Author name: Michael Williams

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MASSIVE  tribute to LNER train driver for his quick thinking into pulling his express train into a wayside platform after learning last night there had been a murderous stabbing spree on his train from Doncaster to King’s Cross also. He did this within 8 minutes of the first 999 call. All credit also to the

CHUFFED to be asked by the National Archive to do a presentation for the bicentenary of Britain’s railways next week, commemorating the first passenger train on the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1825. No sooner had I settled down to my laptop than the news came in yesterday that the government were halting plans for

I HAVE been honoured this year to be appointed chair of the 2025 Hugh Cudlipp Award. Cudlipp was one of the titans of modern journalism. Our panel of distinguished media figures have now completed their judging. Although we cannot reveal our verdict until the ceremony on October 22, we can confirm that today’s journalism is

  MY Son Edmund and I had great day in Derby to celebrate 200 years of Britain’s railways at the “Greatest Gathering” – the world’s biggest ever assembly of historic trains. Big-up to Alstom who hosted it in their historic Litchurch Lane factory!It sometimes seems fashionable to deride corporates. But here was a proud icon

JUST returned from travelling on the North Borneo Railway, one of the remotest railways in the world. It was a wonderful trip from Kota Kinabalu into the jungle along the South China Sea. Built by the British to transport tobacco, it is astonishing it is still running. There are even two splendid steam locomotives, built

  JUST returned with our family from the trip of a lifetime through the jungles and mighty rivers of Borneo to spot some of the last wild orangutans left on the planet.Magical but poignant also, since these intelligent, shy creatures – our closest relatives in the natural world – are on the verge of extinction

JUST returned from a memorable steam trip through Germany on the inaugural journey of Belle Trains. The “Harz Mountain Belle” took us across the nation, behind a giant vintage “Class O1” steam locomotive. We travelled in luxury art-deco carriages, served delicious food, visiting Cologne, Nuremberg, Dresden, Leipzig and Wiesbaden. Our destination was the magical steam-operated

ON this VE anniversary weekend, I am thinking of the heroes and heroines who I interviewed for my book on the crucial role Britain’s railways played in winning the war. Selfless, modest folk – the like of whom we shall not see again. (If you are interested, the book is published by Penguin Random House

BOOK your tickets now for Britain’s longest train journey, which comes to an end on May 16. Cross Country trains is axing the Aberdeen to Penzance through service, a mighty 774-mile journey. stopping at 32 stations, taking 13 hours and 20 minutes. What’s left for mega-journey train fanatics? Well, the Trans-Siberian is out of bounds

TODAY rail passengers face the misery of an above-inflation fare rise of 4.6 per cent. As if this weren’t bad enough, it comes against the background of some of the worst train performance for years, with the system bedevilled by lateness, strikes and cancellations. Not to mention a byzantine fares structure that few can understand.

Ah, an era now passing into history. My letter in The Times this week.

SIXTY years ago this month as a schoolboy I huddled on London’s freezing Strand with my father to witness Sir Winston Churchill’s funeral cortege. No sooner than the gun carriage bearing his coffin had passed by, I rushed to Clapham Junction to see the funeral train on its way from Waterloo to the Churchill family

IT’S AROUND 800 metres to walk between our local terminus stations Euston and King’s Cross. Yesterday my son Edmund and I went the long way, round travelling 800 miles via Edinburgh where we had a splendid lunch. We travelled behind vintage electric locomotive No 87 002 “Royal Sovereign”, a superb British-engineered machine designed for fast

WHEN it comes to travelling by train over Christmas and the New Year there is a collective moan across the country as trains are cancelled, lines are closed and services are diverted. But there’s another side to this story, as some mighty engineering works are completed to modernise crumbling Victorian infrastructure. Around our way in

HOW nice to see the opening today of the revamped Kentish Town Tube station after being shut since summer 2023 to have escalators replaced. Restorers have done a magnificent job bringing Leslie Green’s 1907 Northern Line station back to life, with its delightful chocolate and cream tiles now sparkling and new state-of-the-art escalators. The lovely

AN HISTORIC moment today as the government announces the first train companies to be taken back into public ownership under its plans to re-nationalise our ailing rail network. But will operation by civil servants rather than private companies make any difference? Not if the performance of the Northern Rail – already state-run s anything to

TRAVEL editors in the national media have been gushing today about plans for a new luxury train called the Britannic Explorer. The Times observed it is “an experience only money can buy, and you will need a lot of it”. Journeys start at £11,000 for a three-day itinerary based on a cabin for two. The

THIS week I was privileged to attend the presentation of the Charles Wheeler Award, given in memory of the BBC’s greatest-ever foreign corespondent. It was a delightful occasion in which Mishal Husain of Radio 4’s Today programme (left) received the honour and Lindsey Hilsum, the intrepid International Editor of Channel 4 News, gave a talk

IT’s long been the case that the daily print media cannot hope to stay abreast of a big news story when it breaks overnight. Never has this been truer than this morning, when the papers largely failed to get to grips with the biggest news story of the decade – the astonishing ascendancy of  Donald

TODAY’s  Budget held good and bad news for Britain’s bus passengers. On the one hand, Rachel Reeves trumpeted that the cap on bus fares introduced by the Sunak government would be continued. On the other the minimum price will go up from £2 to £3. This will not be welcomed by the young, the old

  ENJOYED being a  judge for this year’s London Press Awards, presented in the delightful historic surroundings of the Stationers’ Hall in the City. The judges agreed that it may have been a tough year for many newspapers but the ability to get to the heart of important and difficult issues is as strong as

BACK in 1964, as a young rail enthusiast, I travelled on the very final Atlantic Coast Express from Waterloo to the West Country. It was one of the great named trains of the world, and on this last sad occasion, it was hauled by Merchant Navy class No. 35022 “Holland America Line”, one of the

AT LAST some sense in the HS2 debacle as Transport Secretary Louise Haigh appeared today to signal the go-ahead for the multi-billion pound line’s link to Euston in central London. Previously, under nonsensical plans by Rishi Sunak, it was to terminate in a god-forsaken corner of west London at Old Oak Common. This is good

I WAS never a great fan of HS2, believing that it would have been better to sprinkle the largesse across the  existing network, bringing benefits to our ailing railways in general. If it had to be built I believed it would have been better to construct it on the trackbed of the old Great Central

AS the plans for the once-grand HS2 fell apart of the weekend – with the Manchester line set to be canned and the Euston terminus dumped in favour of ending up in some West London wasteland – I journeyed into a different kind of railway universe on Saturday. Aboard the 7am from Paddington, Brunel’s magnificent

“MAKE sure you mention me in your article,” says the ticket lady at Enfield Chase, a modest station on the suburban line from London’s Moorgate to Stevenage. “I’m Grace. ‘Amazing Grace’, they call me. And she is indeed part of an amazing army of super-knowledgable people who issue tickets on our railways. Want the cheapest

IT SEEMS wrong-headed in these times of climate crisis to get sentimental over a car. And yet…Today I got rid of my trusty Mini-Cooper S after 18-years of fault-free motoring. I shall not be buying another car, ending an adult lifetime of car ownership in London. I am no petrolhead, but in the past I

BOOKING clerks are the wise kings of the flawed realm of the railway fare system. Want a super off-peak ticket from Nuneaton to Peterborough?  Or Wigan to Rose Grove? Then the man or woman behind the glass booth is your person. They will help you navigate the byzantine ticketing system in which there are hundreds

FOR YEARS we have been accustomed to the idea that sleeper trains were a thing of the past. Slow, uncomfortable and uncompetitive with zippy low cost airlines. The grand days of the Orient Express and the Night Ferry were deemed to be over But all of a sudden, that is changing.  We are waking up

THE German government has just introduced a revolutionary new deal for public transport, enabling people to buy a monthly pass covering local and regional bus, train and tram services all over the country for just 49 euros (£43). The 49-euro Deutschland ticket is a radical plan to get motorists out of their cars and follows

IMAGINE a mighty express engine heading north on the West Coast main line powering its way effortlessly over the formidable Shap summit in the Westmorland fells. On this brilliant May morning the sun is glinting off the burnished Brunswick green of the boiler as a plume of steam rises high into the azure sky. The

Nicknamed the Nodding Donkeys, because of their rough riding on the track, the last Pacer trains in northern England made their final journey last Friday November 27, on a service from Kirkby in Lancashire to Manchester Victoria. Built as stopgap trains in the 1980s, and initially constructed from Leyland bus parts, they were hated by

  A QUARTER of a century after rail privatisation began, the UK’s system of train operating franchises has run out of steam – with the government making “the first step in bringing Britain’s fragmented network back together.” The move, announced by transport secretary Grant Shapps, comes as the government extended its programme of emergency payments

    Travelling along London’s Hampstead Road towards Euston today and looking at the devastation brought about by the demolition of surrounding buildings for HS2 prompts once again the thought: Will it ever be needed? Coronavirus has changed the way we all work and by the time the line opens, with perhaps £100bn spent, we

The public are being urged by ministers to buy a newspaper to help save an industry that is being strangled by the coronavirus epidemic. The lockdown means circulations have been dramatically cut with a huge loss of advertising as businesses have scaled down or shut. Journalists are being laid off and papers closing. The regional