Christian Wolmar

I had expected better. Justine Greening, the transport secretary, is clearly a sharp cookie and has picked up her brief assiduously and rapidly. However, in publishing the long-awaited Command Paper, Putting the customer first, she has clearly allowed the civil servants free rein to produce a document as anodyne as a MacDonald’s hamburger without relish. Any hard decisions have been postponed until later in the year when we hear what ...

The word ‘consultation’ fills me with dread. Governments have a legal duty to ‘consult’ or otherwise they face a judicial review, but for the most part the whole process is a sham. People and organisations are asked for their views, which are promptly ignored. Ideological governments like the current one are particularly prone to ignore the responses to their ideas and proceed anyway. Remember the Poll Tax! This is certainly 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 ...

The Labour government's policy on franchising has always been something of a mystery. Inherited from the Conservatives, the structure of the railways under privatisation has been adapted somewhat by Labour but largely left intact. So it was very instructive, given the events on the East Coast Main Line and rumours of Arriva's struggles on CrossCountry, to have a clear statement of government policy in the form of its response to ...

For a long time the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) has tried to keep a lid on the debate over the future of franchising. With its members divided between those who would like to see a vertically integrated railway and others who are reluctant to endorse any notion of change in the present structure, it was difficult for the organisation to steer a middle way. Now, however, in an exclusive ...

National Express is in far deeper trouble with its East Coast franchise than even I thought. Sources within the industry suggest that as much as 30 per cent of its first class business has disappeared and since the company will have to fork out £50m in premium payments in the year starting in April, compared with receiving a small subsidy this year, it is difficult to see how it ...