Christian Wolmar

Peter Preston, a normally utterly impenetrable Guardian columnist, for once makes a good point in today's paper  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/28/travelling-by-train-first-class.  Writing about the £8bn worth of rolling stock investment promised by the government last week - forget whether the actual figures add up - he asked the DfT how many of the new 2,100 carriages would be first or second class. The hapless spokesman, of course, did not have a clue but ...

Its a bit late in the day but I have been in Omagh and Alton today, and many points in between including an hour and a half waiting for a track circuit defect in the Stansted tunnel to clear - at least I had arrived at Stansted, unlike the poor unfortunates on the down trains. Anyway, a brief comment on the announcement. The most significant aspect is that this government appears ...

  The predictions that the Comprehensive Spending Review would be a disaster for the rail industry proved unfounded.  Sure, there was some bad news. Rail fares are to go up by 3 per cent above inflation, rather than 1 per cent, but, presumably as a compromise with the Libdems, this has been postponed for a year, so will not come into effect until January 2012. Most seriously, the Department for Transport ...

An open letter to Sir Roy McNulty Dear Sir Roy, I am writing to suggest that contrary to the view you expressed at a recent presentation to the Derby Rail Forum there is actually a silver bullet to make the vast savings you are hoping to achieve in the rail industry. It’s very simple, really – the realignment of the whole industry into its natural structure, a vertically integrated organisation that ...

Technological leaps in transport have led to countless fantasies – self-driving cars, pods on rails and even mini-helicopters – most of which will never see the light of day. Even more prosaic innovations such as toll roads or electric vehicles, which many see as vital to achieving smarter methods of urban movement, face a struggle for acceptance. But it is now clear things will be transformed in the future. Think how, already, the ...

The fascinating discussion at last night's Institute of Railway Operators meeting focussed largely on the McNulty review and what is likely to come out of it. There is no doubt that the resulting changes in the rail industry will be radical, given that there is widespread anger within the government at the soaring costs. It is also clear that there is a widespread feeling the HS2 is a given - ie ...