Christian Wolmar

The transport situation is so different now than 30 years ago that it suggests transport policy has undertaken a complete revolution. However, but dig below the surface and, in many ways, in terms of policy little has changed with the same dilemmas and issues posing intractable problems for politicians. Examining the scale of the changes is quite easy. They are characterised by, in particular, privatisation, but also deregulation and globalisation, influences ...

I am furious with Gwyneth Dunwoody, the fiercesome chair of the Commons Transport Committee. She has threatened my job by writing a report on passenger rail franchising that is far better than anything I could have written*. In fact, I could just fill this column with extracts from the report, which set out to answer my oft asked question, ‘what is franchising for?’, because I can hardly improve on what ...

It was brave of London & Continental to rebrand the Channel Tunnel Rail Link as High Speed One (thankfully not ‘Hi Speed’). The implication, of course, is that there will be more high speed lines whereas this question is very much hanging in the balance and may, in fact, hit the buffers with a resounding thud when the Eddington report is published, probably later this month. Eddington is likely to ...

Ironically, the Transport Secretary’s quibbling about a paltry £200m for a new station at Woolwich could be a clue that the government is at last taking Crossrail seriously, argues CHRISTIAN WOLMAR. WHAT is going on at Crossrail? There has been a very curious stand-off over the past few weeks on the issue of a station that, in the overall cost of the £10-15bn project, seems like small beer and yet has ...

Timidity is the enemy of good governance. If anything characterises New Labour’s failings, it is the government’s failure to show courage in the face of potential opposition. Almost daily there are examples of this pusillanimity which creates the sense of an administration in drift. Take the imposition of a tax on plastic bags, a ‘no-brainer’ to quote Dick Cheney, that instead will be the subject of a voluntary code, all ...

Dow’s dictionary of railway quotations, compiled and edited by Andrew Dow, John Hopkins. ‘A common sheet of paper is enough for love, but a foolscap extra can alone contain a railroad and my ecstasies’. This is one of the earliest train lovers talking, and a rare beast as she was female – the actress Fanny Kemble who was given a ride by that rough old Northumbrian George Stephenson on his Liverpool ...