YOUR VIEWS

MAY I add a question to Andy Pratt's excellent letter (Viewpoint, May 21)? Why can't British Airways sack all its cabin staff and invite those who are willing to work under the new conditions to rejoin the company the next day. Probably totally against UK labour laws, but a nice thought! Apropos another subject: I wonder if the Palma City Council has considered giving a special area to the young people for their weekend botellon. The Luis Sitar stadium, for example, could be used with an entrance fee of one euro per head to cover the cost of cleaning up after them.

Yours faithfully
Renato Bertorelli
(El Toro)

DEAR SIR

I don't see how. At night a train on a single track is making a return journey past a weakened retaining wall it had passed an hour previously.
Before its return the wall on a blunt curve has collapsed across the tracks, the driver does not see it in time to stop. End of story.
Looking at the map and knowing that section of track the train would have to have been crawling to have been able to stop in time.
To me, the problem is in the engineering of the retaining walls them selves. Note that under the same condition the wooden cross tie retaining wall did not collapse. The difference is that the spaces between the ties, allow the water to drain off instead of building up pressure. Had the concrete walls been provided with spaces to let the water pass, and a gravel fill from the wall to the native ground behind the cut, this would hot have happened.<> Yours, Richard Goss
Porreres