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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•2 hr 37 min•Ep 41•Transcript available on Metacast 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•2 hr 42 min•Ep 40•Transcript available on Metacast 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•2 hr 39 min•Ep 39•Transcript available on Metacast 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•2 hr 31 min•Ep 37•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•2 hr 49 min•Ep 36•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•2 hr 40 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•2 hr 31 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast 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•2 hr 31 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast 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•2 hr 41 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast 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•2 hr 32 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•2 hr 30 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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! Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting me at patre...
Aug 12, 2020•2 hr 31 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast 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!...
Aug 05, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast 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... ) Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/gar...
Jul 29, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast 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....
Jul 22, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast 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)! Enjoyed this? ...
Jul 15, 2020•30 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast 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 garethdenn...
Jul 08, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw lo...
Jul 01, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jun 24, 2020•2 hr 53 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jun 17, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast 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 garethdenni...
Jun 10, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast 
