Your news item about the proposed electrification of the Paddington-Didcot-Oxford railway (Friday’s Oxford Mail) is appropriately less enthusiastic than the comments from rail user groups.

It really is a case of two cheers only, perhaps not that.

The proposals are typical of the short-termism that has bedevilled the railways and particularly the Paddington lines for the past 50 years.

The first cost of electrification is higher than diesel operation but the operating costs are far lower. If the Great Western main line had been electrified in the 1960s the cost, even allowing for inflation, would have been markedly less than it is now and would have been recouped by receipts long ago.

So what have we got? A half-cock scheme involving the use of secondhand stock – 20-plus years in age – which is unlikely to produce the benefits that are expected, certainly not an increase in speed or line capacity.

Truncating the system will mean that trains operating past Didcot will have to be diesel-hauled, in the case of freight at speeds that already constrain high-speed passenger train operation and enhanced timetabling.

I suggest that the announcement is a political dodge designed to win favour from wavering voters. If the government was serious they would recognise that a full system of electrification, as originally proposed, would be expensive in the short term but bring enormous long term benefits to the economy and to the environment.

LA Summers St Johns Road Tackley Editor’s note. The Government will make an announcement early next year on whether it will approve electrification west of Didcot and order a fleet of new electric express trains.