The Japanese are in for a big TfL culture shock
Tokyo Nothing can prepare the good people from Tokyo Metro – who are coming to London to run the Elizabeth…
Can HS2 be fixed?
Choose your expression: ‘stuck between a rock and a hard place’; ‘I wouldn’t start from here if I were you’;…
Trams make a comeback
Earlier this month, the fortunate folk of Frankfurt were entertained by the 11th annual tram-drivers competition, with entries from 26…
Don’t blame health and safety for killing the Harry Potter steam train
When the operators of the most popular steam train service in Britain decided to challenge the safety authorities, they were…
Why is HS2 costing so much?
The members of the Denham Waterski Club are among the few people in the Chilterns who are grateful for HS2.…
Tunnels of love
With their elegant entrances and blend of Art Nouveau, Romanticism and Modernism, the white-tiled stations of the Parisian underground are works of art in themselves
The new age of sleeper trains
It’s a fabulous combination: travelling by train and sleeping. And the good news is that the concept of sleeper trains…
The Queen's final journey should have been by train
The Queen loved the royal train. The Royal yacht was a luxury that was more for show than convenience but…
What the UK can learn from the demise of British Rail
British Railways lives again. Well sort of. The Queen’s Speech is expected to contain plans for a Transport Bill, the…
Box clever: the surprising history of signal boxes
Petersfield signal box is in the wrong place. Or at least it is now. When it was built in the…
Nothing can beat the romance of luxury train travel between the wars
There may never have been a murder on the real Orient Express, but otherwise Agatha Christie’s depiction of luxury train…
Train journeys may be losing their romance — but there are other adventures still to be had
Monisha Rajesh wrote lovingly about the Indian railways in her previous book, Around India in 80 Trains; but her new…
The great British train wreck
A couple of weeks ago I met David Grime and Alan Noble, members of the Lakes Line Rail User Group,…
The dream of driverless cars is dying
I was worried that going to the autonomous vehicle exhibition in Stuttgart would be tantamount to an atheist walking into…
Going places
Stations, according to Simon Jenkins, are the forgotten part of the railway experience. People love the trains, the journey, the…
Sexual assault, chamber-pot etiquette, and other problems of early rail travel
Simon Bradley dates the demise of the on-board meal service to 1962, when Pullman services no longer offered croutons with…
