If you want to understand the intentions behind the Government’s White Paper heralding the arrival of Great British Railways, look no further than its authors. We all know that the Paper came out of the Williams Review but that is now an irrelevance. It has been through radical changes, many instigated by the Treasury but then taken over by the ever-ambitious transport secretary Grant Shapps who ensured he would...

When people suggest to me that it would be best if politics were left out of the railways, I always point out that the two are joined at the hip. You only have to read my books on railway history to realise that throughout the near two century long existence of the railways, there has never been a time when they have been free of political interference. Nevertheless, even...