Christian Wolmar

This is the new age of the train. The railways had a generally bad 20th century, being outfought and ultimately replaced by the car and the aeroplane, but now in the 21st they are enjoying a renaissance that is spreading across the world. Here in Britain, where the railway was invented and first developed 170 years ago, people are rediscovering the joys of train travel. The days of slam door trains ...

Any mention of the idea of reopening branch lines immediately leads to massive media to interest with inevitable mentions of the Titfield Thunderbolt and the crimes of Richard Beeching. In an interesting initiative, the Association of Train Operating Companies has suggested a series of lines that could be reopened and new stations which could be served by adding stations to existing routes. For a mere £500m, according to ATOC, 14 ...

The opening of the high speed line for Kent domestic services is a fascinating reversal of what usually has happened in this country. Normally such major pieces of infrastructure are only provided once there is a pressing demand but on this occasion, the high speed line has been built and now there is a desperate need to find uses for it. The high speed line project has already left behind a ...

Matthew Engel, Eleven Minutes Late, a train journey to the soul of Britain, Macmillan, £14 99 It is rare to find a book that encapsulates a bit of everything but this one does: it is a history of the railways told through a journey around Britain, taking in bits of culture, geography and, above all, Britishness, in particular our ability to put up with a train service that should be so ...

The bosses at Virgin trains are angry. No, correct that, they are incandescent. They have had enough of Network Rail and are prepared to go public on it in what looks to be a prolonged and very public argument. I rather lit the blue touchpaper when I bumped into Tony Collins and Chris Gibb, the top two at Virgin, at a Stagecoach event in late May and suggested that the ...

I do not generally have much sympathy for Bob Crow. He runs a union as a political project, and therefore much of what he says is obviously contradictory. He wants renationalisation and an end to private sector involvement, yet his constant threatening of strikes and his very confrontational style of negotiation means that not only is no one prepared to listen to what he says, but also that the last ...