SIR — Your report “Americans’ research says Taunton to Minehead rail link is viable” (Free Press December 9) is regrettably not wholly accurate.

I attended the presentation of their work by the American students at the Beach Hotel in Minehead and the one presentation that looked at (some of) the costs of re-instating a national rail service all the way from Taunton to Minehead concluded that several millions of pounds of investment were required with only minimal returns after a number of years.

How that can be described as viable I do not understand. In response to a direct question, the group of intelligent students who had set aside glamour and rhetoric to take a hard look at the numbers responded (correctly, in my view) that they regarded this as an investment which would be unattractive to any main line operator and so not viable.

What is likely to be attractive and financially viable is the limited extension of national rail services from Taunton to Bishops Lydeard to connect with West Somerset Railway steam services hoped to be trialled in 2018.

Exuberant and enthusiastic but unfortunately inaccurate comments are unhelpful to public understanding of a difficult problem that will only be solved by careful and fully thought-through co-operative effort conducted with eyes open to all the costs and difficulties.

There is no place for rose-tinted spectacles.

Robin White,