Christian Wolmar

An unspoken aim of privatisation was to curb the power of the unions, but instead it has strengthened the hand of many staff, claims CHRISTIAN WOLMAR. Meanwhile, his alter-ego, Mystic Wolmar, peers into his crystal ball at what’s rostered for 2005. The railway trade unions have been much in the news lately. The ‘party’ held by all Midland Mainline drivers on the Sunday two weeks before Christmas was a very clever ...

Strikes, strikes and more strikes. That seems to be the only consistent feature of the service provided by London Underground. There are no fewer than three separate disputes which could cause stoppages over the holiday period, which has become an annual game of brinkmanship between the unions and management. While many of these disputes, like last year’s threat to the Circle Line, are called off at the last minute, ...

The reaction from passengers to the new train timetable, which has particularly affected commuters on the South West Trains network out of Waterloo, has been mixed. Some have welcomed it as they have found extra trains serving their stations, while others are complaining bitterly that their daily journey is going to take 10 minutes longer. In truth, there are probably more beneficiaries than losers out of the changes introduced by Stagecoach, ...

Passengers struggling with overcrowded trains and delays on the Northern line due to the defective radio system will find it galling that the private companies maintaining the network are making very high profits. London Underground boss Tim O’Toole has rightly highlighted the fact that the two infrastructure companies (infracos) made £93m between them in the first full year of the bizarre Public Private Partnership that has been foisted on the Transport ...

The Railways Bill fails to tackle the real questions at the core of the privatised industry. CHRISTIAN WOLMAR believes the only certainty is that there will be another Bill to unravel the current bodge. And finally we have a Railways Bill - published on November 25 - the legislative result of the review announced by Alistair Darling as the “chance of a lifetime to radically restructure the industry.” What a let-down. If ...