Off the Rails: The Crisis on Britain's Railways Paperback - 2002

“It is not often that one can describe a book examining policy failures, management failures and risk assessment failures as a ‘rattling good yarn.’”—Tribune

“Meticulously researched and well-written, this book is a must.”—Morning Star

“Excellent ... a masterful analysis of the role of privatisation in the crisis currently facing the railways.”—John Hendy QC

“Andrew Murray has produced a mini-masterpiece and done his country an enormous favor ... In a better world ASLEF union organisers would distribute free copies at mainline stations to weary, humiliated commuters.”—New Statesman

“... in exposing the failings that enterprise and political expediency have brought us so far, [this] combination of forceful reasoning and emotional polemics carries the day. The most ardent free-marketeer will struggle to rebut [it].”—Daily Telegraph

“... prescient ...”—Financial Times

“Andrew Murray rightly draws attention to the fact that—far from modernising the railways in the interests of the customer—the break-up and privatisation of rail has led to catastrophe and a deteriorating service. His conclusion that rail privatisation is not only ‘uniquely awful’ but has a wider message about the role of the private sector in the public services is highly relevant to the debate now taking place about the future of those services.”—Ken Livingston, Mayor of London

Andrew Murray is Communications Officer for the train drivers union ASLEF. He is the author of Flashpoint: World War 3, and Off the Rails: The Crisis on Britain's Railways.