Christian Wolmar

The Labour government's policy on franchising has always been something of a mystery. Inherited from the Conservatives, the structure of the railways under privatisation has been adapted somewhat by Labour but largely left intact. So it was very instructive, given the events on the East Coast Main Line and rumours of Arriva's struggles on CrossCountry, to have a clear statement of government policy in the form of its response to ...

There are times when the transport madness in which we find ourselves is so depressing that I want to give up even contemplating that we could create a better situation. I was sent a copy of the Coventry freshers supplement of the Coventry Evening Telegraph as I had a submitted a short piece and started reading an article headlined 'cut costs by taking to life on two wheels'. Ah great, I ...

There was, thankfully, limited media coverage of the tenth anniversary of Ladbroke Grove and it was mostly very restrained though a Telegraph article referring to ‘burnt victims [who] died slowly in St Mary's Paddington' was utterly gratuitous.  If the ‘why oh why?' type of articles were mostly lacking, so was coverage of a remarkable achievement, the fact that the railways - provided, touch wood, there is no disaster in the next ...

Writing highly specialised history is perhaps the most demanding undertaking in the book world's niche markets. Take railways. The writer who includes too much close detail will be branded a trainspotter. The writer who depends too heavily on illustrations and photographs will be written off as a coffee-table artist. That doesn't mean there have not been some notable railway historians who have also been good writers. OS Nock and Michael Robbins spring ...