The Subterranean Railway by Christian Wolmar

Yup, good book full of useful and interesting history on how the underground railways came to be built and the attitude of our lords and masters. It's much more social and political history than railway and technical.

Oh well, this journalist might buy a copy. You all know my background in UndergrounD though I first started writing for MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS back in 1974!

I have to confess though that whilst I know my General Motors history after so many years' research and others seem to think that I do [see review in the latest CLASSIC AMERICAN magazine about my Chevrolet bus book] I have to do research for every article I write nowadays and I could easily fall into a trap about assuming things that could then get pounced on by those who would never dream of writing an article/book by themselves, but because they know about that specialist aspect see red and then stream off expletives and corrections by letter/fax/telecon/email. Some of the railway magazines such as BRITISH RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED and BACKTRACK are cases in point.

Then you get third parties complaining that such-and-such magazine always features X and Y as authors, yet thet don't know their subject. Why doesn't A or B write one because they do? The reason is one of money, or lack of it to pay non-staffers or retained authors, and also because A or B and their ilk haven't the time or inclination to write anything. Except when X and Y get it wrong because they didn't check!

I have to say though that lately I have been trying to watch my back when I have been writing articles about subjects that I have had to do research on. I thus ask everyone that might know the answer, and in the end if I can't find out, say that "it is believed that..." or "it is though that.." so if theose in the know have the definitive answer they have an opening to write in or contact and say that with regards to the comments, in fact the answer is blah, blah, blah, and it fils out the letters page and encourages debate.

I would not wish to criticise a fellow journo, but would say that I follow his comments in RAIL with interest. I regret to say in my own personal opinion, having bought virtually every copy since it started as RAIL ENTHUSIAST as a quarterly, then eventually monthly now fortnightly, that the magazine has transmuted into a political, and sometimes hostile, diatribe, and those features such as Round the Regions cut back, which has prompted me to seriously cancel my shop's subscription. Nigel Harris, the Editor, recently published a photo of mine in his column and never even mentioned who supplied it! Mr Wolmar's column I regret to say now leaves me cold and I don't even bother to have even cursory glance at it. Good luck to him with sales, but there are plenty of classic titles from the past that were written by those who knew their Underground history. I had the pleasure of corresponding with Alan Jackson and he had my deepest respect at his incredible knowledge. Same with Messrs. Croome Snr and Jnr.

By contrast, I always follow Wolmar with enthusiasm - even though I seldom agree with him, and do feel he sometimes keeps banging the same drum.

BUT he is often the (only) one who asks awkward questions at official functions and his method of questioning reveals a huge amount about the intentions of the speaker whether they choose to reply or not.
As a start I'd love to put him up against Alison Forster - THEN we'd get somewhere near the bottom of the FGW fiasco.

And quite a few of his 'ridiculous, radical' ideas of some years ago have actually since been formally adopted (Though not directly as a result obviously). We need him like we need Greenpeace - a pain in the rear, but a necessary thorn in the flesh to get some sort of discussion started on important topics.