Railwatch
‘Nobody gives a damn’ lives on
In the columns I write for Rail magazine, I have developed the concept of the Nobody Gives a Damn railway ...
Great British Railways – dead or alive?
There was a period soon after the arrival of Rishi Sunak in Number 10 when it seemed that Great British ...
HS2 going anywhere?
The suggestion that HS2 could end permanently at Old Oak Common was an idea born of desperation. Although Jeremy Hunt, ...
What Truss might have done
(Events rather overtook this column!) By the time you read this, there will be a new transport secretary under the ...
From Marples to Crossrail – how things change
The new and very thorough biography of Ernest Marples, The Shadow behind Beeching, which has just been published by Pen ...
The contradictions of railway policy are all too obvious
It is difficult to know whether to laugh or cry. At the same time as we are getting news about ...
High costs are damaging the potential for rail recovery
One of the worst outcomes of the privatisation of the railways a quarter of a century ago is the failure ...
Working together, a concept lost in the private free for all
Over the past few weeks, I have spent a lot of time talking to former British Rail staff for my ...
Who is going to save the railways?
An emergency situation requires an emergency response. So far we have seen little sign of it. Passengers numbers remain at ...
Crossrail delay is a shame but will be forgotten
It is a shame that Crossrail did not make its deadline of December 9th, but quite frankly, it was never ...
Franchising in the doldrums
The future of franchising is in doubt following the departure of National Express, which once ran nine contracts, from the ...