Sir – Wantage and Grove still want a rail station. When Connecting Oxfordshire visited Wantage, on June 25, residents strongly reiterated support for a Grove rail station.

This has been Oxfordshire policy since at least 2001 and will remain so. But Network Rail is reluctant to add a station to such a fast and busy main line, and Wantage and Grove need better public transport without delay.

Council leader Ian Hudspeth therefore proposes trams between Wantage and Didcot via Grove and Milton Park.

Maybe this is ironic when Thames Travel has just withdrawn bus 36 serving the same route.

But trams attract many more users than buses. And whenever Grove station is eventually built, trams would link it to Wantage and Milton Park. The tramway could also serve Milton and Steventon.

What trains would serve Grove?

Extending East-West Rail services from Oxford to Bristol is possible, but not ideal for passengers wanting Reading or London. Railfuture, therefore, recommends Oxfordshire campaigning jointly with Wiltshire, which wants a station at Royal Wootton Bassett. Swindon might want a station on its A419 eastern bypass. Three new stations together would better justify a local main line service.

The main line is too busy for trains to stop at Grove without delaying expresses. But even without a new station, more rail capacity is needed to get HGVs off the A420 between Swindon and Oxford.

And East-West Rail will increase freight links to the east and hence demand for rail freight capacity to the west.

The main line has four tracks between Grove and Challow but only two between Grove and Didcot. If the A338 Volunteer bridge is rebuilt with room for four tracks, there is no bar to extending four-tracking a mile or more east of Grove. This would increase capacity and allow freights and expresses to overtake local trains calling at Grove.

Hugh Jaeger, Media officer, Railfuture, Thames Valley Branch