Hello and welcome to a special episode of Spectator Radio. I'm Kate Andrews, the Spectator's

Economics Editor, and I'll be your host for the next half hour. The UK has recently lifted almost

every COVID restriction, and with that, thousands of commuters will return to their offices.

Will those memories of delays, cancellations, costly tickets, and overcrowding

come back to haunt the commuter? Most of these problems are linked to the patchwork of Victorian

infrastructure that has struggled to meet the demands of the modern-day passenger. While grandstanding

projects like HS2 dominate the headlines, is that the kind of investment that's best spent for the consumer?

And with other issues on the horizon, such as extreme weather conditions, inflation, and

flexible working patterns, how will the industry prepare itself? To get to the bottom of this,

I'd first like to look back in time at the history of the British railway system, where Britain was the pioneer

in the Industrial Revolution. Our guest, Christian Wilmar, is a writer, historian, and

broadcaster specializing in transport. Christian, tell us about the dawn of railways in Britain.

The first modern railroad was open between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830. It must have

been quite an exciting time.

Rails, which were used to take coal out of the mines, and then they developed the idea of actually

pushing them down the hill towards the nearest river and then pulling them up again with the help

of horses. And by the mid-18th century, there was a whole network of

wagonways across largely the north-east, but also in other places, the Midlands, a bit the

northwest and so on. And then you get the other important development that goes into the

creation of railways, which of course is the steam engine. So we get Newcommon, who was really the pioneer.

He was a Cornishman.

But then you get James Watt kind of simplifying it and kind of making it more viable.

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