Christian Wolmar

Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, has done her homework and come up with a well-informed speech about the Tories plans for the railways. Given to a political thinktank, Politeia, earlier this month, the speech contained nothing startlingly new but fleshed out details of Tory intentions if they are elected.   The centrepiece was, of course, support for a north-south high speed line, about which more below, but there was also some ...

The rejection on Friday by an indpendent adjudicator of £327m claims by Tube Lines against Transport for London may well spell the end of the scandalous PPP contract. Tube Lines had argued that TfL was responsible for cost overruns on the delayed Northern and Jubilee contracts because of changes in scope but the adjudicator, in amazingly forthright language dismissed the claim out of hand, awarding costs to TfL. The language of ...

I've been in trouble with the law. Well, with a very special constable who apparently has the name Pyle, according to his name tag. I was happily walking - or proceeding as SPC Pyle would have put in his notebook - down Lisle Street, round the back of London's Chinatown, when this young officer, who must have been all of 19 and wearing the most ridiculous glasses, told me to ...

Eurostar has attracted a fantastic amount of criticism over the debacle in the run up to Christmas when five trains failed in quick succession in the tunnel. Now that the air has cleared somewhat, it is worth examining whether Eurostar deserves all the flak it has received   Certainly, Eurostar has done well to appoint Christopher Garnett the former boss of GNER along with a French colleague, Claude Gressier, is conducting a ...

The Railway Eye blog reports that the Railway Forum has quietly been put to death, even though its website makes no mention of this. Indeed, it still has the smiley face of its director general - a grand title for an organisation with a staff of fewer than half a dozen - Paul Martin stressing that the organisation has membership across the rail industry. It was the membership that was the ...

  Since this is the last column of the noughties, I thought it would be apposite to draw a few broad sweeping lines across the events of this momentous time on the railways. However, before I could start bashing out my thoughts my inbox was flooded with news about what is likely to be the demise of Tube Lines, the surviving infrastructure company in the London Underground Public Private Partnership  I could ...