Christian Wolmar

Transport barely gets a look in at election time and it was not any surprise that no transport issue was even touched on in the first of the leaders' TV debates. I even got excited at one point when Alistair Stewart said the next question would come from a train driver, but sighed when he asked a question about care of the elderly.  The lack of any discussion of transport issues ...

Two blogs in a day is rather more than my usual quota, but reports of Philip Hammond's first encounter with the press have sent me into deepest depression. He is quoted as saying that he woud end Labour's "war on the motorist", a ridiculous concept born emanating from the Daily Mail and the fantasy world of Clarkson. This is utterly dispiriting in two ways. First, having gone into government with another ...

Well, Mystic Wolmar got the surname of the new Transport Secretary right, as he is indeed called Hammond, but it is Philip and not Stephen. This is certainly a bolt from the blue, as this Hammond was a shadow Treasury minister and regularly appeared on television accusing Labour of profligacy. I can't see this as being good news. Theresa Villiers [who she? ed] had already indicated that no rail project was secure ...

One could hardly write the script as fiction. On the very day that Gordon Brown is teetering on the edge of oblivion and the House of Lords, one of his cherished projects, the London Underground PPP is breathing its last. The news that Transport for London is going to be taking over Tube Lines and running the contracts to maintain the Tube leaked out on the very day that voters ...

  It was an unprecedented disaster and the railways pulled out all the stops. In the space of just four days, they carried an extra 225,000 people, at no charge, which was virtually all those who had been affected. The main line railway ran an extra 129 trains, with a total of 900 coaches while a staggering 739 additional services were run by the suburban company.  This was not the recent airspace ...

Normally I would never make a predition on the day of an event, as it means I could be proved wrong very quickly. But here goes. This is the most exciting election in a generation and will have enormous implications for transport. So, my gut feeling is that the Labour vote is quite soft, despite rallying a bit in the last few days, and they will finish third on 27 per ...