Who will save the inner cities?
At times I feel like crying. I did the other day when I met a railway manager at St Pancras ...
Rail 914: A crisis like we have never seen before
‘Crisis, what crisis?’ There are many people repeating the words that Jim Callaghan actually never used. These are the arguing ...
Rail 913: Wrong way to try to prove that rail is safe
Statistics are a big part of my business as a journalist. I love it when I can refer to the ...
The privatisation that never was
Let’s stop pretending that the railways were ever really privatised. When they were broken up into two main parts, the ...
Rail 912: Accident highlights new danger for the railways
Of all the headline stories that become the subject of these columns, this is the one I have dreaded having ...
Rail 911: Warning: cuts ahead
The scene: Waterloo station, on Saturday, the first day of August. Time: noon. I have to negotiate a long funnel ...
Treasury draws up cuts plan for the railways
Devastating plans to mothball parts of the railway and drastically reduce services are being considered by the Treasury in the ...
Rail 910: the campaign that the rail industry must run to save the railways
It is impossible to exaggerate the extent of the crisis that the railways are facing. Glib optimism that people will ...
Rail 909: J’Accuse – the culprits wrecking the rail industry
(With apologies to Émile Zola) A letter to Boris Johnson, Prime Minister Sir Permit me to set out how a ...
July Newsletter: The self-destruction of the rail industry
There has been pretty much only one theme to my recent writings – in The Times, the New Statesman and ...
Rail 908: The future is vertical…and the slavery myth
Let’s look to the future for once, given that the present is so bleak. I will desist from pointing out, ...
Letter to The Times: Cut the bureaucracy, open the lines now
Sir, The process for reopening railway lines as currently set up is cumbersome and slow. It will take at least ...
The Great British Train Wreck
Let the train take the strain”, exhorted British Rail’s famous slogan in the 1970s. More than 40 years later we ...
Rail 907: Muddled policy wrecking the railways
I am at risk of repeating myself. I would love to be writing about something other than the impact on ...
Rail 906: The railways must stop telling people not to use them
Whatever happened to ALARP? That’s the safety principle by which the railway is supposed to function in relation to safety ...
By acquiescing to impossible rules, the railways are killing themselves
By trying to do the impossible, the railways are on a suicide mission. Trying to enforce social distancing while running ...
May newsletter – one thing is certain: driverless cars are not the answer
Apologies for slight lateness, but I have just delivered the manuscript of my latest book, Cathedrals of Steam, the story ...
Rail 905: Risk assessment is key to future of the railways
Boris Johnson’s speech to the nation on Sunday May 10th was rambly, incoherent and he failed dismally in his attempts ...
Rail 904: Abnormal, the new normal
We are now in the new normal of empty train stations, reduced timetables and injunctions to people not to take ...
Pandemic risks wrecking public transport
There is, perversely, something heartening about the atmosphere on the streets today. Kids are pedalling away behind their parents while ...
