#Railnatter (Gareth Dennis)

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.

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? 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 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!

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.

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/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

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!

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 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.

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.

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'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.

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.

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 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.

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...

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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.

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

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, 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.

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/

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!

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

#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.

#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.

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.

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.

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.

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​.

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​.

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​.

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​.

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​.

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​.

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’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​.

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​.

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​.

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.

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...

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 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!

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 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

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.

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.

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 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!

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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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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 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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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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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.

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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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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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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!

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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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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!

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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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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.

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…

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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.

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.

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!

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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!

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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.

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!

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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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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 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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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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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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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.

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 at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

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.

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 at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

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

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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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.

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 at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

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!

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.

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 https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

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.

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 at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

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!

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 at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

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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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

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.

Merchandise at https://masquette.co.uk/collections/railnatter (don't forget to use your discount code if you are a Patreon supporter)!

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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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 at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

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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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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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.

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 at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

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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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!

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 at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

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!

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.

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!

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 at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

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!

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 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!

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.

Cities are extremely important, despite only one of them getting much meaningful attention in the UK. Network Rail and WPI Economics have pulled together a report looking at cities and the trends that are defining their futures right now, including post-COVID behavioural changes, and it piqued my interest. Let's take a look together in the usual way!

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 at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

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