IT is encouraging to find train services such as London Northwestern responding to an increase in rail passengers by adding seat numbers.

Meanwhile, the Abbey Flier which officially resumed operation this week - for all of a couple of hours at peak time, is a service in the loosest sense of the word.

Inasmuch as a replacement bus is a train, the Abbey Flier is a railway.

Really it needs to be run as a novelty line which opens on special occasions with a set of period coaches pulled by a steam locomotive.

Either that or the route is converted to a cycle track so it's of some use.

Dave Degen

Whippendell Road, Watford