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Your front-page article ("The train on platform 1 is not posh enough...", THES , July 5) about the need for Universities UK to charter first-class carriages to transport vice-chancellors to Aberystwyth in September reveals either shaky geography or an inability to read train timetables.

UUK says "lots of" members will have a nine-hour journey to Aberystwyth. Aberystwyth is only three hours from Birmingham New Street or three and three-quarter hours from Birmingham International.

How many UK universities are six hours from Birmingham - even by train? Another world, indeed, as the Transport and General Workers Union spokesman rightly said.

David Trotter
Department of European languages
University of Wales Aberystwyth