Christian Wolmar

Most of the deaths on the railway last year involved suicides and trespass, not that you’d notice from the way the HSE presented the statistics in its latest rail safety bulletin. CHRISTIAN WOLMAR believes the report is yet another example of how the policy-makers have got their priorities over safety badly skewed. Astaggering 320 people died on the railways last year. That’s over six per week but you would hardly notice ...

Despite the abrupt dismissal of Chief Operating Officer Jonson Cox and the ‘new broom’ approach of Chairman John Robinson, Railtrack remains vulnerable to another post-Hatfield type panic. Just back from the Far East, CHRISTIAN WOLMAR restates the case for appointing a seasoned supremo who will be able to take responsibility for decisions affecting the whole railway. Returning from three weeks in distant Vietnam, where there is a functioning railway, albeit single-track, ...