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My Recent Writing
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The electric car conundrum
Electric cars are not a new invention. When I was growing up in west London in the 1960s, Harrods delivered its wares in a silent electric van while in contrast the cart belonging to Sam, the elderly milkman, was hauled up the hill where I lived by a huge horse which I invariably rewarded with a sugar lump. That story illustrates just how slowly modes of transport change and...
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Rail 882: It’s not only cuckoo clocks that the Swiss have got right
We are prisoners of history but we don’t have to be. When writing my various books on the history of the railways, it is always noticeable the extent to which the development of the railways in Britain was different than in the rest of Europe. In this country, the railways were built in haphazard way with no overall plan. The British railway network was created through a process of...
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Johnson: an unsuitable candidate
I rarely find the time to do blogs but watching Boris Johnson’s performances on the media yesterday cannot go by without a comment. He was beyond bad. Sure, one expects the usual bluster and failure to answer the question. But this was far, far worse. He could barely string a sentence, let alone a coherent thought, together and seemed completely phased by the simplest question. It was almost as...
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Rail 881: Reopening railway lines: popular and feasible says Lord Adonis
The most popular transport policy that I hear when canvassing people on the doorstep is undoubtedly the reopening of closed railway lines. It is remarkable how the name Beeching is still remembered and always in hostile terms. It is odd, therefore, that no political party has seriously adopted the idea of a comprehensive approach to reversing the cuts carried out in his name (even if he was not entirely...
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My podcast on the Transsiberian for Insight guide
Latest headlines
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The electric car conundrum
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Rail 882: It’s not only cuckoo clocks that the Swiss have got right
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Johnson: an unsuitable candidate
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Rail 881: Reopening railway lines: popular and feasible says Lord Adonis
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My podcast on the Transsiberian for Insight guide
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Rail 880: HS2 at risk from the Tory hordes
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Rail 879: The Crossrail mystery – what went wrong?
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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 @puntofisso @ballantine70 @cholten99 Absolutely! It was reading @christianwolmar's "The subterranean railway" that I appreciated what an amazing miracle of engineering it is.
