Christian Wolmar

The police are to target specific ethnic groups for stop and searches as part of an unprecedented security operation on the London Underground and the railways. The highly controversial measure was revealed by the chief constable of the British Transport Police, Ian Johnston, in an exclusive interview with the Mail on Sunday, in which he also warned that the most likely target of another attack could be the overground ...

The calls for increased security on the London Underground intensified after Thursday's second round of attacks. There are nearly three million journeys on the system daily, and the problems of scanning such vast numbers using the system's 275 stations are legion. There are already 6,000 CCTV cameras on the network, and while more cameras will be coming on stream as the massive station refurbishment programme gets under way there are limits ...

The public transport system targeted by the London bombers is the embodiment of the democratic values they hate, says CHRISTIAN WOLMAR. I had wanted to write about something else this week. Like, for example, Alistair Darling chopping yet more tram schemes in the face of supposedly mounting costs; or the wonderful shenanigans revealed at the Railtrack shareholders court case. But there is only one subject that can be discussed, even though by ...

The tributes to the public services have been universal and well deserved. Everyone who had anything to do with the terrible carnage that befell London on July 7 has had nothing but praise for the way the authorities acted with speed, efficiency and dedication. From the policeman who commandeered a bus to take the walking wounded from the Tavistock Square bomb, to the lady on a stuck Tube train who ...

One thing is clear from the terrible outrages of July 7th. London can cope with what has been thrown at it. Its resilience has been demonstrated in several ways both by its people and by the systems that have been introduced for such emergencies. On the emotional plane, Londoners have carried on much as before. Refreshingly, this is not the usual British stiff upper lip, but something more than that. ...

Stephen Byers may have told a few porkies to his parliamentary colleagues, but that does not mean that his policy of putting Railtrack to death was wrong. Indeed, a whole host of people are far more culpable in its tawdry history, which has resulted in the waste of billions of pounds, and a railway that is structurally dysfunctional. Railtrack owed its existence to a flawed idea not followed in any other ...