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My Recent Writing
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The great train wreck
A couple of weeks ago I met David Grime and Alan Noble, members of the Lakes Line Rail User Group, over a very good dinner in the Brown Horse pub in Winster in the heart of the Lake District. They had contacted me in despair at the collapse of services on their beloved ten-mile Windermere branch line. This once-reliable and well-used service is now a shadow of its former...
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Rail 859: How the Department for Transport messed up the Windermere branch
‘This is the story of how to mess up a branch line’ said Alan Noble of the Lakes Line Rail User Group. Except he did not use the word ‘mess’. The Lakes Line branch that runs ten miles from Oxenholme to Windermere is one of those survivors of Beeching which has prospered and become an integral part of the rail network. Oxenholme is now known as ‘Oxenholme Lake District’,...
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How to get the railways back on track
BARELY a day goes by without another nightmare rail tale. For the third Sunday running, Northern Rail cancelled dozens of scheduled services as new timetable disruptions persist. That’s the ‘new’ timetable introduced as long ago as May. Fares increases are about to be announced, while at the same time customer satisfaction goes the other way. New research has found the rail companies are now the least trusted out of 13...
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Evening Standard letters: Driverless cars would require unacceptable changes
Catherine Hutt, of Addison Lee, has fallen for the driverless-car hype put out by the tech companies . None of the technical hurdles has been overcome, as the death of a woman killed by a driverless car in Arizona in March shows, and there are massive legal, insurance, software, hardware and regulatory issues that remain to be...
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Rail 858: Things aren’t getting better
Things are getting worse. The railway is haemorrhaging passengers and the train companies, not surprisingly, are a dither. Talking to rail managers, they angst about whether this is the beginning of a long term trend or a blip. They hope for the latter but the hardheads are beginning to realise that actually there are major changes affecting the rail market and none of them are positive. An analysis circulating...
Latest headlines
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The great train wreck
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Rail 859: How the Department for Transport messed up the Windermere branch
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How to get the railways back on track
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Evening Standard letters: Driverless cars would require unacceptable changes
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Rail 858: Things aren’t getting better
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Don’t let Trump distract us from the basics
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Rail 857: Is the Office of Rail and Road really necessary?
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About Christian Wolmar
Christian Wolmar is an award winning writer and broadcaster specialising in transport and is the author of a series of books on railway history. He was Labour's candidate for the 2016 Richmond Park & North Kingston by-election and also ran to be Labour's candidate in the last London mayoral election. Read more >>
RT @BeicioGwenda Great that @JennyRathbone has signed up to @LabourCycles #lab18 She’s a fantastic advocate for cycling in Wales. pic.twitter.com/8uSY4C6yM3
