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/...
Mar 24, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 52
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...
Mar 24, 2021•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 51
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 ...
Feb 25, 2021•2 hr 4 min•Ep. 50
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.m...
Feb 25, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 49
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. ...
Feb 16, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 48
#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...
Feb 04, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 47
#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 s...
Feb 04, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 46
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… Re...
Jan 25, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 45
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.c...
Jan 20, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 44
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 ...
Jan 06, 2021•2 hr•Ep. 43
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 ye...
Dec 30, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 42
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.co...
Dec 23, 2020•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 41
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. No...
Dec 17, 2020•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 40
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!
Dec 16, 2020•1 hr 39 min•Ep. 39
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!
Dec 03, 2020•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 37
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...
Nov 26, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 37
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!...
Nov 25, 2020•1 hr 49 min•Ep. 36
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/...
Nov 18, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 35
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....
Nov 11, 2020•1 hr 40 min•Ep. 34
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!...
Oct 29, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 33
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...
Oct 23, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 32
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. Jo...
Oct 23, 2020•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 31
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...
Oct 07, 2020•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 31
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 p...
Sep 30, 2020•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 30
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 episo...
Sep 23, 2020•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 29
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:...
Sep 16, 2020•2 hr 3 min•Ep. 28
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/garethdenn...
Sep 09, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 27
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...
Sep 02, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 26
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 t...
Aug 26, 2020•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 25
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...
Aug 19, 2020•48 min•Ep. 24
