A new golden age of British rail depends on total electrification | Letters

Charles EL Gilman urges the government to resume and complete electrification schemes, Jim Grozier fondly remembers on-board sightseeing booklets, while Victoria Owens recalls an ecclesiastical jewel seen from a train

I was glad to read in Ian Jack's article (The London to Edinburgh train ride was once a thing of wonder. Can it be again?, 19 November) that, on the trains operated by Lumo in the east coast mainline, every part of the train is electric". Even an exclusively diesel-powered train is better for the environment than flying, but a train with no onboard engine at all is the best of all.

If only the same were true of the Azuma trains run by the line's main operator, for it is not true of all of them. Those trains travelling through, to or from Aberdeen or Inverness - or turning off to places such as Hull - are bi-modes", which can take power either from electrification or from an onboard engine - a diesel one in this case, but a hydrogen or battery one would not be much better. A train engine is not like a stationary generator: being carried around means that it uses energy whether switched on or off. Carrying such an engine under the wires all the way from London to Edinburgh, for example, somewhat undermines the advantages of using electrification.