I have to say there have been a series of great letters recently to this newspaper pillorying the ill-thought out revamp of New Street station.

All revolved around the critical issue of capacity. And by capacity I mean track capacity into and out of the station and platform capacity.

It is all very well spending a fortune to tart up the decor, herding people like sheep into nice new airport lounge style pens. Passenger capacity will go up 150 per cent we are told.

Which is fine. But if track and platform capacity don't rise commensurately all these passenger will find delays increasing.

And that is a recipe for fury and irritation. Birmingham's image will be dragged through the mud once again.

Indeed the Gateway scheme can be said to have already failed before it has even begun.

I could live with Gateway if someone in authority told me what is the blueprint to expand track and platform capactity.

Is there some way to sort long distance from local trains going into New Street?

Can, perhaps with some retracking links, more use be made of Moor Street and its under-used platforms? I am not a railway anorak, simply an interested observer and occasional user of train services.

The recent letters writers have been saying, quite justifiably - can we have an answer from the respective authorities to these sort of entirely reasonable questions. Yet there is a deafening silence out there.

I bumped into Birmingham City Council leader Mike Whitby at a pre-Christmas function the other night and, as always, we had a very amiable chat and a few laughs. And I put this to him.

Tell me how we are going to solve track and platform capacity and, if the answer is plausible, I will certainly stop criticising.

Now it wasn't the time or place to go into it all and I certainly wasn't expecting an answer there and then.

But, come on, all you Gateway supporters, the likes of Whitby and Birmingham Chamber of Commerce's Jerry Blackett, can we please at least spell out some options.

Explain the track and platform capacity conundrum.

Let's have something to chew on. Otherwise I am afraid I am with the letter writers - I think Gateway has no vision.

It offers nothing for future generations. It is a cop out.

We will become a standing joke, spending hundreds of millions of pounds to create something which doesn't work.

Something incidentally which is as much about a shopping scheme and office complex as it is a station.

Why the Government is considering giving any money to it is quite beyond me.

We should have been brave and gone for a Grand Central.

Or if we can't afford a Grand Central - and how can we possibly claim to be an international city when don't have an international standard station and don't even aspire to one - at least come up with some innovative ways of addressing the various issues.

Pretending they don't exist is not good enough.

Have the Gateway supporters no shame?

You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig.