Christian Wolmar

I was rung early this morning by the Today programme and ended up doing a small turn as the warm-up to Theresa Villiers on a story which highlights the Tories' disarray whenever their policies are seriously challenged. The Guardian's front page this morning highlighted the fact that the Tories are refusing even to look at the Government's HS2 report through fear that they would then be compromised over the route ...

While the precise cause of the Halle train crash is obviously not yet known, it does appear that a red light was passed at danger. The Belgian railways are in the process of installing equipment that would prevent such an error but the scheme has not yet been completed. A row is now emerging which suggests that the Belgian rail authorities are saying that stringent EU requirements on new signalling - presumably ...

The independent report on the Eurostar pre xmas breakdown is being released on friday with a press conference - itself a rarity these days in the rail industry - and hopefully a full exposition of what exactly went wrong. Chris Garnett, one of the two independent authors of the report, has promised that all aspects of the fiasco will be examined but one suspects that he is too much of a ...

It is only a few months away from the launch of the London cycle hire scheme, provided there are no delays - there is still no precise date, but only 'summer 2010'. I am desperate for the scheme to work, but I have severe doubts about it. Will the bikes be used, will they soon all end up in the Regents' Canal or Hampstead pond, will there be enough pick ...

The confusion over franchising policy could not be better highlighted by the mixed messages coming from ministers. On the one hand we have quite explicit threats suggesting that the government could take back the First Capital Connect franchise because of months of dire performance on the Thameslink line - why did they ever change the name? - while on the other we have Lord Adonis suggesting that longer franchises are ...

The day after Lord Adonis suggested that franchises might be as long as 22 years, he threatened First Capital Connect with taking away its contract if the company did not improve services. This followed hot on the heels of the announcement that the temporarily renationalised East Coast would offer an improved service, with amongst other goodies, at least one train daily service between London and Edinburgh in four hours and ...