel traction, the costs could have been reduced dramatically.

As someone who was involved in trying to save these services, we were asked by management to come up with cost-cutting alternatives. To this end, a colleague of mine produced alternative diagrams which combined branch and mainline working at a considerable improvement in productivity and cost. Needless to say minds were made up by government and our efforts were all to no avail.

I wish the project good luck and hope they succeed where we failed.

J DAVIES, Westfaling Street, Hereford.