The next day, Wild wrote to David Hill, the chief executive of State Rail Authority (SRA): he described his XPT experience and asked, "Can we help in any way to improve things?". Then at a meeting Hill arranged in February 1984, having researched by then the French and Japanese high-speed rail systems (of which he had been only distantly aware when he had taken his journey), Wild and two colleagues discussed the potential for much higher speeds with SRA executives. But despite the cordiality, it became apparent that such a project was unlikely to go far under the umbrella of the SRA. The executives said "country trains" were simply the lowest of their priorities.