I WAS appalled to hear that the direct rail service from Trowbridge to London was under threat.

I use this service regularly; it is so popular that I cannot always get tickets for it.

Trowbridge was chosen as county town of Wiltshire because of its good rail links, many of which have now disappeared. Surely it deserves a direct service to London; more trains not fewer, in particular a later return train?

I have used the train to link with the Eurostar service, very thankful to avoid the extra change of trains with luggage. I use it when I need to go into London and I cannot afford the fare from Bath or Westbury to Paddington. But mostly I use it to get to Clapham Junction where I change to a suburban train to visit my 91-year-old mother.

When I cannot get tickets for the direct journey I have to travel earlier, which may be difficult because it is before the first bus from Steeple Ashton to Trowbridge.

It also means a change at Salisbury; a change of operator and they don't honour the connection there.

A 10-minute delay outside Salisbury on my last journey (which happened to be in Wimbledon fortnight) resulted in our train arriving as the London train pulled out. So we all had a 45-minute wait and had to stand all the way to London.

Coming back from London, several trains have been timetabled so they just miss connecting at Salisbury. They will hold the late night connection (the one just after 11pm) if the London train is delayed, but that train only goes as far as Westbury, and if your car was parked at Trowbridge in order to catch the Waterloo train this is hopeless. It would be very helpful if all Alphaline trains stopped at Westbury too.

All this may seem too personal but there are hundreds of us out there trying to juggle our way through the nightmare of limited buses, non-existent trains and missed connections.

It seems that the little we have is in danger of disappearing even when it appears to be a success.

The Wales and Borders Alphaline trains usually run to time, they are well used, clean and a pleasure to ride on. The staff show a particular pride in their work: at one time we had tri-lingual announcements, in English, Welsh and French! There are some improvements that could be made, as well as having more trains and the extra stop at Westbury.

The compulsory reservation of seats is difficult because it can take literally days before you can get through to the Wales and Borders phone line to book tickets.

We don't all live near a station. The compulsory reservation system does not work either because it is not in operation on the other trains which are on these lines. It leads to apparently full trains having empty seats: people will book a seat in case they want to go on the train, and then not use it. Some train staff will evict people without reservations. Optional reservations and another carriage on the busy morning train would be a better solution and could increase passenger numbers.

I hope that you will recognise this community's needs and continue to support the direct Alphaline service to London.

J NORGATE (MRS),

Steeple Ashton,

Trowbridge.