Christian Wolmar

The train operators seem to be sinking into the mire rapidly. Recent reports suggest that Arriva CrossCountry is suffering from a drop in passenger growth and now Stagecoach is clearly trying to get its punches in first in its negotiations with the Department for Transport over its South West franchise. In a belligerent statement issued today, the company confirms that its rail operations could go into the red and that ...

Network Rail is getting a new chairman Rick Haythornthwaite in the summer and he will have to show far greater mettle than his predecessor, Ian McAllister if the company is going to survive in its present form. There are growing concerns at the way the company is spending vast amounts of taxpayers' money with very little accountability. For a couple of years, now, I have heard ministers privately brief against Network ...

Call me perverse, but all-party agreements make me smell a king-size rodent. Now that Labour has signed belatedly up to the idea of a north south high speed link after initially rejecting it, all three major parties support the idea of HS2. The revival of the high speed plan was started by the Tories who announced there support among much fanfare at the party conference in October and the Libdems soon ...

Tim O'Toole, the managing director of London Underground who is leaving at the end of the month, launched a scathing attack on the £30bn Public Private Partnership created by Gordon Brown to fund the refurbishment of the Tube in an exclusive interview with the Standard. Mr O'Toole an American who joined London Underground six years ago after a career on freight railways in the US, also warned Londoners that while major ...

For such a small country, Scotland is blessed with an extensive railway system, but because it was built by the competitive private railways of the 19th century it is not always well coordinated or tailored to the needs of the 21st century. The future of the railways in Scotland, with lots of plans for investment, should be rosy. The situation is helped by the recent reorganisation which handed most of the ...

We have entered a new era on the railways. The unexcitingly named Control Period 4 for Network Rail began on April 1st and certainly its import was stressed by Network Rail whose press briefings were picked up eagerly by, amongst others, the Evening Standard whose front page story seemed to suggest commuting nightmares were about to become a thing of the past. The good publicity for the railway makes a welcome ...