Railways
In defence of McJobs
The burden of higher taxation must fall on those with ‘the broadest shoulders’, says the Prime Minister, and City folks…
Portrait of the week: prisoners are freed, Ted Baker closes and train drivers announce strikes
Home Emergency measures, known as Operation Early Dawn, were brought in to ease prison overcrowding. Defendants would be summoned to…
A brief glimpse of secretive Myanmar
Taking advantage of a relatively open period after the 2015 election, Claire Hammond explored the country’s interior through its complex, unofficial railway network
Letters: the Tory party has gone mad
Right is wrong Sir: Katy Balls’s article ‘Survival Plan’ (4 May) starts from a false premise. The problem is not…
Live the high life… in a mid rise
How radically left-wing is Labour’s proposed ‘renationalisation’ of the railways? Though militant Mick Lynch of the RMT union ‘strongly welcomed…
When is a train strike not a train strike?
The first LNER train I booked on Sunday from Durham to London was cancelled due to ‘action short of a…
Reasons to be cheerful? Yes, I think I see some
‘Always be cheerful’ – a motto to which I’ll return in the final item – speaks to my natural demeanour.…
The case for ‘premium economy’ train carriages
A few years ago I wrote here about the unexpected symbiosis between economy passengers and business travellers on commercial flights.…
I’ve written the perfect book
I met a Canadian couple for lunch in Edinburgh. They were from Vancouver – he a judge, she an opera…
The pernicious creep of Big Nanny
The creep of nannying announcements
Women-only train carriages insult us all
Sooner or later, somewhere in the UK, we’ll have trains with women-only coaches. It’s an idea which keeps rolling around,…
Boris's rail betrayal is no surprise
A promise made is merely a promise waiting to be broken. If events complicate life for all governments it is…
Who cares who runs the railways? We just want them to run on time
The long-awaited review of the railways by former British Airways executive Keith Williams chugged past the platform of public debate…
How the Great British Bake Off inspired Great British Railways
‘Why didn’t they call it Very British Railways?’ asked my husband. Unwittingly (as in most of his remarks), he had…
Hitting the buffers: The Passenger, by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, reviewed
‘They’ll slowly undress us first and then kill us, so our clothes won’t get bloody and our banknotes won’t get…
Meet the woman who designed Britain's revolutionary road signs
Laura Gascoigne meets Margaret Calvert, the designer who dragged British signposting into the modern era
Never mind the royals – the real national crisis is at John Lewis
Asked to name British institutions they’d rather not see shaken to the foundations, many consumers would list the John Lewis…
The faded charm of the Isle of Wight
I was worried my first trip to the Isle of Wight might be too late. These days, a holiday island…
What weather records were broken in 2019?
Keeping it in the family A study by the Middle East Technical University claimed to prove that the pronounced chin…
Letters: civil servants have ruined our trains
Travelling in discomfort Sir: I don’t agree with much of what Matthew Parris says these days, but he was spot…
I’m giving £200 to whoever can tell me who has made the nation’s buttocks ache
Look out. Here comes a column banging on about something that, in the grand scheme of things, really doesn’t matter.…
Looking for a new idea? Try borrowing an old one
Recently I suggested a new approach to commuter-train overcrowding. It simply involved reformulating the problem by accepting that not all…
The secret ingredient of successful seaside towns
The real secret behind Margate’s revival isn’t so much the restored Dreamland amusement park, but the trains. A decade ago,…
There is a far better option than HS2 – and it already exists
Just 48 hours before the conclusion of the Conservative leadership contest, Allan Cook, chairman of HS2, wrote to the government…
