There’s plenty of ambition and potential for Tyne and Wear Metro
There’s a gulf between deciding to do something and working out how to pay for it. Tyne and Wear’s Metrocars first appeared from Met-Camm’s Birmingham works in the late-1970s. They…
Size matters for the future of UK train operators
Private train operators have been running for 20 years. The ‘Big Four’ created in 1923 lasted 25 years before government nationalised the railways. The result, BR, disappeared just shy of…
20 years of writing about railways
Twenty years ago RAIL 308 landed on newsstands with a pair of Class 20s on the cover and news inside of a fresh-faced new arrival on the magazine’s staff. I…
As the general election’s dust settles, the only certainty is uncertainty
A strong railway relies on a strong economy. And a strong economy needs a strong railway to move goods and ferry people to and from work, particularly into city centres,…
Horrific attacks remain rare on our railways
Just as I went to bed on Monday May 22 I noticed a tweet from the British Transport Police. It was dealing with an incident at Manchester Victoria. I thought…
End of the line as Chiltern withdraws final slam-door DMU
Two on the buzzer. A deft twist of the right wrist to select first gear before pushing the brake off. As the brakes release, pull the power controller towards you…
Strikes are a stalemate where both sides must make the right moves
As the hours ticked down to 1100 on November 11 1918, soldiers continued being killed on the Western Front. Germany had signed an armistice early that morning but its implementation…
Automatic for the people? ATO’s positives and pitfalls
Thursday February 16 was a day of irony. ASLEF revealed that drivers working for Southern had rejected the deal the union had presented them. Meanwhile, in the Institution of Mechanical…
RMT plans to fight more battles… but the war looks lost
There’s always been a tension between the front and rear of a train. It’s some decades since freight trains lost their guards and the vans in which they rode on…
Operators need to be less conservative and more ‘canny’
Sometimes we make a simple thing sound difficult. Take this phrase from a recent report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers: “On-demand door-to-door mobility solutions”. For context the report is…