ONE would think that having spent millions to upgrade the lines through St Helens to electrification you would get the electric trains to run on them when complete by December.

Not so, according to Alex Hynes, the director of Northern Rail, in an article in the latest edition of ‘Rail’ magazine.

We are to get type 150 and 158 diesel multiple units (DMUs) and type 322 electrical multiple units (EMUs), most at least 24 years old.

All DMUs including uprated ‘pacers’ (mid-80s called buses on bogeys or ‘rock & rollers’ — built on the cheap according to Hynes) will continue to run between Wigan and Liverpool and they will be getting only two type 319s EMUs to run between Liverpool and Manchester Airport, the rest DMUs. The only positive we will get is hopefully a four-unit DMU rather than the often overcrowded two-unit train, which is currently standing room only from Huyton.

So unless you are airport-bound via the junction until more “gradually arrive”, (how gradual is gradual?) an electric train through St Helens Central will be non-existent.

So we will continue to ride in refurbished ancient cast-offs from the South East who will get brand-new rolling stock, even taking some of our more modern Trans Pennine units to run in the south. Why our North West MPs are not jumping up and down over the North West becoming second best in rolling stock I cannot understand. Fobbed off yet again.

I understand we are also to be charged via number plate recognition across the bridges over the Mersey, old and new, whose Halton residents will get 300 free journeys. This ‘Gateway’ bridge is paid for by the EEC, part of the billions we give each year to the EU.

So why are motorists and businesses being penalised ? The Tax Payer has already paid for it. How long will it be before the Thelwall viaduct is tolled?

Bill Bradbury,

Billinge