Christian Wolmar's June newsletter

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Christian Wolmar

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Jun 20, 2012, 6:55:25 AM6/20/12

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Newsletter June

Dear subscriber

It’s the quiet before the storm, as much will happen over the next month with the announcement of the government’s plans for the next five years on the railway, preparations for the Olympics and dire warnings of chaos and, I suspect, the HS2 debate intensifying. There have been rumours about the imminent demise of HS2. I think these are coming from right wing Tory sources and are exaggerated, but nevertheless reflect a widespread antagonism towards the scheme which certainly echoed what I found when I went to last year’s Tory party conference. I have written about this in the next Rail magazine, which will reach subscribers this weekend and be in the bookshops on Wednesday.

Now that I have broadband back again – and a hotline number to Orange – I have put all my recent columns and articles on the site. So there’s many new entries with no fewer than six Rail columns and various others, though it has been a bit quiet on the journalistic front recently.

So the new Rail columns cover the government’s Command Paper (yes there has been a bit of a delay updating the site), the railways’ bad press, the myths around HS1 , the amazing renaissance of London’s railways , and in Rail 696, the potential clash between the regulator and the train companies .

This, incidentally, brought the total posts on my site up to 999 and so the next one, Rail 697 – on rail safety – was the 1,000th article on the site – say at a very conservative estimate, three quarters of a million words. Lots of ‘the’ and ‘and’ but other words, too!

My most recent column for Surveyor magazine covered the pods on linking the car park with Terminal 5, and as I mentioned before, I think this is a great innovation, fun to travel in and much better than a bus link. Odd that the system has not attracted more imitators. In TSSA magazine, I also covered the Command Paper here.

On the books front, Engines of War is now available in paperback and there have been several excellent review of The Great Railway Revolution, the epic tale of the American railroads which are on the site. Signed copies of either are available from me at a discount if you email me via the site.

I have started researching my next book, a history of the Transsiberian. While I have found considerable material on its construction and events during the First World War, and even some on its present day use, there is a gap during much of the Soviet period – not surprising, perhaps, but it will make the chapter on that time rather difficult to write. If you have come across accounts of people travelling on the line during the 20s to 60s, or know of any books on the subject, do please email me via the website.

I am off to Italy on the last weekend of the month to a literary festival at Verbania to talk about Blood, Iron & Gold which has been published there under the much more romantic sounding title, Sangue, Ferro I Oro. Love it. The book has also been recently published in Turkish where, apparently, it has attracted considerable interest and in Japanese (I have a few copies of all these editions if anyone is keen to have one).

With Down the Tube now available on Kindle and selling well – it had its best month May – and available here, by the end of next month my book on rail privatisation, On the Wrong Line, will also be available. I will tweet details and put them on this newsletter soonest.

Last but by no means least, I have been asked by a few people whether I would like to try to get the Labour nomination for London mayor next time. Although initially I thought that was plain daft, I have begun to think seriously about it. There are lots of transport ideas that should be discussed and certainly the focus last time on fares and the previous time on bendy buses showed a distinct paucity of imagination. I have a vision for London that is somewhat more radical than those scant offerings and it would certainly be interesting to debate these issues in a wider forum. Therefore I will be talking to a wide variety of people about the idea over the summer. It could be a very exciting prospect and I welcome your thoughts and ideas.