Christian Wolmar

The news that Cycling England, on whose board I sit, will receive £140m over the next three years to boost cycling is a fantastic u-turn. Alistair Darling, whose motto is ‘Don’t do it’, had refused a similar request three years ago and allocated a paltry £15m which was doubled by his successor Douglas Alexander. Now at last some serious money is being allocated and slowly, but oh so slowly, the government ...

What a terrible start to the year for the railways! It is difficult to know where to begin as the debacle of the Rugby engineering works, together with the unfortunate coincidence of above inflation price hikes, raises so many fundamental questions about the state of the railways that it is difficult to hone in on the key ones. Perhaps one could say that none of this was a terrible disaster. No ...

Probably the most irritating delays on the railways are those caused by a bridge bash. I was on a Kings Cross bound GNER service in the summer when the train came to a halt soon after leaving Newcastle station and the groans of the passengers were audible. The language from my fellow passengers describing the driver of the guilty vehicle was very fruity, and focussed on the driver’s absence of ...

The launch of the new cheap car, costing just $2,500, by the Indian firm Tata poses one of those awful dilemmas for us environmentally conscious but comfortable westerners. How can we deny the benefits of mass car ownership to the developing countries when we have enjoyed its advantages for a couple of generations? However, anyone who has been to India knows that many cities are already at breaking point in terms ...

The real cost of the destruction of British Rail, initiated by John Major's government 15 years ago, is finally emerging. Both aspects of the double whammy suffered by passengers after Christmas - the engineering overruns and the fare rises above inflation - can be traced to that piece of mindless vandalism that Labour has done so little to repair. A privatised railway suffers such severe engineering overruns because more work is ...

RAIL fares are up again. Amid the chaos of last week, it almost went unreported that most passengers faced the double whammy of above inflation rises. Yet, the railways are booming, with record numbers letting the train take the strain as people flee congested roads and overcrowded airports which have been turned into a nightmare by inefficient and ridiculous security measures. In a normal industry, where usage was increasing by between ...