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! Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis . Merch at https://garethdennis.co.uk/merch . Join in the discussion ...
Apr 19, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep 163•Transcript available on Metacast 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! Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via h...
Apr 12, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Ep 162•Transcript available on Metacast 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... Enjoyed this? Please d...
Apr 05, 2023•1 hr 20 min•Ep 161•Transcript available on Metacast 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! Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose cha...
Mar 29, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep 160•Transcript available on Metacast 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! 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 ....
Mar 22, 2023•55 min•Ep 159•Transcript available on Metacast 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... 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 t...
Mar 15, 2023•1 hr 20 min•Ep 158•Transcript available on Metacast 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, exh...
Mar 08, 2023•36 min•Ep 157•Transcript available on Metacast 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... Enjoyed this? Please do ...
Mar 01, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep 156•Transcript available on Metacast 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 . 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 discus...
Feb 22, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep 155•Transcript available on Metacast 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... Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #Rai...
Feb 15, 2023•42 min•Ep 154•Transcript available on Metacast 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 E...
Feb 08, 2023•1 hr 20 min•Ep 153•Transcript available on Metacast 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. 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 dis...
Feb 01, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Ep 152•Transcript available on Metacast 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! Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis . ...
Jan 25, 2023•1 hr 21 min•Ep 151•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 18, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Ep 150•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 11, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Ep 149•Transcript available on Metacast 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://crossborde...
Jan 04, 2023•1 hr 26 min•Ep 148•Transcript available on Metacast 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! Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://pat...
Dec 28, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep 147•Transcript available on Metacast 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! 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 ....
Dec 21, 2022•2 hr 39 min•Ep 146•Transcript available on Metacast 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? Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose chan...
Dec 14, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep 145•Transcript available on Metacast 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....
Dec 07, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep 144•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Nov 30, 2022•1 hr 27 min•Ep 143•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethde...
Nov 23, 2022•57 min•Ep 142•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://...
Nov 16, 2022•2 hr 49 min•Ep 141•Transcript available on Metacast 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... Enjoyed this? Ple...
Nov 09, 2022•52 min•Ep 140•Transcript available on Metacast 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. 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 ht...
Nov 02, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep 139•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change a...
Oct 26, 2022•38 min•Ep 138•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Oct 19, 2022•52 min•Ep 137•Transcript available on Metacast 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... Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at ht...
Oct 12, 2022•1 hr 25 min•Ep 136•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://pat...
Oct 05, 2022•1 hr•Ep 135•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Sep 28, 2022•56 min•Ep 134•Transcript available on Metacast 
