Christian Wolmar

‘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 ...

Memo to train companies: I have had several recent dealings to put my children on the car insurance with Direct Line. While their ads may be irritating, their customer service is unparalleled. They will, for example, put someone on for a day or a week, just charging the pro-rata annual rate, and a modest £15 admin fee.  Similarly,if you need to take someone off the insurance, they will refund the ...

Train travel  is becoming more of a hassle almost daily and much of it is down to the way that the train operators delight in making life more difficult for their passengers. I was a consultant on the recent Channel 4 Dispatches documentary Train journeys from hell which was screened on March 21st but initially I was reluctant to appear on it because the title, which had been set in ...

In a recent letter to The Times (which was reprinted in Rail 659), Theresa Villiers, the rail minister argued  that the train operating companies function in a free commercial environment. Train companies are free to lease extra coaches and extend their trains, she said gaily, ignoring the harsh reality of the bureaucratic nightmare that is today’s fragmented railway. The truth is that the train operators cannot simply take on new rolling ...

After the Xmas Eurostar debacle, the company repeatedly said that it would improve its website in future to communicate better with its passengers and respond better to crisis. Fat chance. On the website today, there is a mere two paragraph warning telling people not to come to the stations without a ticket but there is no mention of any extra trains or anything that is being done to accommodate displaced ...

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 ...