THERE'S never a dull moment in Herald Letters land.

Robust commentary flows in from left, right and any other particular point on the political compass about any particular subject you care to mention.

And although the issues of the day are often no laughing matter, it still helps to have a sense of humour when you're editing the page.

One flash point this week has been the inner-city rail.

Well, inner-city rail has been a flash point since white settlement began, I think.

But after decades of twists and turns, this rolling-stock saga seems officially on track to get ripped up. Maybe.

Not that I'm saying that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I leave that up to the letter writers, and there's no shortage of them after a law was pushed through Parliament last week with the support of the "two Bobs" from the Shooters and Fishers Party, Roberts Borsak and Brown, MLC.

Browned off rail supporters have been giving them their two Bobs' worth ever since.

Local Liberals threw a party which caused a few social media flutters, but at least they didn't break any furniture, unlike Tony Abbott's farewell do at Canberra where a marble table ended up in pieces, at considerable cost to the taxpayer.

Whether the inner-city rail line will meet a similar fate, time will tell.

As one sage inner-city resident observed, barriers were built to be overcome.

Maybe that's why the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) decided now was the right time to issue an "unfit for the future" ruling on four Hunter Valley councils. Great timing given it was Back to the Future day last Wednesday.

Speculation had raged in letter-writing circles, particularly up Maitland way, and Newcastle, and Lake Macquarie, that IPART stood for "I part residents with large chunks of their rates", after hefty hikes over recent years in these Local Government Areas.

Hikes, I might add, that were embraced by local councils at the time because, as they said, they were willing to accept the independent umpire's call - to take more of our money.

Not a bad effort given they claimed their hands were tied.

The same councils don't seem so willing to accept the same independent umpire's call on amalgamation.

In fact if you work for Lake Macquarie or Newcastle council, IPART now seems to stand for "I part from the time-honoured tradition of ignoring inefficiencies and duplication in local government."

You'd think these councils had been given a bigger kick in the teeth than the one Jets keeper Mark Birighitti received from Shane Smeltz last Saturday.

Some commentators suggested amalgamating local councils was a pre-emptive strike by state government to take people's mind off amalgamating state governments.

State government denied amalgamating local councils was a cost-cutting exercise, and given how expensive anything state government touches ends up in the distant future, that's probably a fair call.

We'll have to ask Marty McFly about that next time he steps out of the DeLorean.

Not to worry - as anyone who works in government knows, time is in flux, the future is now and cost is always relative.

Particularly if the Australian Electoral Commission plans to legislate the seat you inherited from your dad off the political map.

But enough of Joel Fitzgibbon and the soon to be redrawn electorate of Hunter.

Moving on from politics, but with familiar overtones - let's talk dog attacks.

They generated a few letters this week after an incident in Lambton where pooches ran amok.

Supporters talked up their right to have big dogs to protect their property, and how innocent and cuddly their staffies and dobermen are with fangs bared.

Snooty critics and other whingers who'd been attacked, or had to put up with incessant barking in suburbia, suggested people should be required to complete a course before they were allowed to keep animals in their backyards.

Something like a Cert IV in "You've Got To Be Kidding".

Transfield Holdings, meanwhile, changed its name to Broadspectrum, and when I heard that I thought "You've got to be kidding."

It's not a sunscreen, but it could be a smokescreen for Nauru and Manus Island.

It may also take some of the heat off Newcastle University administrators who copped it for awarding a contract to former Transfield over an incumbent organisation which had up until that moment been the good news story for integration of disabled people into the workforce.

Maybe Broadspectrum will work like an antibiotic and make the bad press go away.

But like many heavy-handed medicines, it could wear resistance down, leaving the body susceptible to ongoing infection.

Mad metaphors and bad puns are never far from hand when digesting the high moral fibre of Letters land.

All you can really say is Letters pray people keep on being passionate about issues of the day.