Letter: Next stop

Sir: Paul Vallely's irritation with the tautology in rail companies' announcements - "Your next station stop is Dumfries" - is understandable but misplaced ("A Bennett sketch without the gags", 15 August). The phrasing is surely deliberate, so as to leave nothing to chance. On a recent journey from Newcastle we were told on leaving York that our next scheduled stop was King's Cross, but our next stop was actually when one of the power units developed a defect shortly south of Grantham.

WARWICK HILLMAN

Pinner, Middlesex