WHEN people go on about putting road freight on to rail, I am reminded of the idiots who will flush a cardboard box down the toilet without the slightest idea of what actually happens to it.

They are mystified as to why the system blocks up because to them it just disappears and that's all they need to know.

Some people want to buy things, other people make things that people want to buy - it is the job of the distribution and transport industries to get things quickly to where people want them, which will tend to be supermarket shelves rather than a railway goods yard somewhere in the Midlands.

Putting containers onto trains and waving them good bye simply means that the railway gets bunged up in two days and there's a shortage of everything.

Building roads in the Sixties and Seventies didn't cure the problem, Bob Deegan says (Citizen last week). Well, it might have had the traffic density and the size of the town remained the same but they didn't.

There are some people who will say that building more roads results in more traffic. However, they stop short of continuing to say that 'therefore a reduction in traffic can be achieved by demolishing roads', which is clearly ridiculous.

It's a bit like stating that 'the building of the M6 didn't cure the problem' without going on to say 'therefore it needn't have been built'.

Let.s have some joined-up thinking for a change instead of all this politically correct blather.

Brian Douglas, Morecambe.