Rail 479: ‘Two Brains’ and Howells unite on need for change
The Great Debate on the future structure of the railway is already taking place at the highest levels in Whitehall. Christian Wolmar who has long advocated such a debate hopes it will not be consigned to ministers' too difficult' tray.
This is getting scary. Mystic Wolmar’s prediction that there would be a debate over the structure of the railway this year has been fulfilled by January. At last, we are seeing ...
Labour should just renationalise the railways
Yesterday’s announcement of a rail review marks the first step in the long march towards common sense on the railways. Ever since 1997, Labour politicians have been under the misapprehension that the industry would sort itself out, despite the fact that they knew it was a botched privatisation.
No longer. It is difficult to exaggerate the extent to which yesterday’s statement by Alistair Darling represents a U turn. I have sat ...
Blood on the tracks
2004 will go down as the year when the government was longer able to ignore the crisis on the railways. The problems created by what is now widely recognised as a botched and hasty privatisation are deep-rooted and extremely difficult to solve.
Now, at last, recent reports in the press and various other straws in the wind suggest that ministers are beginning to realise that their ostrich-like approach of hoping that ...
Rail 478: Cash crisis jeopardises rail’s regional regeneration role
Regional rail routes are a key driving force for economic regeneration, but Christian Wolmar warns that soaring costs and the remoteness of the SRA are putting this role at risk.
Regional railways are the oft neglected Cinderella of the railways. The simplistic view of the regional and local network north of Watford is that it absorbs all the subsidy and caters for very few passengers. The statistics are wheeled out with ...
On the wrong track; Labour’s worst failure
Transport ministers are on the warpath over the railways. Suddenly, the scale of the money pouring into what seems like a black hole has dawned on them and, as yesterday’s Independent reported, they are taking out their anger on the Strategic Rail Authority, the body created by John Prescott to oversee the industry. While the SRA certainly deserves a kicking, the government needs to do a lot more than simply ...
