#Railnatter

In what I expect to be a sobering but incredibly important episode, we will be picking up the Phase 2 Report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

We'll go through the events leading up to the disaster, and the many chances we had to avoid it happening. We'll look at the role of government, of the various building and housing regulators, of the private interests in testing and marketing the cladding products, and of the tenant management organisation. We'll also look at safety management and the oversight of the refurbishment project, as well as the response to the disaster. Lastly, we'll look at the recommendations to see which ones directly and indirectly apply to transport and the rail industry. I've no doubt there will be a lot to learn.

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You can also buy my book #HowTheRailwaysWillFixTheFuture: https://bit.ly/HowTheRailways

I'm delighted to say we're joined this week by genuine Vancouverite Cariad Heather Keigher, who takes us on a tour of the SkyTrain and the messy history that created it. Don't worry though - it's actually very good!

We chart the fall of the interurbans and the rise of this not-a-gadgetbahn system as it grew across the city, and consider what's next in store for Vancouver. There's a lot for us to learn, positive and negative, and it's all wrapped up in this week's episode.

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You can also buy my book #HowTheRailwaysWillFixTheFuture: https://repeaterbooks.com/product/how-the-railways-will-fix-the-future-rediscovering-the-essential-brilliance-of-the-iron-road/

Okay, so if by Crossrail we mean high capacity suburban rail - yes. And in this episode we'll look at exactly what that might look like for Sheffield and the wider South Yorkshire area. There will be maps!

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We've an awful lot of news to get through, not least the horrible budget from last week and the dismal election results in the US announced today.

Those big stories aren't all of what we'll cover, though. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on that's worth us all talking about together!

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In October 2024, the supposedly left-leaning Resolution Foundation released a report into the role of electric cars and public transport in reducing UK greenhouse gas emissions to zero.

The report was... awful. And in this episode, we'll pick through why via a traditional page-turn!

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In the third of our three-part miniseries on Ireland, we are joined by Iain (anoniaino on Twitter!) to talk about the what Ireland's railways are facing in the future! We've thought about the past and about what the issues are today, now we think about what is planned for the future, and if it is good enough!

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I'm delighted that Jack Fifield (formerly of the Bolton News) is joining us to talk about his story on Northern's ridiculous and damaging revenue protection policies, but also the wider mess that Britain's railway ticketing system is in, and ultimately how difficult a lack of investment in ticketing outside of London is making people's lives.

It's a story of how much we get wrong as an industry, and of Britain's over-centralisation, and of annoying people who think all this is fine and the fault of travellers. Perfect #Railnatter fodder!

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We've been decrying the fact that the UK has crippled its own economy by imposing its own made up and entirely useless fiscal rules - in other words the rules on what it can and cannot borrow, and for what - for a long time. But the Office of Budget Responsibility (itself also pointless) has published a report suggesting these should change.

Will they? Why might this government finally change them? Will this definitely be good? Tune in LIVE to find out!

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Every now and then, we abandon trains and talk about something different, then by the end of the episode everyone gets to see how much the episode has actually been about trains the whole time. This is one of those times.

The crash in 1989 of IDN 1851 is one of the aviation disasters that most grimly highlights how successive small factors can overlay to result in unavoidable calamity. It is critical to understanding systemic, widespread effects right down to seemingly innocuous human errors and their relationship to each other and to safety outcomes. It also happened on my birthday. So it's a worthy episode (in all senses) for us to look at and consider in some detail.

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I'm hosting @RailEngineers 2024 tonight, so it's a quick news catch up pre-record... and the emerging theme is FARES. Plenty of other things to look over though.

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They did it! Greens4HS2 finally swung the Green Party of England and Wales into having a viable stance on high speed rail, crucially meaning that the party can (a) hold Labour's feet to the fire properly on its rail investment plans or lack thereof and (b) it can actually comment on any transport or other investment policy at all without looking ridiculous.

It has been a long time coming though, and I'm delighted to say we're joined by Emma Garnett, sustainability researcher at the University of Oxford and key figure in G4HS2 and the wider GPEW. Her and the team worked extremely hard to make this change happen, and how they made this work is instructive for all of us who want to see policy change via grassroots activism. Not to be missed!

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Well this one's going to be a bit grim. We'll cover off some news before I open for questions on the Hendygate situation.

Safety, accessibility, and the railway's attitude to both are under extremely uncomfortable public scrutiny now, and so far the industry has not stepped up, so to speak. The situation at Euston shows no sign of improving, and the Rail Minister, Peter Hendy, is still in post. What's next?

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In the second of what will definitely now be a three-part miniseries on Ireland, we are joined by Iain (anoniaino on Twitter!) to talk about the what Ireland's railways look like today... lining us up nicely for the next and final episode on what's next!

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Before the election, the UK Labour Party commissioned Juergen Maier to head a review into railways and urban transport strategy... And it was published literally today. So the hell with the original schedule, let's take a look and see if it proposes anything useful - and more importantly consider if it will be ignored by Rachel Reeves.

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In the first of (I think!) a two-part miniseries on Ireland, we are joined by Iain (anoniaino on Twitter!) to talk about the history of Ireland's railways and how we got to the system we have today.

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I DID IT. I WROTE A BOOK. And as an exclusive for all you lovely viewers, you can Q&A me about it and anything else you can think of in this week's #Railnatter... Plus we'll cover a bit of news off.

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Post election, it's worth taking a look at the National Audit Office's latest report into High Speed 2 and the mess the previous government made of it.

With a new Labour government picking up the divine right to rule from Murdochs, Platts and Gerkos of the world, we've been launched headlong into 2010 austerity again - but what does this mean for HS2? Might they pick any of it back up again?

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Back in Episode 49, we looked at the broad plans for mass transit across West Yorkshire, centred on Leeds. Now, mayor Tracy Brabin has launched the consultation for the first two proposed routes, between Leeds and Bradford and from central Leeds southwards.

Are these proposals any good? Are they ambitious enough? Will they achieve sufficient modal shift? Let's take a look together.

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Okay, so I've been teasing this for a while now, and at last it is here... We are going to spend this week's episode talking about what a FINISHED high speed rail network for the UK and Ireland would look like. Not shared lines, but dedicated high speed lines built from new.

How does HS2 fit in? How might it link with HS1? What about Greengauge 21s "X" network? Scotland? You better believe that there will be much in the way of maps and CAD! All comments welcome... This won't be the last of these episodes, I would guess.

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Everyone voted! The Conservative Party are toast! Labour got fewer votes than in 2019 and the era of two party politics in the UK is over...

But what does this mean for transport and railways? What do we think of the government appointments that are pertinent to transport? This one will mostly be a Q&A!

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Well, with only a week left to go before the UK 2024 general election, which of the relevant* parties' manifestos is best for transport? We'll get them up side by side and have a close look at what is promised, how it compares to previous years and what it all might mean for the future.

Transport is only one part of the picture, though - the most important stance of any party is its position on social issues, in particular on issues for the most vulnerable groups in society. Why? Because these tell us what is in the heart of the party and the lens through which it will see all other issues. So we'll end by looking at the stance of the parties on one of the most important issues of the day: trans rights. And the result will tell us all we need to know about which party will be best for the country's future.

*The Scottish Greens, SNP and Plaid are relevant, sadly there's no time to include them. Meanwhile, if it's blue, it sucks.

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It's a short one, and I'm off on wanderings for the first time in a while... I'm sharing some thoughts on early railways and the need to push back on the oversimplified narratives associated with the Stockton and Darlington Railway and 1825 as a false date of the "start" of railways.

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With the election approaching, we do a page-turn of the Public Accounts Committee's report into rail reform in Britain, as published back in May.

Six years have passed since the DfT said the railway needed reform, and four years have passed since initiating that reform programme, via its white paper (we've been through the ill-fated Williams-Shapps Plan For Rail already) in 2021. We were supposed to have Great British Railways by March 2024. No such organisation has appeared.

The reason it didn't tells us a lot about the challenges that the next government will face in changing the rail industry for the better - whether radically or incrementally.

You can download the report here: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/news/201745/rail-reform-noone-in-government-putting-needs-of-passengers-and-taxpayers-first-pac-reports/

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Okay, a cheeky local one this week, amongst some news... Haxby station is looking increasingly likely to appear in the next few years, so let's talk about if it is in the right place, what the wider railway network around York ought to look like, some of the timetable challenges of achieving that, and why it is being designed to look so awful again when the HUB station designs are now formally part of Network Rail's design guidelines.

Also: THE NEWS.

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We're jumping back in time to October 2022, and flicking through Network Rail's strategic advice for the West Midlands and the urban area around Birmingham. Lots to learn from this one - there will be diagrams and pictures and thoughts galore!

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It's a proper techy one this week, and we're talking all things CANT or SUPERELEVATION. What is it? Why do we need it? Why don't we need it? All your questions, answered. Oh, and dust off your GCSE mechanics because we will be doing some MATHS with EQUATIONS.

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This one has been in the pipeline a while... Should we reopen the full Waverley Route from Tweedbank south to Carlisle? No! We shouldn't!

I'll explain precisely how we shouldn't, using maps, showing the route that any new Borders Main Line should take, and explaining how and why you'd choose between the two available options. I might even tell you how much it would cost!

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Well, our original plans are out the window as Labour decided to publish their plans for Britain's railways. We have no choice but to go through them. And it might not take us a full episode.

Let's see if they are worth the pixels... And whether nationalisation will mean that, and if it will deliver.

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It's a Wales episode! AND it's a bus episode! When I talk about Wales being way out ahead of the rest of the UK when it comes to integrating its transport system, hopefully this report will make the case... We're doing a classic page turn of the Welsh Government's Roadmap to Bus Reform report, covering network, timetable, and ticket integration.

Let's see how good these plans are!

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I often rant and rail about SUVs - you know, the cars designed to maximise the harm they cause to other road users - but what is the data behind the proliferation of these hugely damaging vehicles. Why are so many being sold? What are some of the consequences?

Thankfully, an actual expert is joining us this week to dive into the numbers - Ralph Palmer is the UK electric vehicles and fleet lead officer for Europe's leading sustainable transport NGO, Transport & Environment. I'm excited to chat to him!

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As ever, quite a lot has happened since we last caught up with the news... Not least that vapourware VTOL grifters Joby Aviation have convinced the British government that flying taxis are the future at the expense of anything else. It's another news episode!

*I lied, they won't.

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This week we've the pleasure of welcoming back Bessie Matthews, train driver, author, illustrator, columnist and all-round railway industry treasure.

In her career so far, she's navigated a good slice of the rail industry, and so we'll take the chance to explore her story so far and see what she's learned...

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After our first pause in four years, 200+ episodes, 280 hours and countless guests, we're back again (we only skipped three weeks!)... And I'm very pleased to welcome Robin Davis onto the show to talk all things Designing New Trains.

Robin has presided over the introduction of several new intercity train fleets over successive generations of rolling stock design, and there's not a lot about designing trains that he doesn't know - so who better to quiz with all of your questions?

See you all LIVE on the 27th!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #Railnatter at   / garethdennis   or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Merch at https://garethdennis.co.uk/merch. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

The UK government have finally published their plans for Great British Railways, or rather, the hollow shell of the original proposals, now called the Integrated Rail Body. If it's anything like the Integrated Rail Plan, we are in for trouble.

Much as these plans are intended not to be enacted, the likelihood is that Labour will pick them up and deliver them largely intact, so it actually is worth us digging into them. We can also learn what a better structure might look like by picking through everything that is broken with these proposals, too.

So all in all this should be a really useful episode... Probably not one to miss! And it will be LIVE!

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CalTrain are pressing ahead with their completely bizarre obsession with hydrogen as a means of powering commuter and intercity trains. It is completely baffling. And it isn't the only nonsense that's been going down over the last few weeks!

Join us as we chat about ROSCO profits, devolved mayors talking big, Euston station's big horrible LED billboard, London Overground's new line names, corruption on Greece's railways, progress on Levenmouth's rail link and a quick mention of the demise of Great British Railways (more next week)...

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A much requested topic - we are going to dive into the waters of when British Rail ran boats (ships) in the form of British Rail Shipping and International Services, then Sealink UK, then Sealink British Ferries, then Stena Sealink Line, then Stena Line, then... Well, you get the picture. We'll try to demystify things.

If you like boats (ships), arguably the trains of the sea, then this is the episode for you!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #Railnatter at   / garethdennis   or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Merch at https://garethdennis.co.uk/merch. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

It's @Youngrailpro Rail Week! In the fourth (we missed one last year) of our YRP Rail Week specials, we are joined by the most guests we've ever squeezed into the format. Five mid-career panelists (most of whom are also former apprentices) are quizzed about building a career in the railway by an audience of current apprentices - because YES, it is also National Apprenticeship Week. And the questions are BRILLIANT.

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Why is the railway network in the North so abysmal? Well, a lot of it comes down to a rather dismal series of bad policy decisions made through the 1990s and 2000s inflicted by - you guessed it - the over-centralised UK government. Constant cancellations of previous projects has led us to the point where the current "TRU" is only going to finish delivering its outputs in the 2030s, over 50 years after the project was originally mooted.

This week, we'll look at that history and working out where things could have been done differently...

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There's plenty of news to catch up on, but the big question we'll be answering this episode is "are track defects a particular problem on the Great Western?" - and we'll answer this by looking at data freely available on the @office-of-rail-and-road's online data portal, accessible here: https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/

Join LIVE to find out the answer and to pitch in!

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This has been much requested given the number of viewers from Ireland - to warm us up in advance of the release of the All Ireland Strategic Rail Review at some point in Spring, I thought we'd flick through the consultation paper (which is really good!) as well as getting our heads around the geography of the island of Ireland.

We'll use our patented* population network method to work out what the ideal railway system should look like, as well as considering the suburban needs of the big cities. There will be maps!

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It's our official 200th episode! How have we got here?!

To celebrate, I'm running back through the previous episodes since the Episode 100 round-up - but this time not in running order. We'll group episodes with common themes to see if we can remember what we learnt - and if we've learnt anything new since...

Watch the Episode 100 round-up:    • #RailNatter | Episode 100: Every epis...  

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Now I've been going at Hyperloop's jugular for years now, and suffice to say it remains total and utter nonsense unworthy of any technological debate and only marginally worth one at all. We all know it is guff intended to both delay real railway solutions and to allow car and plane people a seat at governmental and regulatory "mass transit" tables.

Yet Hyperloop refuses to die. Even when probably its most well-known company has now bitten the dust, entirely as predicted. Well, we'll dig into why this might be, and will take a look at the current status of all of the Hyperloop players.

Join LIVE at 8pm UK time to get stuck in, ask questions, and hope collectively that 2024 is the year Hyperloop finally snuffs it. Also to toast what is technically our 200th episode!

See all of the stuff Gareth has written about Hyperloop: https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Agarethdennis%20%23loopyhype&src=recent_search_click&f=live

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Now this one really is festive - and it will be live, so you are very much encouraged to bring along your favourite festive tipple... We're asking the big Christmas questions: should the railway shut down around Christmas, and should we concentrate the vast majority of our engineering works over a period when so many people make the sorts of trips the railway is perfectly placed to cater for, and at a time when weather and blood-alcohol levels are at their most dangerous?

Join LIVE to share your thoughts, ask your questions and generally try to hash out an answer... See you at 8pm!

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Gather round the hearth for the first of our (still live!) festive episodes... This time we are exploring the story of the Torksey Viaduct, a tale which navigates the intertwining histories of railway companies, engineers, bridge design, competency, Megawatt Valley and more besides.

Grab a mince pie, pour a port, and listen in!

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The UK government's "Plan For Drivers" didn't end up being as popular as they thought it might be... For a festive treat, this week's episode is doing a traditional page turn of what we at Natter Towers are sure is a well thought-through piece of long-term transport policy* - join us at the usual time to take a look for yourselves!

*we do not think this

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Lots of people have been asking for this one! You may notice I use a lot of maps and diagrams on here, on Twitter, and elsewhere too... People act surprised when I tell them I do them all in PowerPoint, because it is the best tool for the job in most cases!

To get a free, interactive tutorial via the medium of me making up a few maps on the hoof, join LIVE on Wednesday at 8pm... Suggestions are coming in via the Discord server (link below) for where those maps are, by the way, and the Bristol Metro is one of the favourites!

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The Department for Transport have stopped up the datafeed that gives us the UK's full rail passenger ridership, so instead we're going to take a whizz through the ORR's latest passenger rail usage report to give us a feel for what's going on, how demand is looking across rail operators, and what this means when we think about the future.

Join LIVE at 8pm on Wednesday!

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This week, friend of the show Zach joins us to talk about the tramways and railways of Jersey, what they looked like at their zenith and what became of them... We'll even have a stab at reckoning if there's a good case for bringing them back!

Join LIVE at 8pm on Wednesday!

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Two years ago, two Class 158 trains crashed into each other at Salisbury Tunnel Junction following an extreme storm.

This week, we'll read through the recently published RAIB report to understand what happened and why - vegetation management and low adhesion will be big themes...

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On the 3rd October 1983, the UK's first modern high speed line was fully opened between Doncaster and York...

Chris Valkoinen from the @NatRailwayMuseum contacted us to say he'd found a pile of technical drawings relating to the Selby Diversion and suggested we take a look - so that's precisely what this #Railnatter shall do in celebration of this momentous occasion!

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On the 5th November 1993 (remember, remember, etc) the Railways Act 1993 received royal assent, and the wheels were truly set in motion for the atomisation of British Rail... An event that would lead us right into the mess we have today.

To "celebrate" its 30th anniversary, I thought we'd have split tonight's show into two parts. The first will be a page-turn of the dismal white paper (New Opportunities For The Railways) co-authored by the @adamsmithinstitute and @hmtreasuryuk that gave us the industry structure we have today. The second will be a discussion of how we unpick the mess and how the next government should prioritise its fixing of Britain's railways.

Join LIVE on Weds at the new slot of 8pm!

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It's been ages since we've properly caught up with the news, so here's a massive run through of everything that has caught my eye since before I disappeared off on parental leave...

We'll be talking HS2 (again), Headbolt Lane, the Plan For Drivers, digging up the M8 in Glasgow, electric Class 08 shunters, Superloop, HS2, Station Hall, Harper's Tin Foil Hat and the imminent doom currently hanging over all of us.

Join the fun, LIVE on Weds at the new (possibly temporary) slot of 8pm - that's EIGHT O'CLOCK UK TIME!

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In what will certainly not be the only episode we do on the title subject, I wanted to chew through the research done by Sam Dumitriu and Ben Hopkinson not too long ago... They looked at project costs, trying (and failing, in my view) to get to the bottom of why things cost so much more to deliver in the UK.

I'll pick through their report and explain why their suggestion that cost is why nothing gets done in the UK is pretty far off the mark, and is at minimum a case of the tail wagging the dog, hypothesis-wise.

Sam and Ben's blog on the subject: https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/britains-infrastructure-is-too-expensive

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Well, as predicted by me in 2018, and then essentially confirmed as inevitable two years ago on release of the Integrated Rail Plan, this Conservative government of Hunt, Sunak and Harper have cancelled HS2, leaving the most expensive section between London and Birmingham as a rump to be picked at by Treasury vampires until it is impossible to deliver the full scheme.

There's so much to talk about, so rather than going though anything in a structured way, let's make this an open Q&A like our first episode many moons ago... It's the first PROPER LIVE one in a long while, so tune in and let's go!

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We are joined by the founder and CEO of Tended, Leo Scott Smith, to talk about how you turn an idea into a solution that can save lives... And we'll talk a bit about how the railway forms the perfect filter to sort pointless from purposeful tech.

Geofencing is used pretty widely these days, but protecting staff on track is a particularly tricky and critical application - and this is where Tended come in. Join LIVE at 7pm on Wednesday!

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In what might prove to be another cornerstone episode of #RailNatter, Dr Alex Chapman from  @theneweconomics  discusses his research into the economic benefits of the aviation industry to the UK... Or rather the fact that there aren't any.

Seriously - this is fascinating stuff and lays bare the ideology behind the disproportionate subsidy of the airline industry in the UK and further afield... All while rail continues to have funding cut in real terms. Not to be missed!

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Join @MrTimDunn and me as we dash around the @NatRailwayMuseum's new gallery - Wonderlab - in the only way we both know how... Chaotically! We have the most tremendous fun whizzing around what I think is likely to be my second favourite space in the NRM after the warehouse/North Shed, BECAUSE THIS SPACE IS SO GOOD (particularly for me as an infrastructure person)!

Want to know what it is all about? Well, we show you almost everything we can in the space of an hour, with an interview with Wonerlab's brilliant lead interactive curator Rose Mockford and genius Leeds-based artist Pippa Hale thrown in for some nice context. If ever there was a way to physically explore the inside of my head, this is it.

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It's the finale of our three-part odyssey through the former Yugoslavia, following one of the world's most scenic railways from Belgrade in present-day Serbia to Bar in present-day Montenegro.

We've reached the highest point of the line, and only have a limited length of line to get back down to sea level... And there are a few feats of spectacular engineering required to get us there!

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Leo Murray has finally joined us to talk about the latest invasion of car infrastructure onto our pavements - that's right, electric vehicle charging points are the latest menace we are having to negotiate.

But given we do actually need these things to be installed, how do we go about it? What's the scale of the problem? And what does "good" look like?

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It's the second of a three-part odyssey through the former Yugoslavia, following one of the world's most scenic railways from Belgrade in present-day Serbia to Bar in present-day Montenegro.

We're truly nestled in the heart of the mountains in western Serbia at this point, and indeed we take a wee trip into Bosnia before eventually ending up in Montenegro... This time we journey from Užice to Kolašin.

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I'm very pleased this week to have been joined by Hannah Lawrence from Stay Grounded, talking about the legitimacy of flying, the inequality of flying, and campaigning against the worst excesses of aviation.

There will be infographics galore! It's a great episode!

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It's the first of a three-part odyssey through the former Yugoslavia, following one of the world's most scenic railways from Belgrade in present-day Serbia to Bar in present-day Montenegro.

This is the first three hours of the trip, distilled down by an enormous factor into a... one hour episode. We get from Belgrade to Užice.

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This week, we're joined by two of the Dovetail Games team to talk all things train simulation... Matt Peddlesden (executive producer) and Joseph Rogers (brand manager for Train Sim World, WSR volunteer) will take us on an odyssey of discovery on how you research, develop and expand train simulation games!

Join me and the Dovetail Games crew LIVE on Wednesday at 7pm to ask your questions!

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HS2 has, once again, been in the news, now that the Infrastructure Projects Authority (not beer related) has said the project may be unachievable, which won't be news to viewers of course. Anyway, government has responded to the Transport Select Committee's IRP report, and several Yorkshire councils have published their proposals for getting HS2 trains up to Leeds and the North East.

Basically, a bit of an HS2 update is required, so join LIVE on Wednesday at 7pm to get involved!

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This week #RailNatter is joined by the managing director of ScotRail - or rather, of Scotland's Railway, the alliance of organisations that run rail services in Scotland. That's right - Alex Hynes is joining us to talk about the direction that Scotland's railways are going in, balancing the needs of policymakers and operations, and what exactly the current structure of Scottish railway operations is.

Join LIVE on Wednesday at 7pm.

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It's a news episode, and there's so much to catch up on... more HS2 mess, bad on-demand buses, the continuing demise of Translohr, the dreadful Odisha train crash in India, diminishing pay across the GB rail industry, and so much more.

Join LIVE on Wednesday at 7pm.

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We've the delight this week of being joined by Emily Turner of  @roundelroundwego  to talk about railway and transport fandom, what it is, how some of its tropes can be off-putting, and how making it more inclusive is a bonus for everyone involved... Including industry itself.

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In a very last minute change to the schedule, we are in fact going to do a good old fashioned #RailNatter Q&A on today's horrible news about ticket office closures.

Get your ragey questions ready and join the show LIVE at 7pm to get stuck in!

Useful RMT campaign page with all the various consultation links: https://www.rmt.org.uk/campaigns/rail/save-ticket-offices/

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This week we are joined by Juliet Phillips from E3G to talk about how hydrogen has been disrupting the home heating market... and not for the better. It's a sorry tale that we in transportation should pay close attention to.

Join LIVE at 7pm on Wednesday!

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It's a fun one, and some engineering history for you all... 120 years ago, give or take a few days, the patent was placed for what would become the modern windscreen wiper, a vital safety device that we all take for granted.

But how many of them can I find in the  @NatRailwayMuseum ? Why do we know of so few women inventors? Why do I always end up in the Warehouse?

All questions I'll attempt to tackle LIVE(ish) at 7pm on Wednesday - and there'll be challenges for you, the viewer!

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In sad news, a vital facility for plugging the UK rail skills gap has been abandoned to rot... But why?

We'll talk about how the college came about, its poor management from the off, the non-existent strategic planning that led to its demise, and will remind ourselves of what we've lost.

Join LIVE at 7pm on Wednesday!

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This week we are talking all things mobility and mining, and we've the absolute pleasure of being joined by Thea Riofrancos, Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College.

With her research being focused on resource extraction, renewable energy, climate change, green technology and social movements, she's the perfect person to explain why building our transport future around resource-intensive technologies such as lithium batteries is a non-starter, and indeed that we should be pushing back against it as hard as we can.

Join us LIVE at 7pm UK time!

Link to the More Mobility, Less Mining project: https://www.climateandcommunity.org/more-mobility-less-mining

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Okay, so we won't just be talking about Elon Musk fumbling the bag... It's a news episode and there's plenty to catch up on!

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Our very special pilgrimage site of Colton Junction suffered a catastrophic (but all too common) failure this week, and so it seems like a good chance to talk about crossing noses, what they are, why they fail and how we can stop them failing.

May or may not include gratuitous imagery of Colton Junction's fabulous equal splits.

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This week we are looking at two rail crashes, one at Pitlochry in Scotland and another at Pershore in Worcestershire, that took place in the 1980s.

Thankfully, neither involved serious injuries, but both incidents can teach us a few things, despite having been mostly forgotten... Including the unforeseen side-effects of introducing new bits into dynamic engineering systems like railways.

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This week's #RailNatter is a return to Gerrards Cross and all the shenanigans that led a tunnel with a Tesco on it to collapse onto a live railway...

Why did the HSE not publish their original report? Well, thanks to an intrepid fan of the show, we've finally got hold of it! We'll be lawyering up as we flick through the pages of the draft report and stare in horror and the engineering negligence that nearly led to a multi-fatality rail disaster.

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It's an age-old question... A rail bridge is out, only the rails are left, so do you take the train fast or slow over the bridge?

There's a lot to think about: gravity, dynamics, waves, stiffness, materials, energy, vibrations... All combine to give us the answer. But what is it? It's slow - you obviously drive slowly over the dang bridge! Anyway, hopefully this will explain why!

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Last week, the TUC published their report "Public transport fit for the climate emergency" and, in classic #RailNatter style, we are going to sift through it page by page!

Having only really flicked through it up to this point, this report appears to dig deeper into my "rail capacity needs to double by 2050" figure and comes out showing this looks to actually be an underestimate. Union researchers are pretty rigorous, and so I'm keen to see what they've found...

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It's another #NotAMetro episode! This time, though, we are diving into the strangest transport systems to see if we can break the #NotAMetro sorter...

Intensive bus services, monorails, airport doodads, all welcome! Throw your most bonkers urban transit solution at me, LIVE!

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As one of the UK's most prominent pro-HS2 voices, you might be under the impression that I think the proposals (the pre-Integrated Rail Plan ones, anyway) are flawless and couldn't be improved upon... Well, that couldn't be further from the truth.

But what are the five most significant design shortcomings of High Speed 2, as I see it? You'll have to join LIVE to find out!

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Last week was the sixtieth anniversary of the release of The Reshaping of British Railways, and everyone was talking about it... I had to dig deeper into the legacy of this document, and of its author, for a piece in RAIL, and in doing so I had a chance to further re-evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Dr Beeching's proposals...

Yes, it's our third Beeching episode! Join LIVE to get involved in the fun.

Read my full piece here: https://garethdennis.medium.com/the-r...

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It's a news episode! We're headlining with talking about the Great British Railways HQ announcement - apparently, they will be basing 100 roles (?) in Derby, probably (and rightly) in the old Railway Technical Centre.

They can plonk a flag in Derby, but while the industry is in the shape it currently is, the headquarters will never actually be in Derby... Join LIVE to hash this one out!

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We're back! This week we return to the studio to attempt to demystify the supposedly intractable "last mile problem" that is oft repeated by policymakers, technoprats and car people.

What is it? Why doesn't it really exist? Why do people keep saying it does? Let's take a look!

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We talk about it a lot, but what is "integrated transport" when it isn't just a meaningless buzzword? Why is the UK so bad at doing it?

Transport researcher Martha Lauren joins us to talk about this history of truly integrated transport, including how the UK was actually ahead of its time until bus deregulation ruined everything...

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The @NatRailwayMuseum in York is hallowed ground for me and is loved by nearly a million visitors a year, but it has always struggled with being more of a collection than a museum.

Vision 2025 will be a great leap forwards in the ability of the museum to tell the story of the railways rather than just telling the story of its objects... And it is happening now!

With the sound of saws and hammers ringing around us, I have a chat with the brilliant Charlotte Kingston (the NRM's head of design, exhibitions and communications) to understand what's happening and what's next.

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After nearly three years, Luke Agbaimoni returns to #RailNatter to talk about his second book, "London Underground Symmetry & Imperfections". Once again, he's given us a tease of some of the photographs we can find in the book, and we walk and talk our way through each, exploring the aesthetic sublime of London's public transport systems.

Make sure to follow Luke on Instagram, and you can find links to buy Tube Mapper Book 2 here: https://tubemapper.com/tube-mapper-ph...

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This week, I'm delighted to be joined by Bob Gwynne, the National Railway Museum's associate curator, on an odyssey of historical curiosity, picking out questions from our past historical #RailNatter episodes (which you can find in the relevant playlist by the way)...

Watch Bob and the team on camera at @NatRailwayMuseum.

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Precisely one year ago, a few folks and I had the delight of a tour inside one of HS2's tunnel boring machines as it scoured its way underneath Long Itchington Wood in Warwickshire... And what a spectacular experience it was!

Hopefully I'll capture some of that excitement and energy as I bring you along on the tour with me... And will I unlock the mystery of the pink helmet?

Watch @geofftech2's video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wM6v...

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After WW2 and nationalisation, Britain's railway operations essentially assumed their 1923 structure and shape, and this may not have led to the best outcomes... When it came to infrastructure, each company may have had their main line, but were these the best routes when you took a view of Britain as a whole?

This episode we'll have a look, courtesy of some serious map explorations!

Download the Google Earth map file here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pg1yvt2zy0dcmc3/%23RailNatter_Ep152.kmz?dl=1

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I talk about it a lot, but what is modal shift, how does it work, and why is it both a critical tool and a critical outcome of enhancing and expanding public transport?

We'll be page-turning Greengauge21's report on the subject, mostly covering HS2 but also considering high speed rail and its wider released capacity benefits.

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Returning champion Bonnie Price is joining us to go through The News, since quite a bit has been happening since the holidays. Government data obfuscation, strikes, European shenanigans... Bonnie and I will chew through it and see if there's some light at the end of the tunnel!

It's not all bad, either... There'll be some fun stuff as well!

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People are still talking about "light railways" as if those actually, meaningfully exist. In this episode, I'll explain why THEY DON'T!

We'll look at why it is useful to avoid daft, meaningless names for types of transport, we'll talk about how unhelpful the Light Railways Act is, and in turn we'll shout at the Germanosphere for propagating the use of names such as "Stadtbahn" and so on... All via the still-working #NotAMetro sorter!

As ever, think up and send in your edge cases to try and break the sorter...

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It's the 30th anniversary year of the Railways Act 1993 - the legal instrument that formally privatised Britain's railway system. In the first of probably quite a few episodes on the subject, we'll be looking at the history of Britain's railways from 1990 to today...

We'll pick out why privatisation happened the way it did, who was responsible for it, how that lined everything up to fail, and how pretty much all of today's problems can be attributed to the mess that was the Railways Act 1993.

If you're an academic, you'll have free access to the paper I've just written on this subject for @IpprOrg here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/f...

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Happy New Year! #RailNatter is kicking off 2023 with a visit from Jon Worth, online communications and policy specialist, who has been blogging and vlogging about the EU and its railways for a long while now...

Together, we'll discuss his experiences through 2022, where his #CrossBorderRail project explored the mess that mainland Europe's railway connections are in... There are problems at both the micro and macro levels, and we'll try to tackle both.

#CrossBorderRail website: https://crossborderrail.trainsforeuro...

Jon's blog: https://jonworth.eu/ Jon's #CrossBorderRail route map: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/...

Jon's #CrossBorderRail crossings map: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/...

Jon's #CrossBorderRail Top 20 map: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/...

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Yuletide greetings all! This time, you lovely lot are getting a live show in the midst of the holidays, as we are joined by returning champion Emily Turner from @roundelroundwego for some more festive gluposti...

This time we will be opening the doors of our #RailNatter Advent of Oddities to hear from past versions of ourselves as well as a few chums. Let's see if this works at all - join LIVE and bring your favourite tipple!

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This week, #RailNatter is diving back into the Deep Lore of Railways, with a proper techy session on the origin of concrete sleepers (starting international, ending British)...

Want to know where they came from, and how they developed? Join us LIVE on Weds/7pm!

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This week's #RailNatter is finally tackling the big question: should we abolish the Treasury? Luckily, Stian Westlake is joining us to attempt to give an answer!

Why should we do it? What would take its place? Is this a daft suggestion, or is there a meaningful, constitutional benefit to obliterating the department that arguably has caused the UK the most damage throughout its history?

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Well, he only went and did it. The USA's "most labor friendly president" has just used executive legislation to break a strike and ensure rail workers continue to be horrendously exploited until they just leave the industry.

There's also a lot of other stuff going on, some good, some bad. We'll see what the new Secretary of State for Transport (Mark Harper) is all about. We'll also see how easily buses could be made free in the UK.

Watch the @BadFaithPodcast episode I refer to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyaCB...

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This week, #RailNatter is joined by returning champion Simon Kendler to talk all things electrification... Where should wires go? When should they go up?

Having put a lot of work behind the scenes into RIA North's new Greener Faster Better report, Simon will talk us through what the process was, and we'll talk wider rail policy given everything else that's going on. We'll try and keep this one optimistic!

Find Simon's thread here: https://twitter.com/SimonZev/status/1...

Download the report here: https://www.riagb.org.uk/RIA/Newsroom...

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The UK has had another budget - it may, on the face of it, have seemed like a return to the boring nothingness of pre-Boris times, but it actually means increased cuts, reductions in investment, and more overall malaise with zero vision for the future.

What does it mean for transport specifically? This week's #RailNatter will pick through the Autumn Statement to see if there's anything to be optimistic about.

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This week's #RailNatter sees returning champion Dr Kevin Tennent help us tackle one of the big questions in the transport world... Why do people prefer trams (real ones) to buses? Why does fixed infrastructure drive greater modal shift than vehicles on roads only?

We'll look at why a "permanent way" is important (and also what it is), but also why it isn't the only variable that gets people out of cars and onto public transport.

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This week's #RailNatter sees the return of GUESTS (now the technology is mostly fixed)...

We've the pleasure of Tom Haines-Doran's company, talking about his new book "Derailed: How to Fix Britain's Broken Railways" - given the state of the railways, somewhat relevant I'd say! We'll be touching on worker rights, the state of management, fares, money and what on earth the railways are actually for... Not to be missed!

Buy Tom's book here: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Tom-Ha...

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RAIB recently published their report into the derailment of an High Speed Train at Dalwhinnie on the Highland Main Line... Thankfully this happened at low speed, but only by luck.

This week's #RailNatter digs into the report and sees what we can learn, and whether industry is likely to repeat this calamity again.

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I'm off on US shenanigans right now, so here's a very strange #RailNatter where I meander from York to Mansfield on the train, then drive back again.

Why on earth did I do this? You'll have to watch (if you care)... But we'll be covering HS2's eastern leg (again), suburban services, electric cars, Rail Alphabet 2, the Jacobean Style and Robin Hood. A feast, or chaos. Probably both.

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This week's #RailNatter is talking swing bridges, bascule bridges, sliding bridges... Because we're attempting to provide an exhaustive list of Britain's moveable railway bridges that are (a) still in use and (b) largely in the same form as it was when it functioned, even if it has been welded shut.

How many are there? Will I miss any? It's anyone's guess... Join LIVE to find out!

Watch  @Network Rail 's terrific little video on the Goole (Skelton) Swing Bridge here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzeTidU0INA

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This week, #RailNatter is dipping into what already feels like ancient history... The Hitachi UK train fleet was grounded by cracking over a year ago, resulting in widespread disruption and the withdrawal of large numbers of trains across the country.

The @Office of Rail and Road undertook an investigation into the causes and the required actions - and the report they subsequently published is what we are going to dig into together...

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We're back in the studio for this week's episode, and not a moment too soon... The UK @Labour Party has formally announced that it is retaining its policy of railway nationalisation, which begs a number of questions, first of which has to be "what does this mean?" - so #RailNatter is going to see what Labour might mean, and what they should mean, by rail nationalisation.

There'll be a bit of other news to catch up on as well.

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This week's #RailNatter comes to you from the @London Transport Museum - and I'm very pleased to say I'm joined by not one, not two but THREE @Young Rail Professionals head honchos... Why? Well, it's #RailWeek once again, and this time we are getting in ahead of kick-off to talk all things railway industry employment.

We'll remind ourselves what Rail Week is all about, we'll look at all of the events happening this year, we'll tackle the enormous "the industry is in turmoil" elephant in the room, and we'll even have a self-guided tour of the LTM at running speed!

Head to the events section of the YRP website here: https://www.youngrailpro.com/page/events

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This week we are joined by none other than Justin Roczniak (a.k.a. @donoteat01 from @Well There's Your Problem Podcast), who will guide us through everything wrong with US railroads and why things have reached breaking point for railroad workers, to the point where the whole US teeters on the brink of a national rail strike.

Last time out we looked at what is actually pretty good about US railroads. This time: we'll be doing the opposite. Join #RailNatter LIVE to ask Justin your questions!

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Well, a lot has happened in the last month. A new Prime Minister. A new Secretary of State for Transport. New ministers. And given that our special boy, Grant Shapps, made Great British Railways his own personal mission, is anybody else going to want to deliver it?

The current state of the UK also has wider implications on railways, too... The cost of living crisis is genuinely unprecedented, and the impact is going to be crippling, even with Liz Truss's announced bolstering of the energy industry.

In any case - #RailNatter will be picking through as much of this as we can!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Merch is at https://masquette.co.uk/collections/r.... Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

Britain's first modern high speed line may have been the Selby Diversion. Its first 300km/h line may have been High Speed 1. But the first inter-city railway that embodied the design elements we see of high speed lines today was - arguably - the Great Western Railway. 130 years after its opening it also became Britain's first 200km/h railway.

It may have been over-engineered by Brunel, but this was very much in the favour of the engineers of the 1970s when they upgraded much of the GWR for 125mph running... This week's #RailNatter looks at what these upgrades involved - and we'll think on what we can learn from these works today.

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Jon Stone and I are joining the dots in this week's #RailNatter... Where on our side of Europe would really benefit from a new high speed link?

We trip our way across from Sweden to Spain, from Swindon to Serbia in search of the answers. This is most certainly an incomplete list. But the real challenges aren't perhaps the physical infrastructure, but the political unimaginativeness of our leaders.

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This week's #RailNatter is answering the ultimate (?) question - are Stadler's FLIRTs Britain's best train?

Joining me on this quest shall be friend of the show Simon Kendler, who shall guide you and me on an odyssey into the east...

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Much has been happening in the world of transport, so it's time to pause, take stock and catch up with current happenings again...

We'll be talking about strikes quite a bit, but there's plenty else to flick through, including the UK's broader economic outlook, the energy crisis and the impacts of the ongoing heatwave. Join #RailNatter live to get involved!

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It's a #RailNatter page-turn again - and we're sinking our metaphorical teeth into the Transport Select Committee's Integrated Rail Plan (a.k.a. #RailBetrayal) report... It's the one I appeared in Parliament for!

We'll dig into the detail, but it summarised by saying that there was little evidence of valid assessment in IRP, that government should prepare for their cuts to be reversed, that journey time benefits were not achievable and that there was not enough focus on capacity. In other words, they leave government's plans in tatters!

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It's been over two years since we've done a proper alternative history episode (Episode 7 was on what might have happened if the APT had made it) so for Episode 125 it's only right that we look to the InterCity 125 (a.k.a. the High Speed Diesel Train) and have a think about what might have happened if it had simply never come into existence...

What might have changed? Would the railway renaissance that came about in the 1980s never have come to being without them? Might we see a very different-looking railway network today had they not appeared and been so successful? Tune in to see what I reckon!

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For quite a long time, Scandinavia has been a quiet hub of railway modernity - indeed, Sweden had the most per-kilometre electrification in the world for a number of years. Denmark has constructed enormous rail infrastructure in recent years, and on average trains across the region are pretty young. X2000s and various excellent metro systems are a delight to behold.

To talk about all of this good stuff, and perhaps dig into what we can learn from our Scandi pals, we've the pleasure of being joined by writer Dominic Hinde on this week's #RailNatter... Dominic will guide us across the railways of northeastern Europe with aplomb, and you can all ask your questions as it's a live one!

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Well I am very pleased to say that this week, we are joined in #RailNatter towers by podcaster extraordinaire Alice Caldwell-Kelly (famed for @Trashfuture Podcast, @Well There's Your Problem Podcast and Kill James Bond)!

Alice and I will be going on a ferroequinohorological odyssey through time (quite literally) to see how small clocks and the operation of the railways are interlinked - and we'll also be gawking at some very fetching hand-held rail timepieces... Pocket watches and wristwatches galore!

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Well a lot has happened in the world since we last did a news segment, so it's another general news catch-up for this week's #RailNatter...

We'll focus in on Shapps' signalling tweet from a couple of weeks back, where he made a hash of just about every sentence he was fed - as well as looking at the horror show of the Tory leadership contest if our special boy Grant Shapps is the one who has the best stance on human rights.

Also, as promised last week, we'll do the Very Light Rail (both rural and urban) Q&A session!

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It's a question you've all been asking for a while - what is VLR, and is it any good? Well, tonight's #RailNatter will hopefully answer that question!

I was at the first (?) VLR "conference" a few weeks ago, plus you might have noticed that I omitted the Revolution VLR tour that I did at Rail Live for last week's episode... Well, all of this is to be combined into this week's episode, so there should be a bit of a feast for you all!

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It's Rail Live 2022 - and so I'm sending you another pre-recorded #RailNatter from the past!

Rather than running about like a headless chicken as I did last year, this time I'm running about like a headless chicken *with a plan* - we'll split the episode into four segments - exhibits, plant, trains and people - and have an explore accordingly!

There'll also be a couple of shorter videos to follow this one, including some nice timelapses of setup day...

Trashfuture rail strikes episode here for your listening pleasure: https://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.co...

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STRIKES! Solidarity to all RMT rail workers out on strike right now... I'm at Rail Live today, so I've pre-recorded this week's #RailNatter as a sort of Baby's First Strike History. Join in the chat in any case to add your thoughts and perhaps pick up anything I've missed... Live(ish) at 7pm on Wednesday!

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This week we have the honour and pleasure of being joined by Alexandra Rose (@bigmoodenergy) to talk about a long list of rather goody gadgetbahns from the not-so-distant US past... We may see all shapes, we may see all sizes, but will we find any that are actually useful?

Tune in LIVE on Wednesday at 7pm to find out!

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This week's #RailNatter is diving back into the messy world of categorising urban transport systems... And I think I've cracked it!

Gone shall be "light rail", "rapid transit", "personal rapid transit", "bus rapid transit", "stadtbahn" and all the rest... In shall arrive a newer, simpler series of names that make more sense and will have actual, consistent meanings.

Join LIVE at 7pm on Wednesday to send me a pile of transport systems to see if the categoriser breaks immediately!

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For some reason, our old #RailNatter on the Welsh railway network went viral earlier this year, so I thought I'd take the chance to dig into the culmination of that episode and dive into what a north-south main line for Wales might look like...

If you like maps, alignment design, deciding where to put a railway, and understanding the bigger picture on railway proposals, then this is the episode for you! Also, there will be: maps galore, costings, timings, politics, opportunities and challenges. It's all here!

Join LIVE at 7pm on Wednesday!

The original episode that sparked all this off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyJBN...

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In a change to the published schedule, #RailNatter is heading to London because Crossrail (known by some as the Elizabeth line line) has just opened and we all need to talk about it... Not least that it (a) is not a Tube line and (b) has made a right mess of an already over-stressed Tube map.

We'll be talking about how to properly classify London's transport networks, why it may or may not be important to do so, and how fixing the Tube map is important and also almost impossible.

Join LIVE at 7pm on Wednesday!

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This week's #RailNatter should be a fun one... We are looking at what branding Britain's railways should have in a post-GBR world.

Should everything be uniform, devolution be damned? Or do we know better...

Join LIVE to have your say!

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CRASHWORTHINESS AND CONCLUSIONS

The RAIB report from the Carmont rail crash has been released, and just as we worked our way through the interim report, this week's #RailNatter is taking a detailed look at the final report.

What exactly happened that fateful day? What can we learn? What should we do to avoid it happening again?

This is the fourth and final episode of this miniseries, and will look primarily at the crashworthiness of the High Speed Train and how it turned a significant derailment into a fatal one. We'll end by summarising the findings of the report.

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This week's #RailNatter does what it says on the tin... I'll have spent the morning at a press session looking at the new modular station design that Network Rail and the UK Design Council have been developing alongside competition-winning architects 7N.

Will it be successful? Is it any good in the first place? Where might we see the first example being built?

Join LIVE (yes, not a pre-record as previously suggested) at 7pm on Wednesday!

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This week #RailNatter is joined by Professor Iain Docherty, Dean for the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Stirling and transport policy expert... Who better to tackle the subject of ScotRail's re-nationalisation?

That's right! After exactly 25 years of private operation, ScotRail is back to being an entirely (rather than defacto) state owned and operated railway network. Is it all sunshine and roses, though, or does this mean that the Scottish government will start having to face some spikey home truths?

Tune in LIVE on Wednesday at 7pm to find out!

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OTHER CONTRIBUTING FACTORS

The RAIB report from the Carmont rail crash has been released, and just as we worked our way through the interim report, this week's #RailNatter is taking a detailed look at the final report.

What exactly happened that fateful day? What can we learn? What should we do to avoid it happening again?

This is the third episode of this miniseries, and in it we look at a variety of contributing factors that increased the risk of the derailment happening and increased the consequences once it did happen. We'll also look at the condition of the High Speed Train following the derailment.

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It only took a few weeks, but we've fallen hopelessly behind with The News again, which means we need a catch-up... So #RailNatter shall be filling us in with all the newsworthy stuff that has been going on in the transport and transport-adjacent world!

Join in to share your thoughts, LIVE at the usual time!

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CRISIS MANAGEMENT

The RAIB report from the Carmont rail crash has been released, and just as we worked our way through the interim report, this week's #RailNatter is taking a detailed look at the final report.

What exactly happened that fateful day? What can we learn? What should we do to avoid it happening again?

This is the second episode of this miniseries, and covers the failure in crisis management and the broader impacts of climate change that led events to unfold as they did.

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For this week's #RailNatter, Harry Burr is joining us to talk about his experiences as a very young sustainable transport policy advocate who has already made waves across the Midlands...

As the founder of Sustainable Transport Midlands, we'll talk about how he got into making policymakers pay attention, how he keeps himself engaged in an industry that can sometimes brush off the inputs of young people, and what he thinks might come next.

Whilst you can tune in live at the usual time, actually you should GO AND WATCH/SUPPORT #RailwayHistoryForUkraine at historyforukraine.co! #RailNatter will be here for you afterwards!

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INTRODUCTION AND CDM REGULATIONS

The RAIB report from the Carmont rail crash has been released, and just as we worked our way through the interim report, this week's #RailNatter is taking a detailed look at the final report.

What exactly happened that fateful day? What can we learn? What should we do to avoid it happening again?

In the first of this four-part miniseries, we'll introduce how the crash unfolded. We'll then look in detail at the failure of the drain, and the failure of the assurance processes that failed to spot its inadequacy.

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This week's #RailNatter is looking for solutions rather than problems, and joining us is friend of the show Jon Stone (the Independent's policy correspondent)... Together we will be exploring why the UK *must* decentralise power to make public transport better!

Do you have thoughts on devolution? Join LIVE (if a little late) to get involved in the discussion!

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Seeing as the RMT have been on strike following Grant Shapps' blatant attempt to undermine their bargaining power as part of his deal with Transport for London, it makes sense for this week's #RailNater to unpick one of the commonly repeated myths that the Department for Transport keep referring to: that driverless Tube trains are anything other than a #gadgetbahn fantasy.

It'll be a pretty relaxed and open Q&A session, so bring your thoughts and queries!

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With the IPCC having released its latest #ClimateReport this week, we'll take a quick look at the headlines then dig into Network Rail's latest climate adaptation report to see how global warming is impacting on railway infrastructure in England, Scotland and Wales.

Join #RailNatter LIVE to ask your questions about climate, infrastructure and everything in between...

Download the NR report here: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/sustain...

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This week's #RailNatter is going to be a bit of a catch up on The News seeing as so much has been happening of late... The previously advertised episode shall follow next week!

Join to have your say on everything that's been going on in the transport world, and let me know if I've missed anything!

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Tonight, Jennifer Williams of the  @Manchester Evening News  joins us in #RailNatter towers to consider the context of the North's anger over the Integrated Rail Plan, how it fits into the broader failings of government's "levelling up" agenda, and whether the #RailBetrayal will stick...

Join us live(ish) at the usual time!

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Well, we did it. #RailNatter broke the ton.

Consequently, I think it would be a good idea (after what is invariably going to be a long news segment) for us to take a look back at every episode we've done to remember the highlights and perhaps work out if there is any kind of #RailNatter manifesto emerging from all of this...

Join LIVE to recall your favourite moments or indeed remind me of the bits where I messed up!

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Scaled down for COVID but aided by beer and gusto, #RailNatter's first recording in front of a live audience also happens to be ITS 100TH EPISODE!

Join us in Pivni as we wander through the ways to stop trains that have got away with themselves, punctuated by a variety of terminal calamities through recent British Rail history.

Don't worry if you had hoped to get tickets - there'll be another live event in York later this year, with much more venue capacity... Watch this space!

The ticket sales income (less Eventbrite's fee) for this event went straight to York LGBT Forum (https://www.yorklgbtforum.org.uk/) who do vital work. If you want to make an additional donation to them, you can do so via their website (feel free to mark your donation with #RailNatter if you've come via here).

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With the help of journalist and author Samir Jeraj (@sajeraj on Twitter), this week's #RailNatter is looking at the collapse of Carillion, unpicking its impacts on the construction industry, and thinking about the wider societal effects of contractor dominance...

It's a fiddly subject, so feel free to bring along your own experiences and expertise to help out!

Listen to the @Trashfuture Podcast episode I nabbed from here: https://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.co...

Samir's project is for https://www.ecnmy.org/, and if you want to speak to him about your experience of the Carillion collapse, you can contact him over Twitter or at sa.jeraj [at] gmail [dot] com (email snarled for obvious anti-spam reasons).

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Following yet another bout of Welsh politicians making stuff up about HS2, this #RailNatter is going to attempt to tackle the question head on: does Wales get any benefit from HS2? (YES IT DOES.)

Repeated claims to the contrary resurfaced again a week or two ago, and the worst thing isn't that saying as much is damaging for rail investment across the UK, it isn't that it is anti-expert, it is that by being patently untrue it greatly undermines the otherwise solid case for more devolved powers and funding for Wales. So stop repeating it!

Professor Mark Barry's blog (lots of good stuff on here as well as the less good HS2 stuff): https://swalesmetroprof.blog/

Professor Mark Barry's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH6xA...

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In the first of a new #RailNatter sub-series, we'll be joined by Rebecca Wilks (@WilksBecca on Twitter) who is a reporter with The National to talk about Wales' Rhondda line and everything that is wrong with it...

We'll then try and work out some things that might help fix it in the longer-term - join LIVE to ask your questions and make your suggestions!

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Well, straight off the bat dear friend of the show Dr David Turner and I talk about quite a bit of the Victorian period too, so this title doesn't make much sense.

In any case, David joins the third of this year's #RailNatter holiday specials with a bundle of historic delights under his arm that we spread across a table and pore over in no particular order.

What did Christmas look like on Britain's railways in decades and centuries gone by? How did the railways respond to passenger demand over the festive season? Where did we get our trees from? All questions we'll ponder with the aid of the archives!

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Ever walked into a railway station, looked up, and thought "well, that looks delicious"? No? Well, after this year's second #RailNatter holiday special you certainly will...

Storyteller and writer Emily Turner and I go on a boozy tour of the world's most edible-looking railway stations so that you don't have to - and the results are a feast!

Listen to Roundel Round We Go: https://anchor.fm/roundel-round-we-go

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It's the first of our three #RailNatter holiday specials, and this one is LIVE! For your entertainment, we are listing off The Official #RailNatter Top Ten Classic Railway Films and why I think this is the right order for them...

Do you agree or disagree? Are any films missing? Tune in and have your say!

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Last week I had the pleasure of travelling on the first scheduled passenger service through the newly grade-separated Werrington Junction with its impressive diveunder...

This week's #RailNatter shows you what I got up to, including not one but TWO cab rides, an outline of the physical works and an explanation of what the project achieves.

It's a pre-record, but do join the chat LIVE at 7pm on Wednesday!

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With the impacts of the "Integrated" Rail Plan still not really having settled in, government also decided to release the final paper of their Union Connectivity Review... This week's #RailNatter is taking a look!

Given that Sir Peter Hendy - a man with the genuine best interests of the railway at heart and the nous to keep it alive - has put his name to the report, there is surely something useful in here? Right?

Join LIVE to find out - it's yet another classic page-turn!

Tickets for the LIVE, IN-PERSON show on the 22nd January can be bought here (limited numbers available!): https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/railna...

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In the aftermath of the Salisbury rail crash, this week's #RailNatter is looking at the impact of the lowly leaf... Why are these little crispy menaces such a danger to the railway and what are we doing about them?

Join LIVE to get involved and share your thoughts!

Download the documents I reference in this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6sajso7iootjzer/%23RailNatterEp90.zip?dl=0

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It landed last week and it managed to be WORSE than the leaks had suggested - the Conservative government's Integrated Rail Plan cancelled the entire Eastern leg of HS2 and shredded the high speed line across the Pennines. Is there anything good in this document at all?

To find out, this dismal document needs to get the full #RailNatter page-turn treatment. I fear this one is going to be rowdy...

Join LIVE to share your thoughts and frustrations on Johnson's #RailBetrayal.

Watch me guesting on @BowlerHatMan's stream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EgNJ...

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This week is a bad week for Britain's railways, but thankfully this week's #RailNatter comes the day BEFORE we get to read just how bad it is (we'll page-turn it next week)... Nevertheless, it gives us a chance to look at High Speed 2 again, and to understand why the eastern leg between Birmingham, the East Midlands, South Yorkshire, Leeds and the North East is its most important section.

Hate HS2? Come and tell me why and I'll tell you why you are probably wrong... In any case it's another Q&A session so do join LIVE to get stuck in!

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Tim is back! With only one episode remaining in Series 3, Britain's most effervescent ferroequinologist Tim Dunn be joining us on this week's #RailNatter to look back on 30 episodes of #TheArchitectureTheRailwaysBuilt, with behind the scenes pictures, bonus footage and some seriously saucy Bekonscot Model Village chat.

Join the two of us LIVE at 7pm on Wednesday to throw us your questions and get in on the fun!

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It's #COP26, and (in a slight change to the schedule) this week's #RailNatter is going all green, as we have an open session talking about climate change and the different ways in which railways can play a major part in reducing GHG emissions.

It's a LIVE Q&A, so bring your questions and thoughts and we'll see what we can hash out together!

You can find the new merchandise at https://masquette.co.uk/collections/r..., and don't forget to use your discount code if you are a Patreon supporter!

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We've the pleasure of Jonn Elledge's company again tonight, as we both flick through a few of the old Crossrail proposal documents for a laugh, and as a way to distract ourselves from the dismal budget announcements...

When did the name come about? When was it got rid of again? How many serious route options have been considered? Where might the stations have been if not where they are now? All questions we may or may not answer!

Join LIVE to ask your questions and join in on the fun!

Jonn's excellent book, The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything, can be bought here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781...

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This week, The Architecture The Railways Built took a brief look at the Selby Diversion... So obviously, given that it is a thing I never seem to shut up about on Twitter, this is the perfect excuse to do a #RailNatter on why High Speed One *isn't* the UK's first high speed line.

It's a live episode, so tune in at 7pm on Wednesday to ask all your questions!

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I'm in a work whirlwind this week, so how better to unwind than to **checks notes** relive past trauma and tell you all about how whole-route gauge clearance projects work?

Through the lens of a reasonably recent project, this week's #RailNatter will be a sample of my day job through the lens of the Yorkshire Terminals Gauging project, looking at how it resulted in a clear path for the largest* container trains between Doncaster and Leeds.

Join LIVE at 7pm on Wednesday! *actually, W12 doesn't quite cover everything, but more on that in the episode!

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It's Rail Week again, which means we are being joined by another illustrious Young Rail Professional to talk about the skills gap... And we are pleased to have the national chair of the YRP himself on this week's show!

George Chilcott will be talking to us about the continued threats to our industry's skills base, and we'll see if anything has changed since Harriet Glen joined us a year ago.

As ever, it is an open session so do ask us anything by joining LIVE on Wednesday at 7pm!

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This week's #RailNatter is going to be a real treat... Chris Valkoinen from the National Railway Museum is joining us to talk about his new book: "Railways: A History In Drawings" - he'll also be guiding us through the history of technical drawing with the aid of some stunning images...

An episode not to be missed - join LIVE on Weds at 7pm!

If you want to buy your own copy of the book, follow this link and use the discount code shared in the video to get 25% off: https://thamesandhudson.com/railways-...

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Garry Keenor is back to talk about electrification! The new digital edition of the #OLEBook (Overhead Line Electrification for Railways, 6th Edition) is out, and the physical copies are close behind...

For this week's #RailNatter, Garry will take us through the book, talking about how it came about, what it covers, what's in the new edition and how to get hold of it... The digital copy is still free, folks!

Catch us LIVE at 7pm on Wednesday to ask all your electrification questions!

Download the digital edition of the #OLEBook: https://ocs4rail.com/

Garry's #OLEBook kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

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This week's #RailNatter is looking at the link between High Speed 1 and Britain's future High Speed 2 - or rather, why there isn't going to be one (yet).

We'll look at past plans for the link, including one that involved a major new underground station at King's Cross. We'll also explore why, without a through station in central London, a link isn't actually a great idea. We'll even look at what a future link might sensibly look like!

Join us at 7pm on Wednesday - as it's an HS2 episode you'll want to join LIVE to ask your questions!

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It's all very well moaning about Beeching, but have you ever ACTUALLY read the infamous report? Well, after this week's #RailNatter, you'll be able to say you have!

Is it pure evil etched in paper? Did it spell doom for Britain's railways? Did it actually represent the only time anyone in power actually decided to answer the question "what are Britain's railways for"?

It's a classic #RailNatter page-turn, so do join LIVE to shout things at me!

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I’m back in the National Railway Museum North Shed at long last!

Tonight’s #RailNatter brings you all a challenge: can I talk unscripted for an entire hour in the North Shed? Will I survive microphone malfunctions, battery overheating and a general lack of oxygen to bring you a non-stop hour of treats?

See what you need to do to visit the museum (you still need to book ahead): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQYmi…

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It’s another on-location #RailNatter! Join me and a motley crew as we explore one of Europe’s largest construction sites – High Speed 2’s Chalfont Lane staging point for the construction of not one, not two, not three but FOUR record-breaking things: the UK’s first and second longest railway tunnels, the UK’s longest railway viaduct, and Europe’s largest chalk habitat regeneration project.

This episode will look in detail at the HS2 Chiltern Tunnels, getting up close and personal with a tunnel boring machine and touring the factory that manufactures the tunnel lining segments. We’ll also go for a bit of a walk to explore the far reaches of the site…

Watch an excellent and decidedly more concise video from the day, with me popping up here and there, by @Geoff Marshall.

See the official HS2 Ltd TBM tour with the brilliant Adrien (as heard in this podcast too)

Watch the YouTube release of this podcast (for the visuals!)

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This week’s #RailNatter is an utter delight, with Bessie Matthews joining us to talk about her role on the railway and her incredible (and wonderfully artistic) efforts to raise money for Samaritans by making the most of a big bag (and later a much littler bag) of ballast…

Join in LIVE(ish) at 7pm on Wednesday!

Find out more about Samaritans here: https://www.samaritans.org/

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PART TWO The UK government has FINALLY released their Transport Decarbonisation Plan, and in this week’s #RailNatter we’ll be looking at whether it’s worth the paper it hasn’t been printed on… I have so many questions that need answering, frankly.

It’s a classic page-turn, and you can see what whent on in the live chat on YouTube.

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We’re getting back to our #RailNatter roots in this week’s episode, as I’ll be doing a mostly “big face” Q&A to talk about the e-Highway plans proposed by the UK government for trial on the M180 near Scunthorpe. Is putting catenary over a motorway a good idea? How will it actually work in practice? Is this yet another distraction technique for a government desperate not to actually invest in rail?

Tune in LIVE to find out!

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This was Ela’s first proper upload. How did she do? Tweet Gareth and tell him!

The UK government has FINALLY released their Transport Decarbonisation Plan, and in this week’s #RailNatter we’ll be looking at whether it’s worth the paper it hasn’t been printed on…

I have so many questions that need answering, frankly.

It’s a classic page-turn, so do join LIVE to get involved!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

This week we’ve the pleasure of being joined by Iain Kitt, who will use British Transport Films to guide this #RailNatter through the story of rail freight’s twentieth century decline…

We look at the key figures and establish if the common villains actually had anything to do with this trend, or whether there were bigger things at stake. Indeed, we explore how this is actually a story of innovation against almighty odds, and one that is now, ever so slowly, paying off again.

Join LIVE to get involved!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

Right, well it is high time we had another proper live #RailNatter like the olden days, so your wish is my command…

I’m back in the chair this week to talk about the Great Central Railway, why it was brilliant, why that doesn’t make it some form of panacea today, and to talk about how engineers choose between reusing existing alignments versus creating new ones.

Join LIVE on Wednesday at 7pm!

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This week’s episode is charging forwards at an increasing rate of knots, as Steve Wood guides us through the ways that we can make trains faster… And no, Hyperloop is not the answer!

We cover the law of unintended consequences, bang the “the railway is a system” gong a few times, and point out that playing with the slow bits may well be far more useful than playing with the fast bits. We also touch on HS2 and get a signallers perspective on the beauty of Colton Junction!

I’m properly on holiday this time, so whilst you can all join LIVE I will in fact be entirely unable to… So fingers crossed this launches when it is supposed to!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

We’re back for a proper live #RailNatter episode, and this time Danny Scroggins is joining us to talk about the three generations of conventional signalling control and the three generations of conventional signalling interlocking…

You’ve been asking for signalling episodes, so this one should really hit the spot!

Join LIVE to ask your questions and get involved!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

Last week, the British rail industry returned to Long Marston after a year’s hiatus, as Rail Live 2021 kicked off… Whilst lots of us in the industry have been sorely missing the event, lots of you don’t get to visit at all, so I thought I’d dedicate a nice long episode towards showing you what it’s all about!

First up, I walk through the site and give you an overview of what visiting is like, what sort of things you get to see and why it happens in the first place. Then I’ll pick out some things that particularly interested me, like the Merseyrail Class 777, the Network Rail NMT, the Network Rail helicopters and the Vivarail Class 230. There’s lots of other stuff to see as well – plus a lot of cameos from past and future #RailNatter guests!

I round off with a good long chat with Nigel Harris, managing editor of RAIL magazine and the man in charge of making Rail Live a reality each year.

I’ll drop into the chat LIVE, so do join in the fun as there are lots of easter eggs strewn about for you to spot!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

Hello from the mid-Rail Live pub! As a result of my being down in Stratford-upon-Avon (recording next week’s #RailNatter!), this week’s episode is a pre-record and we are revisiting track gauge once more…

Having established why standard track gauge is 4ft 8.5in, now we will spend an hour working out why it *isn’t* 4ft 8.5in!

Do join in LIVE with the chatter as I’ll be dropping in to say hello!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

This week’s #RailNatter is picking up after our Welsh railway network episode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyJBN…) – and this time we are in SCOTLAND!

What should the Scottish railway network actually look like? I’ll take a more analytical look at things and think about how our “algorithm” might be improved to create optimised and realistic rail networks entirely automatically…

Join LIVE to have your say!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

IT’S HERE! The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail has FINALLY been published, and we’ve had almost exactly a week of everyone shouting about it.

But what does it actually say? What doesn’t it say? What is missing? Will it mean real positive change or more of the same? Well, in this beefy #RailNatter two-parter, we’ll be doing the now-traditional page-turn to attempt to answer all of these questions, and more…

Join LIVE at the usual time to share your thoughts!

Download the report here.

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

IT’S HERE! The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail has FINALLY been published, and we’ve had almost exactly a week of everyone shouting about it.

But what does it actually say? What doesn’t it say? What is missing? Will it mean real positive change or more of the same? Well, in this beefy #RailNatter two-parter, we’ll be doing the now-traditional page-turn to attempt to answer all of these questions, and more…

Join LIVE at the usual time to share your thoughts!

Download the report here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publica…

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

We’re diving back into the history of British DMUs in this week’s #RailNatter – and this time esteemed guest Dr Kevin Tennent and I will be setting our sights on the dreaded Pacer!

Given these trains ran their final Welsh services last week, it felt like a good time to pick through the common myths surrounding them: first and foremost that their poor quality was a justified compromise to allow the “saving of rural railway lines”. It’s not true, and in this episode, we’ll tell you why!Join LIVE at 7pm on Weds to get in on the fun. Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

This week’s episode of #RailNatter is diving into the government’s “Bus Back Better” report… That’s right, we’ve hopped over to the dark side!

Is the paper any good? Do I actually agree with most or even all of it?

There’s also A LOT of news to catch up on… Join LIVE on Weds at 7pm to go through it all!

Download the report here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publica…

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

Given that government is still prevaricating on the critical need to electrify Britain’s railways, this week’s #RailNatter​ is once again going to explore the question: why bother?

A couple of weeks ago, RIA (the Rail Industry Association) published another report laying out the incontrovertible evidence supporting conventional electrification. With the aid of the facts and figures held within, we’ll topple every tired argument against electrification in turn.

Join LIVE on Wednesday at 7pm to have your say.

Download the report here: https://www.riagb.org.uk/RIA/Newsroom…​

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at https://patreon.com/garethdennis​ or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis​. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord​.

On the 12th August 2020, a High Speed Train derailed near Stonehaven, killing three people including the driver and conductor.

With the RAIB having just published their interim report on the incident, this episode of #RailNatter​ is going to pick through and pull out the key findings thus far, exploring what we know and what we still don’t know.

Join the discussion LIVE on Wednesday at 7pm (UK time).

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at https://patreon.com/garethdennis​ or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis​. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord​.

We’re doing an impersonation of WTYP this week… Because #RailNatter​ is going to unpick the tale of the Tesco tunnel collapse in Gerrards Cross!

Why did the tunnel collapse? Why was that structural form chosen? Why was the tunnel needed at all? What even is Tescos?

Join us LIVE to find out answers to all this and more!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at https://patreon.com/garethdennis​ or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis​. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord​.

It’s another Welsh episode!

The Welsh railway network is a mess – in fact, there isn’t really a “Welsh” network at all, it is just a series of branches of the English one… In this week’s #RailNatter​, we are discussing why that might be, how we might reverse that state of affairs, and – ultimately – what a useful and realistic Welsh railway network might actually look like!

Join LIVE to have your say and to see what I think…

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at https://patreon.com/garethdennis​ or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis​. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord​.

We are joined by not one but TWO guests in this week’s #RailNatter​…

Alistair Baldwin and Kelly Shuttleworth were the joint authors of the Institute for Government’s excellent paper “How governments use evidence to make transport policy” that was released in February, and I am very pleased to say that they will be joining us for a classic #RailNatter​ page-turn of that very report!

Join us LIVE to ask your questions and share your thoughts!

Download the paper here: https://www.instituteforgovernment.or…​

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at https://patreon.com/garethdennis​ or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis​. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord​.

In a change to the previously advertised schedule, I’m filling in with a pre-record in this week’s #RailNatter​ (we’ll have our first dual-guest episode next week)… We’re covering the origins of “standard” track gauge!

We’ll bust open the myths about horse’s bottoms and Romans (see also: the Space Shuttle episode) and look at the far more interesting reality of early railway infrastructure development – and not for the last time I am sure!

Join LIVE(ish) to keep up to date with the chat, even if I am not about to follow!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at https://patreon.com/garethdennis​ or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis​. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord​.

This week’s #RailNatter​ is a return to the railway colouring-in book!

In the previous Crayonista episode, we listed seven top tips for creating vaguely useful or realistic railway alignments. This time I’ll be jumping into Google Earth and looking in more detail at the process of actually creating sensible alignments using these top tips…

Where are we linking up? Well, I will be attempting to add Wetherby back into the national rail network!

Join LIVE to watch along and have your say!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at https://patreon.com/garethdennis​ or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis​. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord​.

We’re flicking through another PDF on screen today, and this time it is the rather exciting Rail for All report created for the Scottish Greens.

No other UK party has created a document like this in modern history – and the country is all the worse off for it. But does it hold up to scrutiny?

Join LIVE to find out.

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at https://patreon.com/garethdennis​ or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis​. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord​.

We’ve done it – #RailNatter​ is a year old!

To celebrate, we’re getting all of the Patreon supporters on to talk about their favourite moments and episodes, and more importantly to hand out the GOLDEN PANDROL CLIP to the award winning episodes…

Join the chaos LIVE at the usual time!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at https://patreon.com/garethdennis​ or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis​. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord​.

Much as the situation appears to be improving year on year, the railways still aren’t safe enough, as we were tragically reminded of earlier this year with the death of Tyler Byrne at Surbiton station.

But how has railway staff safety changed over the years? Is there anything we can learn from accidents from decades and even centuries gone by? There are few better people to ask than Dr Mike Esbester, who leads the Railway Work, Life & Death project out of the University of Porstmouth. We’ll talk about both contemporary and historic safety incidents, and see what we can learn from both.

Join us LIVE as we chat about the project and what Mike has learned…

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at https://patreon.com/garethdennis​ or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis​. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord​.

This week’s #RailNatter​ is harking back to the days of AOL and email chains (oh, and more recently, THAT daft Twitter thread about track gauge, horses bottoms and rocket boosters)…

Yes, friend of the show John Morgan Christoph is joining us to bring his space and geology skills to bear and guide us through the more interesting spacey side-stories associated with this silly set of myths! Why did the Shuttle use solid rocket boosters? Why did they travel by rail? How did the railways help build the Kennedy Space Centre in the first place?

Join us LIVE at the usual time to find out this and more!

The Hyperloop paper is here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/…​
The Native Land map can be found here: https://native-land.ca/​

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

It’s another solo #RailNatter​, and this week we are also doing another page turn…

This time we are picking through the West Yorkshire mass transit proposals. Are they any good? Is there anything that needs to change? What is the likelihood they will actually happen? Is there anything we can learn from them?

All this and more, LIVE and with you lot asking the questions!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

We’re back for another #RailNatter​, and this one is somewhat topical…

A month after everyone got a really good look at the inside of the US Capitol buildings, we are joined by the brilliant Ann Gavaghan (@anngav on Twitter) to talk about the tunnels underneath this complex of buildings.

Join us LIVE as the secrets are revealed to ask all your questions!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

#TheArchitectureTheRailwaysBuilt​ has returned to our tellies, which means that Britain’s most effervescent ferroequinologist is coming back on #RailNatter​!

One of the loveliest and most pleasingly knowledgeable railway folks out there, replete with his array of books, miniatures and scarves, joins us again to talk about his new series, with more behind the scenes goodies and hints as to what lies in store for us in future episodes.

Join us LIVE to ask all of your questions and to see the two of us quaff wine like it is out of fashion…

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

#RailNatter​ started with the first of the coronavirus lockdowns… With the virus having been around in the UK for around a year, and with passenger levels still at less than 20% of pre-COVID levels, what does the future look like for Britain’s railways?

For Episode 46, we’ll look at a lot of the myths, forgotten realities and plans elsewhere in the world to get an idea of whether the doom and gloom currently being peddled is in fact misplaced…

Join LIVE to ask all of your questions, make your suggestions as to what happens next, and generally get involved in the discussion!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

For Episode 45 of #RailNatter, we’re grabbing a copy of the National Infrastructure Commission’s “Rail Needs Assessment for the Midlands and the North”.

This was supposed to be the stepping off point for a revolution in railway transport for the regions outside of London and the south, and yet it appears to have signified the start of a major abandonment of by the current government. But why?

Join me LIVE to ask your questions as I flick through the report and explore its contents in detail…

Read my piece on why the report was a failure here: https://garethdennis.medium.com/the-n…

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

We’re back for our first LIVE #RailNatter of 2021… For episode 44 we are heading to South Wales, where James Bennett will update us on the progress of the South Wales Metro, and indeed explain a bit more about what it is.

Will I have to hammer the #NotAMetro buzzer? What type of traction is being used where? How much of the system will be electrified?

Join us LIVE for the answers to these and any other questions you might have!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

That’s it! 2020 is finally over! It can only get better, right?!

To celebrate, this episode of #RailNatter is a corker: we’ve got Justin Roczniak a.k.a. @donoteat01 off of Franklin and @Well There’s Your Problem Podcast bursting some preconceptions that us exceptionalist Brits might have about US railroads… Oh, and quite a lot of other stuff, too (this one ran long, as you might have imagined it might)!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

Well, everyone is hopefully stuffed full of carb-rich food at this point, and given that (for British viewers at least) it is probably four degrees and drizzling outside, I thought it would be best for us to think about snowier times…

Who better to join us to talk about snow than certified/certifiable snow nerd and in-denial Bahnnerd Alex Priestley? We’ll cover what snow is, how it impacts on the railway, how the railway deals with it, and two times we escaped snow-based railway calamity (and yes, we’ll mention snow sheds and jet engines mounted on flatbeds).

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

This episode is also the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

Yuletide Greetings, all! It’s the first of the #RailNatter holiday specials, and Bonnie Price has joined us to talk about what on earth the railways get up to when the trains are all tucked up in their depots!

We cover what a blockade is, what sort of thing we do when they are in place, and why we both think the future of the railways would be brighter if we were more comfortable with spreading them around the year a bit more…

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

Four post-war railway disasters changed the modern permanent way (a.k.a. track system) more than any others: Hither Green, Tattenhall, Ulleskelf and Hatfield.

All of these fatal tragedies exposed cracks in our understanding of the way the permanent way worked, resulting in the industry learning, developing, and becoming safer. This week’s #RailNatter will explore the legacy of each in turn.

Join LIVE to ask your questions and hopefully see how important and powerful incremental innovation is.

Note that this episode contains images and descriptions of train derailments that some viewers may find upsetting.

I harp on about slab track quite a bit, not least in relation to its improvement in the whole-life costs and impacts of intensively-used railway infrastructure… But what exactly is it, and how does it work?

Well, Ivana Avramović is from PORR, which is the world’s leading manufacturer of slab track, and she’ll be joining us for tonight’s #RailNatter to explain all!

Tune in LIVE to ask your questions!

This week’s #RailNatter is for everyone who thinks that cycling and railways are a perfect match… Lindsay Broadwell and I will be talking all things e-bike! We’ll touch on bike provision on trains, trolley buses and nuclear, too…

See you LIVE for much chat!

There’s been a lot of transport nonsense in the news recently: Hyperloop pretended it carried some passengers, Elon Musk’s Loop outed itself as completely useless, the Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro is asking for people to submit ideas as to what on earth it is…

In all cases, real transport solutions are pushed further away. So I thought I’d do an episode of #RailNatter explaining why it is so important to trash talk this junk, how best to do it, and the best tools in your rhetorical armoury to make use of.

Join LIVE to ask all your questions!

In Episode 36 of #RailNatter, we are being joined by bona fide young rail professional Simon Kendler!

Given that both of us call ourselves sustainable transport advocates, we thought it would make sense to discuss what exactly “sustainability” means in a transport context… What constitutes “sustainable” transport? Is it all about the colour green? Are railways sustainable? Is anything?

Join us LIVE to ask us your questions!

For Episode 35 of #RailNatter, we are trying a new intermittent format: Scenic Rail Tours of An Hour In Length (as requested by the Patreon people)!

For the first episode, we are going back to my roots and taking a virtual trip from Inverurie to Elgin… What is there to see and do? What will we find out along the way? Will this format actually work?

Join LIVE to find out!

Here’s the link to the NLS’s old mapping comparison website: https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/

This week, I am very pleased to say we have long-time audio-only #RailNatter listener (oh, and the Independent’s Policy Correspondent) Jon Stone joining us to talk about his experiences of mainland Europe’s railways during his time posted as Brussels correspondent…

Where could Britain learn from our mainland railway colleagues? Is there anything that we do better? Just how terrible is #RailNatter in an audio-only format?

Join us LIVE where Jon will be answering these and many other questions.

In Episode 33 of #RailNatter, we are looking at what a fixed link to the island of Ireland (via Northern Ireland) might look like…

Should it be high speed? Are either a bridge or a tunnel possible? Should it link from Wales, England or Scotland? How much might it cost? Given that Boris Johnson likes the idea, is the whole thing completely nonsensical from an engineering perspective?

Join me LIVE for a chat all about it… But a warning: we may raise more questions than answers!

This week (or rather, a month ago as this is a pre-record), railway writer Richard Long is joining us to talk about the mysterious Island of Tube Trains, or the Isle of Wight as it is generally written on the map.

This will be a #RailNatter full of tales of little engines, gauge clearance and a second chance for many a former metro train…

Buy Richard’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B01DS2I7H4
Or here if you want to avoid Amazon: https://iwsr-store.solent.co/product/…
Find Richard on FB here: https://www.facebook.com/rclongauthor

This week’s #RailNatter aims to get to the root of an issue incredibly close to my heart, and something we as an industry do a very bad job of: actually letting everyone get on our trains.

In Episode 31, we’ll be looking at the issue of level boarding: what do I mean by this, why is it an issue, and is it as hard to achieve as lots of people say it is? I’ll also look at why an industry in the 2020s still thinks it is okay to exclude huge numbers of people from using trains like everyone else.

Join us LIVE to ask all of your level boarding questions… This won’t be the last episode on this subject, either.

It is #RailWeek! Which means we are having a special Rail Week-themed #RailNatter!

In Episode 30, we'll be joined by brilliant transport planner Harriet Glen for a live, hour-long ASK US ANYTHING session! Interested in a career in the railways? This is the Q&A for you!

We'll be setting out to answer the following questions... What is the skills gap and how bad is it? Why do we have a skills gap? How can we look to address the skills gap?

As promised, here are some links to help with...

FINDING RAIL JOBS: https://www.railwaypeople.com/

https://www.morson.com/disciplines/ra...

https://www.prospects.ac.uk/jobs-and-...

OUTREACH:

https://stemettes.org/

https://www.thegirlsnetwork.org.uk/

https://www.wes.org.uk/content/educat...

RESEARCH:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/seeing-be...

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting me at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis.

In this week's #RailNatter, I'm talking about all of the ways in which railway rails - yes, just the rails themselves - give up and stop holding trains up in the air.

What's a squat? Fatigue got you down? Want to crack gauge corner cracking? Well, this is the episode for you...

Join LIVE to ask your questions and I'll do my best to respond!

*we won't be covering one hundred failure modes

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting me at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis.

The venerable Dr David Turner is back on the show! In Episode 28 of #RailNatter, we'll be turning our attention to the humble quail...

Why? Well, because it allows us to explore the shape and development of supply chains on the British railway network through time, including thinking about how they operate now. It also lets us look at wider international supply chains, and how for a long time freight across the globe moved through Britain (for better or worse). But most of all, because an episode on quails is what all of us need at this point.

Join us LIVE for the usual japes, and bring along something to drink!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting me at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis.

In a change to the announced schedule, Episode 27 of #RailNatter is going to be a marathon page turn of Network Rail's freshly published Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy - a.k.a. The Electrification Map Report!

Join us LIVE as we flick through all 257 pages, check out all of the areas that AREN'T proposed for wiring and consider how realistic it is that Britain might finally get the rolling programme of electrification that was first mooted over a hundred years ago.

Download the report: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-cont...

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting me at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis.

We're finding out how sleeper trains work in this week's #RailNatter... And Edward Schofield (@CapotrenoEd on Twitter) shall be our guide!

You've been asking for this one - and it is a subject I'm looking forward to learning a lot about... Join us LIVE to ask your questions!

Ed's blog: https://railguideeurope.com/night-tra...

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/5CPAC8W

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting me at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis.

Well here we go - it is finally time for a #RailNatter with interactive railway creation... In Episode 25, I'll be providing you with the tools you need to make your crayon railways as realistic as possible!

I'll show you how to dodge towns, make use of existing alignments and skip your way between ancient woodlands as we look over a few examples of railways that I've already fiddled with...

Join the natter LIVE to see a railway appear in real time, to have your say over how it looks, and to ask any burning questions you might have!

Mike Spencer's postcode map: https://mikerspencer.carto.com/viz/c7...

PRE toolbox: permanentrail.co.uk/toolbox

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting me at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis.

We've talked about it before, but what is road pricing and is it the future for managing road traffic? Well, this is what Edward Leigh (leader of Smarter Cambridge Transport) and I will be talking about in Episode 24 of #RailNatter!

With electric vehicles being the future of road transport, income from fuel duty will start rapidly decreasing. At the same time, road users need to be rewarded for reducing their miles and for driving sensible vehicles. Can road pricing achieve this?

Join us LIVE to find out and ask all your questions!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting me at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis.

In this week's #RailNatter we're being joined by Luke Agbaimoni (@TubeMapper on Twitter) to talk about his mission to expose the ostensibly mundane as the aesthetically beautiful!

Here are Luke's social media links: tubemapper.com (website) @tubemapper (instagram and twitter)

Buy a first edition signed copy of the book (!): https://unbound.com/books/tubemapper/

Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/075099437...

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting me at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis.

In this week's #RailNatter I'm very pleased to say we will be joined by the electrifying Garry Keenor (@25kV on Twitter)!

In Episode 22, we'll be talking about all things OLE (OCS if you're elsewhere in the world)... Given that national electrification was suggested seriously back in the 1910s, how on earth can we finally get Britain to #ElectrifyAllTheThings, over a century later?

Join us LIVE to ask all of your electrification questions!

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Episode 21 of #RailNatter is being hijacked as a #NotAMetro soapbox!

This is one of my all-time bug-bears: what is and is not a “metro”, and why the UK in particular is fixated on calling tram systems “metros” despite them being a long way short of that. But where does the line sit?

Is the DLR a metro? Is the Tyne and Wear Metro a metro? Is Thameslink a metro? Watch to see as I try to create the definitive categorisation system for railways!

Episode 20 of #RailNatter is going to be an hour of me making a rod for my own back, no doubt... Why? Because I am going to make my proposal for what the organisational structure of Britain's railways should look like!

Do I want a return to Grouping? Sectorised BR? The Japanese model? Tune in to find out!

(Here's Alasdair Rae's CityMetric piece explaining his Federal England map: https://www.citymetric.com/politics/w...)

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We're LIVE again for Episode 19 of #RailNatter, and I am very pleased to say we'll have the brilliant Lucy Prior MBE joining us to talk about STEM... or is that STEAM?

Science, Technology, Engineering, ARTS and Mathematics: Are we broadening the description too much, or are we just acknowledging that engineering is as creative as it is technical?

This is the subject that got the two of us together in person for the first time, though in true me style we never ended up actually talking about it. Now's the chance for us to put that right... Join in on the action!

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Morpeth Curve - a ridiculous kink in Britain's 125mph East Coast Main Line that has tipped more than one train into the adjacent housing estate...

In this week's #RailNatter, I'll be postulating on why it exists, looking at what we might do about it, and thinking on the tragedy and comedy of successive derailments in this small Northumbrian town.

I'm away for this one... But through the wonders of modern technology, you can still join this episode at 7pm and chat away LIVE (ish)!

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Seeing as trans-Pennine infrastructure was in the news recently, this week's #RailNatter is going to cover THE WOODHEAD ROUTE and why "reopening" it is an idea beloved by nostalgists that isn't rooted in reality.

Join me to tell me why I'm wrong - and it's just me this week, so we'll be doing a lot of nattering, no doubt!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

In this week's #RailNatter, Andrew White is joining us to talk about a topic close to our hearts, but perhaps from an unusual angle... What are the BENEFITS of closing railway lines?

Are there any? Are we doing the work of the devil in even talking about closing railways? Join us LIVE to get involved and tell us what you think!

Check out Walks Around Britain at their website: walksaroundbritain.co.uk

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In this week's #RailNatter, we're diving underneath London again and looking at one of my favourite transportation art projects... Art on the Underground.

And we are being joined by signaller and all-round urban transit buff Charlotte Monroe (@BeingCharley on Twitter) who is going to tell us all about it!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

This week, I'm delighted to welcome Prab onto #RailNatter! In Episode 14, we'll be talking about carbon emissions in construction... How do you calculate them? How do you reduce them? Are we doing enough? Is concrete evil?

We'll also touch on the experiences of entering and thriving in the rail industry as someone who doesn't fit within the "prevailing engineering demographic".

Circular Ecology Website (the Inventory of Carbon and Energy can be downloaded from here): https://circularecology.com/

Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator: https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse... Harvard University Implicit Association Test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit...

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We've got Geoff Marshall on! I'm delighted to say that Geoff is going to be joining us to talk about all things Underground (that's with a capital U)...

Episode 13 of #RailNatter (our fourteenth episode, so hopefully things will run smoother than last time) will take us on a tour of London's subterranean railway network!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

Well, it has finally happened. We are talking about Beeching. In Episode 12 of #RailNatter, we are unpicking the mythos of Beeching, helped by the historical handiwork of Dr David Turner, who is back for his second appearance (which I think makes him a "friend of the show").

Was Beeching the harbinger of railway destruction? Should we reverse Beeching? What does that actually mean? Was Beeching good or bad? Was there more going on? What would the railways look like today if Beeching hadn't happened? Is Beeching just an allegory for the demise of a British - and particularly English - identity that never really existed in the first place?

David's channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaNn...

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You've all been asking me for it, so here it is: the (first) signalling episode!

Melanie Osborne is joining us for Episode 11 of #RailNatter, and she's going to be telling us all how to get trains from A to B without bumping into things. Why are train traffic lights upside down? What is semaphore? Who is Balise? All questions we may or may not answer in varying degrees of detail - in all seriousness, we're all going to be learning a lot in this one!

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This week's #RailNatter is like a Harry Hill fight between British small talk topics...

In Episode 10 (we've reached double figures!), meteorologist and thinly-veiled bahnnerd Alex Priestley will be talking about how weather is a constant challenge to railways, and how climate change is making it worse. We'll sail through a few of the big hitters (Dawlish as a biggie) and might also mention a few tales you might not have heard of.

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

I'm pleased to say we've been joined by the brilliant Jonn Elledge (@JonnElledge on twitter) for this week's #RailNatter!

In Episode 9, Jonn is going to guide us through his Official and Objective Ranking of London Terminals™ - who knows what other tidbits we'll stumble upon?

Jonn's original piece in CityMetric is here: https://www.citymetric.com/transport/...

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It's time to slow things down a bit for Episode 8... This week's #RailNatter is going to be a leisurely stroll through the story of the Forth Bridge, warts and all (who am I kidding, there are no warts, this thing is the greatest structure humankind has ever created).

Without 200 slides to hammer through this one will be much more of a natter, so do check in live to get involved and share your stories!

My Medium piece on the Forth Bridge is here: https://medium.com/@garethdennis/the-...

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We're onto Episode 7 of #RailNatter, and I'm very pleased to say that Britain's most effervescent ferroequinologist Tim Dunn is joining us to talk about his new TV show: The Architecture the Railways Built... #RailwayArchitecture started this week on UKTV Yesterday, and you can see it at 20:00 (UK time) on Tuesday evenings!

What is the show about? Where will Tim end up? What's in store for us over the coming weeks? Tune in to find out and ask us your questions...

More info about Tim's show here: https://yesterday.uktv.co.uk/shows/ar...

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It's Episode 6 of #RailNatter, and this time we're doing a bit of alternate history... On the APT!

What might Britain's railways have looked like if the Advanced Passenger Train project had succeeded? What small changes might have resulted in that happening? Would there have been any downsides? What would the trains be doing now? We'll dig into all of this, and more!

Link to the Hornby/Hitachi NHS competition: https://www.hornby.com/uk-en/nhs-comp

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Here is this week's #RailNatter... In Episode 5 we are talking about BEER and everything Dr David Turner and I can think of that connects this fine drink with the railways!

We cover the complex relationship between supply chains and railways, hint at why Beeching wasn't the baddie everyone says he is (oooooh), talk about Burton quite a lot, and imbibe a few ales in the process!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

Here is this week's #RailNatter... In Episode 4 we are talking about all things hydrogen with (I'm pleased to say) Alstom's Mike Muldoon!

Are hydrogen trains a good idea? What is the hydrogen economy? Are battery trains better? All is answered here!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting me at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis.

Here is this week's #RailNatter... In Episode 3 we are talking about "Rail over the Pennines" and all that entails (amongst other things)!

How many lines crossed the Pennine watershed in the past, and how many do now? How many lines are electrified? How does trans-Pennine railway history compare with the Scottish Central Belt? We cover it all here!

Link to the episode of Well There's Your Problem that I guested on: https://youtu.be/38-MKEap0AQ

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It's time for Episode 2 of #RailNatter, and this time we're talking about the Class 158 Express Sprinters... and the history of Sprinter trains/British Rail Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs) more generally!

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This week we're looking at the list of rail pinch points that I (mostly) came up with and featured in Channel 4's Dispatches on Monday!

Head to the map of pinch points here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Emq...

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As a trial run for the proper #RailNatter series, I did a live Periscope Q&A on High Speed 2 and answered as many questions as I could in an hour... Now it's here for you to re-watch!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.