Sir, Richard Mann (Letters, September 15) is right that the Bicester to Oxford railway must improve. The train is limited to 40mph on its track and 25mph across the viaduct over the River Ray. Its 26-minute journey is no faster than the X5 coach!

Also, if another train through Oxford is late, the train from Bicester gets delayed at Oxford North Junction to let it pass.

Oxfordshire County Council recently improved Bicester Town station. Now First Great Western wants Network Rail to reduce risk of delay by reinstating an extra track between Oxford North Junction and Oxford.

But reducing Bicester to Oxford journeys to 15 minutes would cost millions to improve 11 miles of railway. Only the consortium to restore the strategic link to Aylesbury, Milton Keynes and Bedford can justify this investment.

Local traffic causes trunk road congestion around Oxford, but not all the way to Bicester. The A41 between Junction 9 and Bicester is often nearly empty when the A34 is congested between Junction 9 and Oxford. This is traffic to and from the M40, which only the Southampton to Midlands main railway can relieve.

Parts of this main railway are close to full capacity. Network Rail plans both to modernise its signalling to run more trains per hour and to increase the space under bridges so that trains can carry modern 9ft 6in-tall freight containers. But New Labour is delaying this investment by several years.

The main railway line has room for an extra track 2.5 miles long between Oxford and Kennington, where it would meet the freight line to Cowley. Water Eaton, Peartree, Redbridge and Littlemore could have passenger stations fed by local 'bus routes, and a Bicester-Oxford-Cowley train service could link them all.

Hugh Jaeger, Oxford