Sir — Your editorial Right Track (January 19) is on the wrong track in supporting the county council’s proposal for a complete rebuild of Oxford station. This would be vastly expensive and disruptive and is unnecessary.

The unacceptable bottleneck is caused by London trains terminating at and starting from the through platforms. The two new bay platforms south of Botley Road bridge in Network Rail’s plan would eliminate the problem of the bottleneck. The two through platforms are perfectly adequate to handle five through trains per hour (two Crosscountry, one Cotswold line and two from the East-West line when reopened).

If the county council’s proposal is once again to be thrown into the melting pot, the Evergreen 3 plan for trains to London Marylebone would have to be deferred for many years. Chiltern Railways will not invest in the proposed two new bay platforms at the north end of the station if there is the possibility of completely rebuilding it in a few years.

However, I do support the plan to reopen Grove/Wantage station and I welcome the county council’s intention to re-examine the restoration of the rail link to Witney and Carterton (ideally light rail). The proposal for 1,000 new homes on the west side of Witney strengthens the case for reopening and an alignment for a light rail line must be incorporated in the planning.

Martin Smith, Abingdon