Books

Christian’s new book on how the railways changed the world, Blood, Iron and Gold, was published in October 2009 by Atlantic Books. It has already been reviewed in several publications and the reviews can be found here.

Blood, Iron and Gold (published in October 2009)

The opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830 marked the beginning of a revolution in transportation. Blood, Iron and Gold reveals the huge impact of the railways as they spread rapidly across the world, linking cities that had hitherto been isolated, stimulating both economic growth and social change on an unprecedented scale. From Panama to the Punjab, Tasmania to Turin, Christian Wolmar describes the vision and determination of the pioneers who developed railways that would one day span continents … Read more >>

Fire and Steam (Atlantic Books 2007)

A new history of the railways in Britain

This is the first comprehensive general history of Britain’s railways for over 30 years. Fire and Steam sets out the story of the people and events that shaped the world’s first railway network: one of the most impressive engineering achievements in history. Read more >>

On The Wrong Line (Aurum, 2005)

How ideology and incompetence wrecked Britain’s railways

Britain’s rail privatisation has been one of the greatest political failures of recent history. A well-functioning industry was torn apart to satisfy political dogma and privatised in a way that not only compromised safety and wrecked performance but also resulted in financial melt-down. Read more >>

Subterranean Railway (Atlantic Books, 2004)

A social history of the tube

The Subterranean Railway celebrates the fantastic achievement of the Underground’s pioneers who created a transport system that was not only unique in the world but also was vital in creating the London we know today. Read more >>

Down The Tube (Aurum, 2002)

The battle for London’s Underground

Strikes and the threat of strikes, breakdowns, signal failures, crumbling infrastructure and rising crime - for every Londoner, and many commuters, too, the disastrous condition of London’s underground system is a daily reminder of the political and managerial failures that have brought a critical public service to the verge of collapse. Now that the Labour government has committed the future of the Tube to the Treasury’s Public/Private Partnership Scheme, the question is: in ten years’ time will we see as promised, a refurbished and revitalised system? Or will we be lamenting yet another instalment in a long litany of failure? Read more >>

Broken Rails (Aurum, 2001)

How privatisation wrecked Britain’s railways

British Rail was the subject of an extraordinary experiment at the hands of the Tory government of 1992-7. It was hurryingly broken up into 100 parts and privatised in away that had never been tried anywhere else in the world. This book traces the roots of that government’s most contraversial privatisation and its consequences. It is a devastating account of what turned out to be a complete disaster, quite literally in the case of a series of fatal accidents which had their roots in the botched privatisation. Read more >>

Forgotten Children (Vision, 2000)

The secret abuse scandal in children’s homes

“There isn’t a photo of me before I was 14. It’s as if I didn’t exist. Children in children’s homes are suffering from trauma, from shock… They are used to the unexpected and sexual abuse is unexpected.” ‘John’. Read more >>

Stagecoach (Orion Books, 1998)

A classic rags to riches tale

The rise of Stagecoach was an emblematic story of the Conservative era of the 1980s and 1990s. This book tells the story of how the two founders, the brother and sister team of Brian Souter and Ann Gloag, emerged from humble beginnings on a bleak Perth council estate in central Scotland to become multi-millionaires, worth at one time £300m each. Read more >>

The Great British Railway Disaster (Ian Allan, 1997)

A humorous account of rail privatisation

Rail privatisation broke up British Rail into 100 component parts – and in the process created a whole series of anomalies that confused and irritated passengers. This book, written at the beginning of the privatisation process, is a series of amusing incidents which arose because of the way that the railways were fragmented. Why, for instance, were travellers finding connecting trains on branch lines long gone when the main line service was later, when previously they had waited? Why were some people paying more for the same journey because they bought their ticket from a machine rather than a ticket office? And why had stations suddenly gone ex-directory? Read more >>

Unlocking the Gridlock (Friends of the Earth, 1997)

The Key to a new transport policy

In this report for Friends of the Earth, at the time Political (and former Transport) Correspondent of The Independent Christian wolmar unlocks Labour’s transport gridlock by outlining what the governmnent should do in its integrated transport policy. The message is that change is needed and needed fast, but that the solutions to our transport crisis are within our grasp. Read more >>