The outbreak of war in the Middle East will undoubtedly lead to an immediate reduction in the numbers of people travelling because of fears over security.
But are their fears well-founded? The last Gulf war did not lead to an increase in attacks on airports and other transport infrastructure. Moreover, since September 11th, there has been [...]
Archive of March, 2003
Forty years after Beeching and 20 since Serpell, the spectre of branch line cuts is once again stalking the railway industry. However, CHRISTIAN WOLMAR argues that closing branches would save little money as the real cash-guzzlers are the regional services.
Those twin monsters of railway history, Beeching and Serpell, have been making such a strong comeback [...]
Suddenly, everyone seems to be in favour of the congestion charge. Motorists have been paying a fiver for the right to drive on the streets in the centre of the capital during business hours since February 17th and the previously highly-vocal opposition seems to have melted away as fast as the winter snow.
The threatened court [...]
An Evening Standard investigation into the Central line derailment, which shut the line six weeks ago, today pinpoints the cause.
The train’s revolutionary design, combined with its high speed, caused it to vibrate so much that bolts holding one of the motors in place were weakened. It eventually fell off on to the track, causing [...]
The damage inflicted by privatisation on the surface railway is being replicated on the London Underground whose Managing Director, Paul Godier, has just resigned, warns CHRISTIAN WOLMAR - who also wonders why a highly-paid SRA functionary staged in a bizarre attempt to discredit him.
When the national railway network virtually collapsed after Railtrack imposed unnecessary 20mph [...]
Mar
4
Off the Rails
Mrs Thatcher stumbled on privatisation as a way of boosting the government’s coffers which happened also to encapsulate the Conservative Party’s free market agenda and it quickly became the emblematic policy of her governments. Telecoms, gas, electricity, water and millions of council homes were disposed of, radically transforming the nature not only of government but [...]