Christian Wolmar

We are now in the middle of the complex process that will decide on the railway investment plans for the five year period from April next year. Network Rail’s business plan published at the beginning of the year is currently being scrutinised line by line by the Office of Rail Regulation which will then publish its ‘draft determination’ in June and its final decision, after the consultation period, in the ...

There is a paradox in the British attitude towards the railways. On the one hand, trains are the great Aunt Sally, a reposi-tory of complaints ranging from ageing carriages to overcrowding. Indeed, no boss would question an employee who gives train delay as an excuse for turning up late. On the other, people just keep flocking on to the lines. Despite ticket prices going up by one per cent above inflation ...

There were numerous complaints on my Twitter feed – which has become my instant sounding box – about the political nature of the rail announcement on investment plans for 2014/9. It was, indeed, a highly political event given the presence of David Cameron. When he was prime minister, Tony Blair confined himself to big events such as the introduction of the Pendolinos and the opening of the first section of ...

Network Rail has brought out the fierce Amazonian tribesman in many of us. From Whitstable to the Wirral, the company responsible for the nation’s railway infrastructure has been accused of chopping down trees in a cavalier fashion with no regard for the environment. The RSPB yesterday claimed that Network Rail’s tree-cutting policy menaces 1.5 million birds’ nests found in the greenery of rail embankments. There is no doubt that, as admitted ...

Rail safety is a forgotten issue in the media. No longer does every minor incident get blown up into tabloid features on ‘danger on the tracks’ and there are debates on whether the fragmented railway is unsafe have thankfully disappeared from the Parliamentary agenda. The reason, of course, is that we have just celebrated a decade in which only one passenger has been killed in a train accident, a remarkable and ...

‘The Times they are a’changin’, but no one quite knows how. The ‘Command Paper’ which was supposed to set out ministerial thinking on the structure of Network Rail and was due out before Xmas is still, at the time of writing in mid-February, weeks away according to the latest pronouncement from Justine Greening, the now not so new Transport Secretary. The delay is clearly the result of fundamental divisions within the ...