Your readers can rest assured that Martin Valatin’s assertion that freight trains are damaging properties in Bradford on Avon and Trowbridge is completely wide of the mark.
We can all be thankful that by moving goods by rail, the number of trucks on our roads (which may well have the propensity to cause some damage to nearby buildings) is reduced dramatically.
As a local example, about seven million tonnes of stone are moved by rail each year from the Mendip Quarries. That would require 
over 159,000 44-tonne lorry movements through our towns and just think what a pounding that might cause.
Taken to its logical conclusion, given heavy freights have passed through Bradford on Avon for decades back to old steam days, by now the station should have been reduced to rubble.
The overall weight of any train is totally irrelevant – it is the individual axle loading that is important and the rail infrastructure on which they run is specifically designed to cope with such heavy trains.
John Baxter
Deverell Close
Bradford on Avon
Friends of BOA Railway Station