Christian Wolmar

Jarvis Rail’s briefing to journalists about the possibility of sabotage at Potter’s Bar showed that the company was more concerned about its plummeting share price than the human cost of the tragedy, claims CHRISTIAN WOLMAR. It is hard to write dispassionately and coolly about the Potters Bar crash. The sight of Sola Ogunwusi, the wife of accident victim Alexander Ogunwusi talking of her husband’s love for his four children, makes it ...

For once, the rail industry has demonstrated a united front in its resolute stance against the Uff/Cullen report’s recommendations on introduction of ERTMS. If only it would pull together more often, laments CHRISTIAN WOLMAR. There is a conspiracy in the rail industry. Indeed, it even seems to have percolated through to Whitehall and the office of Stephen Byers, the Transport Secretary. Its target is the rail survivors and victims groups who, ...

Interview: Christian Wolmar, author of Broken Rails, and George Muir, Director General of the Association of Train Operating Companies discuss whether the structure of the rail industry is responsible for its accident record. JOHN HUMPHRYS: But first, Potters Bar, at least we now have a pretty good idea of what caused that train to come off the rails - a problem with the points - but that raises a number of ...

Britain’s rail system has taken so many wrong turnings but it would be wrong to despair, says CHRISTIAN WOLMAR, just back from a visit to Holland. Far from being a ‘state-owned monolith’, the Dutch railway is a coherent, publicly accountable system that has been created by putting pragmatism before ideology. The peculiarity of the way that Britain has gone about breaking up and privatising the railways becomes most apparent when visiting ...