Christian Wolmar

The Strategic Rail Authority chairman has had an impressive first year, but as the time comes for decisions rather than rhetoric, will his sure touch desert him, asks CHRISTIAN WOLMAR, who also makes his traditional predictions for the year ahead.
Richard Bowker has been rather fortunate in having had his whole first year as a honeymoon [...]

I have been failing at cricket for 35 years. There is no game that measures failure as harshly as cricket. Every time I bat, I fail. Sure, there have been relative successes but with very few exceptions such as hitting the winning run, the last ball I have faced in an innings has got the [...]

Over the coming months, the benighted commuters who travel into London’s Victoria station on SouthCentral’s services will be delighted at the sight of brand new trains appearing on the sidings along the route. These gleaming new Electrostar trains are intended to replace the 40 year old smelly cattle trucks which passengers currently have to endure [...]

The derailments at Aldwarke Junction and Ealing have again highlighted major safety concerns on the railway. The Government’s announcement of a new body to investigate railway accidents is welcome but, as CHRISTIAN WOLMAR warns, it must be allowed to get on with its job without separate inquiries by other organisations.
The only major transport measure contained [...]

IT’S six months since Alistair Darling landed the Government’s least popular top job: Transport Secretary. The post is disliked by politicians because the hapless minister attracts endless criticism for the mistakes of their predecessors – pace Stephen Byers. Transport policy is too long-term a proposition to offer ministers much popularity.
Darling, who was sent to transport [...]

The vote against the Private Finance Initiative at the recent Labour party conference is testimony to a wider unease about the issue that is being shown in some quite surprising quarters.
The trouble with the PFI debate so far is that there has been precious little honesty on either side. On the one hand, we have [...]