Christian Wolmar

I  always wondered why, given the high rate of bike theft in London, I had never actually seen one in action. I always make a point of looking at people unlocking bikes and checking on bike stands, so it seemed odd, just as I have never been called for jury service. But today that changed. I spotted my first thief in full action. Well, not quite. At the bike stand opposite ...

Apparently, Philip Hammond is set to ignore the advice of a team of experts and refuse to lower the drink drive limit. The suggestion by the North committee would effectively mean that drivers  could have one pint and no more. Effectively this would save at least 65 lives per year and perhaps more. But Hammond has acquiesced to the drinks lobby and decided that more rural pubs would be put out of business if ...

The franchising system in the rail industry is rather like those cheap Chinese buffets that have become commonplace in places with little culinary tradition. It all looks rather good and tasty but once you tuck in, none of it is very satisfactory and what promised to be a feast turns out to be a rather inadequate lunch.  And so it is with franchises. Several recipes have been tried and whatever happens ...

It’s time again for the annual assessment of the performance of the railway school which is about to undertake yet another massive change. Lord Adonis tried to turn the school into a freestanding academy, with oodles of extra money to bring it back up to speed and promises of expansion into new ventures. Now the new government is clearly wanting the school to become once again a bog standard comprehensive ...

Usually, I am one to play down incidents on the railways,  since the media so often does the opposite.  But the story of the runaway rail grinding train on the Northern Line did not get the attention it deserved.  This was a remarkable incident which begs a lot of question. Briefly, the train, which had failed, was hooked up to an empty passenger train to get it out of the system  when ...

I may have missed something while on holiday. A press release has just landed in my inbox with Kulveer Ranger chirping about 'Barclays cycle superhighways' . I had not realised that the bank was not just sponsoring the London bike scheme but also the so-called superhighways, which are anything but 'super' from what I have seen of them. If this is true, exactly how does it work? How is Barclays getting ...