Christian Wolmar's August newsletter
Christian Wolmar
Dear subscriber
For once I am going to indulge in a bit of gloating. The website is peppered with articles and blogs about how I thought the transport problems of the Olympics were exaggerated. Various film crews from distant parts of the world came to interview and I repeated the message. And now it has come to pass.
Yes, I know there’s a few days left, and the Paralympics still to come, but basically it is clear that this was, like the Millennium Bug, a non story. Indeed, the day after I wrote a piece for The Times there was actually a small fire down on the Central Line and delays on the Javelin trains but these made small inside stories. By then there had been the triumphant opening ceremony and so no one was bothered. Indeed, I suspect it would take a Londonwide gridlock to make the news now after the gold rush.
The key has been that Stratford is the best connected station in London outside the Circle Line area and there is plenty of redundancy. Short of the whole station being closed for security reasons or the like, good management ensured it was possible to move people onto other lines if one or two had problems. And certainly, as I have written on this site, there was very detailed preparation by TfL and the train operators. So since it was a good news story, it soon disappeared from the airwaves.
With the announcement of the investment programme for 2014-9 – known officially as HLOS – as well as the Olympics and various announcements around franchising, there has been no shortage of news. I wrote a long analysis for the Daily Telegraph on the day after the announcement, concluding that while it was definitely good news for the railways, it was not, as Cameron suggested, the biggest rail investment since the 19th century. There’s lots of possible candidates for that award.
It has been ridiculously busy, so there are quite a few more goodies, too, on the site. I plunged into the cycle helmet debate, both with a blog and later another article for The Times. It was a bit depressing that this issue raised its head yet again as a result of off the cuff remarks by Bradley Wiggins but at least he did not seem to get that much support, despite his stature as the current favourite sportsman – though now overtaken by a host of other Olympians.
My review for The Oldie of the BBC’s DVD on Indian Hill Railways, done with great warmth and humour, is now also on the website. I wrote a feature for Surveyor on rail decentralisation and there is also a new column which appeared in the mag on safety issues.
And finally, the two new Rail are on speculation over the fate of HS2 – here – and on renationalisation, the issue that never goes away
I am off to America at the back end of September to launch The Great Railroad Revolution there with talks in Portland, San Francisco, Strasburg – Pennsylvania – New York City and Chicago. I am also giving talks nearer home in Worthing and Tetbury. Details in the new improved version of the events calendar on the website here – scroll down. Then in November I am going to travel on the Transsiberian for my new book, which I have started writing. First chapter should be done this week. It's quite an amazing story, really - I had not realised just quite how remarkable until starting the research.
I have found time to add a few blogs, but mostly am using Twitter @christianwolmar.
Please keep on clicking on the site’s ads. There’s been some useful ones lately – link to the Imperial War Museum’s exhibition – but for some reason mature (!) dating ads seem to pop up all the time, along with Red Diesel. I have no control over this, but it does bring in useful income that helps pay for the site.
Hope you are all enjoying the Olympics
Christian