IT may not be comfortable for people like A Reece to have their fundamental assumptions shattered (You Say, Saturday, May 22), but the simple fact is that it was Margaret Thatcher who intervened personally to save the Settle-Carlisle railway line.

And she saved it from the nationalised monopoly that was British Rail. Her motives may well have been political, but the most dramatic line in the UK is still open as a result of her intervention -and doing very well it is, too.

It was British Rail that wanted to close it, and to that end they sought to make it virtually impossible to use.

They reduced passenger numbers by ensuring there were no realistic connection from other services - and then, to justify closure, monstrously claimed no one wanted to use it.

It was the same British Rail that singled large sections of track between Worcester and Oxford. Signalling equipment was even installed to turn the line into a one-way service, with all trains to London planned to go via Cheltenham and Swindon, and all services from London going via Oxford.

Think what that would have done for passenger numbers!

I'm not claiming the privatised railway is perfect, but at least it wants to attract people to trains and has succeed in increasing passenger numbers after decades of decline. The enemy of the railways was not A Reece's "Thatcherite Government" but the dead hand of nationalisation.

PETER LUFF,

MP for Mid Worcestershire,

House of Commons, London.