Letter to The Times: Cut the bureaucracy, open the lines now
Sir, The process for reopening railway lines as currently set up is cumbersome and slow. It...
Latest Posts
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The Great British Train Wreck
Let the train take the strain”, exhorted British Rail’s famous slogan in the 1970s. More than...
Rail 906: The railways must stop telling people not to use them
Whatever happened to ALARP? That’s the safety principle by which the railway is supposed to function...-
By acquiescing to impossible rules, the railways are killing themselves
By trying to do the impossible, the railways are on a suicide mission. Trying to enforce... 
May newsletter – one thing is certain: driverless cars are not the answer
Apologies for slight lateness, but I have just delivered the manuscript of my latest book, Cathedrals...
Rail 905: Risk assessment is key to future of the railways
Boris Johnson’s speech to the nation on Sunday May 10th was rambly, incoherent and he...
Rail 904: Abnormal, the new normal
We are now in the new normal of empty train stations, reduced timetables and injunctions to...
Pandemic risks wrecking public transport
There is, perversely, something heartening about the atmosphere on the streets today. Kids are pedalling away...
Rail 903: The new normal is totally abnormal
As a journalist for nigh on half a century, who has covered all kinds of extraordinary...
Rail 902: The trains must be kept running – even empty
We have found out what living in a sci-fi dystopia is like. Fortunately, the basic services...-
My April newsletter: we need imagination to get out of this crisis; and a book offer for lockdown
Who would have expected that we would live in a time when it was illegal to... 
How Twitter distorts messages
I caused a right old Twitterstorm last weekend by tweeting that as a healthy 70 year...-
Rail 901: Reaching into the unknown unknowns
Harold Macmillan used to say that what he was most worried about when Prime Minister were... 
Rail 900: Has the franchising question been answered at last?
Things are too busy and exciting in the rail industry to spend the whole of this...
Rail 899: HS2 arguments are fundamentally dishonest
One day there will be a superb book to be written about the shenanigans over the...
