Amtrak’s clunky service needs reform
I'm back in America for a book promotion tour and yet again I am appalled at the inefficiency of Amtrak. I want to love Amtrak as it is the US's only passenger train service but the company's clunky procedures and often rude staff make it very hard.
Really Amtrak is two separate operations. In the northeast it is something like a proper train service familiar to us Europeans. The trains linking ...
Boris fails to convince on roadworks
It is difficult not to greet with some scepticism the news that City Hall
is setting up a new website and hotline to “name and shame” companies that
clog up the streets with interminable roadworks. So there will be, we are
told, 200 police community support officers imposing on-the-spot fines of
up to £500 on the most egregious offenders. But will they be able to check
the 4,000 roadworks a ...
Rail 678: Ministers exploit rail’s commuter monopoly
The fuss over the 8 per cent fare rises raised yet again the crazy nature of Britain’s rail fare system which is unparalled in complexity anywhere in the world. The news coverage may have feature primarily on what commuters are paying, but the truth is that the whole system is, in that ghastly industry term, ‘not fit for purpose’.
Let’s start with what is an all too obvious contradiction. Remember the ...
How the Civil War was won on the railways
Among many other things, the Civil War marked the first significant use of the railroad as a military tool. Between the opening of the first European and American railroads in 1830 and the outbreak of the war in 1861, there had been a few short wars in which railways had played a supporting role in moving troops and supplying armies with ammunition. Never before, however, ...
