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My Recent Writing
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How Twitter distorts messages
I caused a right old Twitterstorm last weekend by tweeting that as a healthy 70 year old who can run a 5k Parkrun in under 29 minutes, I should not be told not to go out for 4 months. A blanket ban on any over 70 going out seemed, at the time, what the government was envisaging. In quotes in the Daily Telegraph and an interview on Marr, Matt...
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My March newsletter: the mystery of the driverless car Ponzi scheme – and is it ‘termini’?
A quick newsletter as I am deeply buried in my latest book, Cathedrals of Steam, which is the story of London’s terminus stations. I hate using termini as I think that it a Johnsonian (Boris that is) pretence but perhaps any Latin scholars amongst you will put me right – or not. I am kind of halfway through the book, unable to remember the beginning or quite see the...
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Rail 898: Beeching cuts are not going to be reversed
This is one of those rare times when the fact that this column has to be written nearly a week before anyone can read it is causing me enormous difficulties. I hate to make predictions about the near future when they can so obviously be totally wrong almost by the time the ink is dry but for once I will take the risk rather than write about some timeless...
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Rail 897: My love affair with Crossrail
Here is the news: Crossrail is happening. Yes, of course it is late and the most recent announcement, which has kicked the opening date further forward to the autumn of 2021 is a disappointment. The cost is now expected to be £18.5bn, nearly £3bn more than the budget fixed by George Osborne (remember him) nearly a decade ago. And keeping with the negatives, it still strikes me as incomprehensible...
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Letter to The Times: HS2 is the wrong scheme
I detect that, like me and indeed Boris Johnson, Danny Finkelstein instinctively wants to support HS2, but once he looked at the project in detail realised it is a deeply flawed scheme. Unlike other projects he mentions such as the Channel Tunnel and the Victoria Line, HS2 has no USP. People can already travel by train between London and the cities of the Midlands and North quickly and in...
Latest headlines
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How Twitter distorts messages
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My March newsletter: the mystery of the driverless car Ponzi scheme – and is it ‘termini’?
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Rail 898: Beeching cuts are not going to be reversed
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Rail 897: My love affair with Crossrail
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Letter to The Times: HS2 is the wrong scheme
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Johnson’s HS2 bind
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Rail 896: A decade that was not all progress
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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 >>
Events
• Crossrail at Basingstoke on Wednesday, June 10 2020
• Railways and the Raj at Shenfield on Monday, June 15 2020
RT @gittins29 @christianwolmar You have a lot of followers so I’m posting this here. We have a few medical face masks and would run out if we threw them away each time we went out. Now we put them in an oven at 120C for 15 minutes. It doesn’t damage them but should sterilise them so they can be reused.
