NICE to read that £9 million has been spent on Swindon station (EA January 18).

Not so nice to read the glib comments spun by the dignatories who attended the official opening, in particular those of Alison Forster, managing director of First Great Western. She talked of improvements to "the deal for the customer''.

Alison obviously travels for free because I don't see value for money with ticket prices as they are. Milking a captive audience I call it.

We now have a lift to platform four that's part of the deal, she reckons.

And as for platform four: Well many of us will remember the old platform 4 with silver service in the restaurant, and the eight platforms we used to have in total in the sixties.

Yes, that's eight platforms in the good old days when part of the "customer deal" was to enjoy local services from Swindon to Marlborough, Andover, Purton, Minety, Wootton Bassett, Highworth, Shrivenham, and Wantage, and a Sunday direct service to York.

In more recent years, First Great Western introduced a useful through service to Oxford for connections to the north, like York! But this addition was soon removed.

We have to stand on platforms at places like Didcot and endure the passing of express trains at very high speeds within yards of us. It would be nice if more trains actually stopped.

Anyway, it's nice to see that things are on the move and we have at least half the station we used to have 40 years ago.

Mike Squires

Nythe