Letters: Scrapping the ScotRail 125 InterCity trains is madness

It’s been all of 35 years since 1989 when utterly ghastly and completely inadequate two- and three-car suburban trains replaced otherwise “real” trains to cover what are Scotland’s premier high-speed rail routes. We travellers were deceived by their failings: no legroom, luggage space, bike spaces, and fewer toilets than real trains. And we were patronised by their being marketed as “Super Sprinters” and “Turbostars” – names straight from the Beano.

Wretched as these 158s and 170s have been shown to be, at least they’ve lasted the pace. So where’s the value for money in Transport Scotland taking away the high-speed 125s after what will have been less than a dozen years in all?

By contrast to the Thomas-The-Tank-Engines-On-Steroids that the Turbostars are, the 125s have legroom, luggage space, adequate toilets, and accommodation for six bikes. Most of all they’re locomotive-hauled, so there’s no noisy underfloor engine vibration in carriages.

These trains were conceived for high-speed long-distance InterCity service. Nothing has matched them before or since.

Throughout their half-century lives, they have successfully been overhauled and rebuilt, such was the excellence of design so many years ago. On entering service in Scotland, they were refurbished to further high standards, fit for further decades.

I greatly fear what rail rubbish might replace the 125s, such is the vacuousness of thought by those in charge of our rail system in Scotland.

Gordon Casely, Crathes.

Read more letters

We must take long-term decisions to sort our public transport woes

Church of Scotland must not abandon supernatural faith

A sorry history of drugs

ON Calum Steele’s point on “beating” addiction ("Memo to the government: beating addiction is key to Scotland's fight against drugs", The Herald, September 4): we should recognise that alcoholism and drug misuse have a long tail in Scotland.

I have a cousin who worked in a major social work programme in Glasgow in the early 1980s. He states that drugs were “everywhere” in Glasgow at that time and that drug deaths were common, though doctors did not often record them as drug deaths (to avoid family stigma): it started to become common in East Ayrshire as well, as Strathclyde Regional Council decanted “users” out of Glasgow to rural Ayrshire; the dealers followed them down to a virgin market.

Glasgow, with its “ice-cream wars” and local drug gang shoot-outs were misreported in the media as a kind of hillbilly feuding: nothing to do with ordinary people. It’s the same now as the drug networks in Scotland are largely in the control of “county-lines gangs”, but while these criminals are widely reported (to warn the public) by the BBC in England, in Scotland the opposite is the case. In Auchinleck and Cumnock, locals forced out county line “cuckooing” from houses in the towns, but these events were totally misrepresented as unexplained “riots” by the BBC that operates in Scotland. Why? To fight criminal gangs, the public require knowledge of their methods, not silence.

GR Weir, Ochiltree.

Kirk has lost prophetic voice

JOHN Milne (Letters, September 2) is absolutely right that the Church of Scotland must "rediscover its prophetic voice and not just readjustment of structures".

Unfortunately the Church lost its prophetic voice when it departed from those scriptures which detailed supernatural faith: faith which inspired the great Acts of the Apostles. Written in the first century these, were to be the pattern for living as Jesus taught for this life and the next.

These "acts" inspired the prophetic voices of Lord Shaftesbury, William Wilberforce, Josephine Butler and Elizabeth Fry and many other committed Christians to social action. Crossreach's social responsibility has continued this kind of commitment in helping the most vulnerable and is to be commended.

Ordinary people have to cope with the strains and stresses of modern life. But because the Church of Scotland has aligned itself theologically to secular 21st-century world views it appears no different from society round about, unlike the growing churches.

Mr Milne states that the Kirk is "in need of a theological reformation". This is true but it must not offer a "soft" message which demands nothing; it must be unafraid to return to proclaiming the high standard of the original scriptures of a challenging and reassuring Gospel for this life.

And anyway, whoever heard of a prophet without a strong supernatural faith?

Irene Munro, Conon Bridge.

Has the Church of Scotland lost its way?

Fight national park idea

I AM terribly concerned about the proposed national park for Galloway (Letters, August 31 & September 3).

The landscape of Galloway has been managed for centuries by hard-working farmers. Farming and mass tourism do not go well together: think of children falling into silage pits or untrained dogs getting among pregnant sheep.

We already have elected councillors to deal with planning applications. We don't need an unelected national park authority to interfere with planning in Dumfries & Galloway. I urge everyone to oppose the creation of a new national park as it would spoil Galloway and is a colossal waste of money.

Maggie Gladstone, Thornhill.

Saluting the captain

FURTHER to David Murdoch and David Miller’s comments regarding doyens of football broadcasting (Letters, September 3 & 4), I must add that of the legendary George Davidson. Captain (he was a retired master mariner) Davidson’s obituary in The Herald, written by Jack Webster, noted that as well as radio broadcasting he became the first commentator of televised football in Scotland.

A native of Greenock he was on the committee of the local Boy Scouts Association and I and another three feckless malefactors had to appear in front of Captain George and his committee to explain ourselves after being caught raiding the local Girl Guide camp. Suffice to say that he managed to deliver the committee’s admonishment while keeping a straight face.

Bob Hossack, Greenock.