• YOUR article (Transport chief slams reduced rail service, March 8) refers to the fiasco on the Gospel Oak-Barking line, where the current two-car diesel units are going off lease at a time when new four-car electric units are late due to software issues.

This need not have happened. As a stopgap Transport for London is having two or three of the Class 378 units tempor­arily shortened to four-car units to cover.

When this line was put up for electrification it would have been much simpler to have asked Bombard­ier to build a further nine or 10 Class 378 units as four-car units.

It appears that with TfL it’s a case of: why do it the easy way when we can do it the hard way?

JE KIRBY
Clissold Crescent, N16