Paul Withrington (The Issue, Tuesday’s Oxford Mail) displays a very cynical attitude towards Chiltern Railways’ proposed Oxford-London link.

Chiltern Railways is a well-respected and profitable company, run by hard-headed businessmen.

They would not be proposing the link if they did not expect to make a profit.

It may be true that there are some areas (remote parts of Wales, for example) where railways are never likely to be profitable, and services are maintained for social reasons.

Such areas account for a substantial proportion of the subsidy given to the railways.

Busy commuter routes are a very different matter. London would grind to a halt if its commuter network were shut down.

Even using Mr Withrington’s own figures, the annual £12m subsidy to Chiltern is not only minuscule compared with the £5bn subsidy to the Rail network as a whole; it is extremely good value compared with the cost of improving the road network to carry all the existing rail commuters – if indeed it were physically possible for the roads to carry them, which I doubt.

Mr Withrington appears to have become so consumed by hostility towards the rail industry that he has lost the ability to distinguish between profitable routes and loss-making ones.

If his contribution to this debate reflects the usual quality of his thinking, I can only express my extreme relief that he is now a former transport planning project manager.

Cllr Chris Robins, Foxdown Close, Kidlington