McLoughlin jumps into new bear pit
If Patrick McLoughlin thought that escaping the bear pit of the whips office to the post of Secretary of State for Transport was a passport to a peaceful life, he will swiftly have been brought back...
View ArticleThe Transsiberian from Vladivostok to Moscow
Why are you going on the Trans-Siberian railway in winter when it’s dark and cold?’ asked my friend Jon. ‘And why are you starting from Vladivostok, the wrong end?’These were good questions and there...
View ArticleMy window on America: From Los Angeles to New Orleans on an epic rail adventure
There are not many places in the world where you can take a 50-hour train ride, and America does not immediately spring to mind as one of them.It is, though, still possible to travel, as I did, around...
View ArticleMcloughlin’s full plate
It’s fortunate that Patrick McLoughlin appears utterly unflappable because there has been an awful lot to flap about in the Department of Transport since he took over as Transport Secretary in the...
View ArticleScandal of museum threat
First they took the trains. Now they want to take the museum that celebrates their invention away. What a way to mark the 50th anniversary of the Beeching report which did for a third of Britain’s...
View ArticleDutch motorail: great service – but bring your own breakfast
Think of sitting in a comfortable restaurant car with specially wide windows for good views, quaffing a pleasant Barbaresco to accompany a steak while the train gently skirts the banks of the Rhine....
View ArticleThe privatisation that never was
On the face of it, the Railways Act has been a great success. The railways are booming with record numbers of passengers, a massive investment programme and an excellent recent safety performance....
View ArticleThe failings of the 1993 Railways Act still haunt us today
On the face of it, the Railways Act has been a great success. The railways are booming with record numbers of passengers, a massive investment programme and an excellent recent safety performance....
View ArticleHow paedophiles tried to take over the Left
Looking back from 2014, it seems extraordinary that an organisation with a name like the Paedophile Information Exchange was taken so seriously for a time in the 1970s that it was able to present...
View ArticleWhat is the point of HS2?
Mohammed Salique owns aRestaurant called Diwana inDrummond Street, which runswest from the side of Euston station. Diwana,which opened in 1970, claims that itwas the first restaurant in Britain to...
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