Christian Wolmar's March newsletter

[Christian Wolmar]

Dear subscriber

A rather thin newsletter this month, I'm afraid. Suddenly, the railways are off the news, although they never seem to be off the TV screens with history and reality shows on railways abounding, perhaps a reflection of a new found affection for them following the fantastic work they did for the Olympics.

 Frankly, that has suited me as I have a deadline for my new book on the Transsiberian – do email me any ideas for a title  - to meet and that is taking up all of my time.  Meanwhile the campaign for the mayorship is building up; subscribe to the ‘@wolmarforlondon’ twitter feed  for news on that.

 The one major bit of news  is that my Stagecoach book has been published online, updates and with a new interview with Brian Souter. Rereading it before putting it on the site was instructive – it is an amazing story of gung ho capitalism enabled by  Thatcher’s government and it is doubtful whether the lessons have been learnt. The local authority monopoly in the bus industry has been replaced with a private one, and has that been to the benefit of passengers? The book is available through my website, here .

 So there’s just a couple of new Rail columns  on the site covering franchising here and HS2 here and a new TSSA Journal column on London here .

  As for speaking, I have been round the country lately, from Bromley to Tewkesbury, Deptford to Plymouth. On May 8 I will be at Oxfordshire Railway Society on Subterranean Railway, and that weekend, on May 11, at the Railfuture conference.

  Keep on clicking on the ads. It all helps pay for the site.

  Apologies for the shortness, but there will be rather more next time when hopefully the book will be at the publishers.

 

Keep on truckin’

 

 

Christian Wolmar