Christian Wolmar

  This column was going to be an analysis of the new government’s likely position on rail policy and the prospects for the next few years. Fat chance. The voters having delivered the verdict which Mystic Wolmar predicted, the politicians at the time of writing are still in smoke-free rooms from which very little is emerging. Mystic is convinced, however, that the Libdems will hold their noses and throw their lot ...

One could hardly write the script as fiction. On the very day that Gordon Brown is teetering on the edge of oblivion and the House of Lords, one of his cherished projects, the London Underground PPP is breathing its last. The news that Transport for London is going to be taking over Tube Lines and running the contracts to maintain the Tube leaked out on the very day that voters ...

So much happening all bunched together, that I have had no time to blog - how do those professional bloggers do it, and earn their living as well?. So a quick few points on high speed rail and the PPP, but most of it will be in my next Rail column. As David has commented on a previous thread, the Tories' reaction to the high speed rail announcement suggests they really ...

The rejection on Friday by an indpendent adjudicator of £327m claims by Tube Lines against Transport for London may well spell the end of the scandalous PPP contract. Tube Lines had argued that TfL was responsible for cost overruns on the delayed Northern and Jubilee contracts because of changes in scope but the adjudicator, in amazingly forthright language dismissed the claim out of hand, awarding costs to TfL. The language of ...

Just as a little addition to my previous blog entry, the arbiter pretty much confirmed what I had expected, which is that he found pretty much in favour of Transport for London in his determination on the second period of the PPP. That was all very much as expected, but the response from Tube Lines was quite extraordinary. In a press release, the company has basically said that the money ...

I have been hearing reports that the PPP Arbiter for the Tube, Chris Bolt, is minded to rule much nearer TfL's estimate of the cost of the next 7.5 year period than the amount Tube Lines is seeking. If that is the case, then probably Tube Lines would decide that it is not worth the hassle and would walk away from the contract, which would spell the end of the ...