WE shouldn’t be surprised that, once again, we are being fobbed of with second hand trains to replace the Pacers (Echo, February 20). Teesside has always been at the bottom of the list for rail improvements.

The main entrance to Middlesbrough station has been closed for several years, Stockton’s main station is unstaffed, with no facilities, and although Eaglescliffe station has been upgraded, TransPennine trains, for some inexplicable reason, don’t stop there and it is now to lose its ticket office.

I seem to remember that some time past there were great plans for this area, a tramway system and improved train services, and I would have thought there was a strong case for electrification of the Northallerton– Middlesbrough and the Darlington–Saltburn lines but these improvements may never happen. Even the line from Leeds to Skipton has electric trains but we are always the poor relation.

Peter Elliott, Eaglescliffe