Christian Wolmar

The latest round of cuts to train services announced earlier this week have raised fears among passenger groups that the ghost of Beeching is stalking the railways again. And they are right to be worried. The financial crisis in the railways caused by the botched privatisation and the hasty renationalisation of Railtrack means that all options are being looked at by the Strategic Rail Authority and its masters at the Department ...

Armageddon never happened last week. The apparent success of the congestion charge in reducing traffic in central London left a lot of egg on the faces of its opponents, notably the Fleet Street editors who saw its introduction as an affront on civil liberties worse Saddam Hussein’s penchant for hanging opponents. Sure there were the inevitable cock-ups but the real message of a wonderfully peaceful few days on London’s streets goes ...

The SRA specifies what needs to be done and the contractors do the work, so, asks CHRISTIAN WOLMAR, is the much-vaunted Network Rail little more than a funding ‘middleman’ with no broader raison d’être? What is Network Rail for? I am prompted to ask that question by the revelation that it is currently being funded to the tune of £3bn of public money a year and possibly more. I have tried ...

Life in London will never be the same again. The imposition of the congestion charge takes away the fundamental right of freedom of movement for people in the capital. Or so its opponents would have us believe. The media coverage has virtually ignored the wider transport implications by focusing on the arguments of a few self-interested or politically motivated whingers. But read the articles carefully, and you will find that the ...

The fuss over London's congestion charge is a storm in a teacup, whipped up by a hostile press, says Christian Wolmar. If the more lurid headlines are to be believed, the first day of the congestion charge will go down as the day Londoners lost their freedom to move. The event has been marked by more prophecies of doom than Cassandra ever managed. So far reporting has, inevitably, concentrated on opponents of ...

We are in the midst of our annual transport crisis. About every twelve months, the media suddenly discovers that we have the worst transport infrastructure of any affluent nation and this stimulates a fortnight or so of hand wringing. And then, as quickly as the whoosh of a high speed train, the issue disappears because it dawns on the editors and broadcast producers that nothing is going to change and ...