Rail oversight

While Network Rail’s idea to develop the Forth Bridge (your report, 28 August) is imaginative, the 50,000 residents of Levenmouth and the East Neuk might well prefer it if it gave higher priority to its core business – and reinstate the perfectly good mothballed line between Thornton and Leven.

Allen Armstrong

Viewforth

Buckhaven, Fife

The Earl of Elgin’s inspiring idea of 1990 that there should be a public viewing platform on the Forth Bridge had an informal genesis decades before that.

Oliver Notman, British Rail press relations officer in Edinburgh, who was known to a previous generation of journalists, regularly invited hacks to accompany him to the top of the high girders. Few of us ever took him up on it.

In three-piece suit complete with collar and tie, Oliver would fearlessly bestride the bridge.

Gordon Casely

Crathes

Kincardineshire