Christian Wolmar

The latest restructuring of the railway has made it much easier to cut lines, stations and services - and harder to open new ones, according to CHRIS TIAN WOLMAR. One of the little noticed consequences of the recent restructuring of the railways is that it has become a lot easier to close a railway than to open one, or even than to improve an existing one. Look what is happening around the ...

On the Wrong Line Review RAIL’s Christian Wolmar frequently crossed swords with RICHARD BOWKER when he chaired the Strategic Rail Authority… so who better to review our columnist’s hard-hitting new book? Bowker was actually there at the time, so has Wolmar got it right? When Nigel Harris rang me to ask if I would review Christian Wolmar’s new book On the Wrong Line, I hesitated briefly. But ever the optimist, and ...

The Tories' transport policy has not exactly has not exactly set the world alight in recent years. Indeed, it seems to have been almost non-existent which has been a big wasted opportunity since transport has not exactly been one of New Labour's success areas. There has been plenty of scope for attack, notably the chaos on the railways, the decline in bus usage, growing congestion, the lack of infrastructure ...

The ‘what is a franchise for?’ debate rages on as CHRISTIAN WOLMAR argues that today’s railway is costing the taxpayer over six times as much as it was when it was nationalised. In the last issue, Richard Bowker the former head of the Strategic Rail Authority takes me to task over my oft-asked question ‘What is a franchise for?' Franchising, he says, is simply ‘a contractual right to run a defined ...

When Helena Wojtczak mentioned to a fellow railway researcher that she was writing a book about railwaywomen, he said she was wasting her time and asserted that women had played no significant role in their history. Despite many similar put downs, Wojtczak perservered and was, of course, proved right. There was indeed, a fantastic book in the previously untold story of women in the railways even though she had to ...

The penny has begun to drop over buses. The recent statistics on public transport reported in the last issue of Transport Times show that the long term decline in bus use outside London shows no signs of slowing down. During eight years of Labour government ministers have watched this decline from the sidelines seemingly with no appetite for intervention but from soundings I took at last month's Labour ...