#Railnatter

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#RailNatter Episode 133: Skills gap? What skills gap? 3 Sep 28, 2022

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

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

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

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.

#RailNatter Episode 132: US railroads can be Bad, Actually Sep 21, 2022

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

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

#RailNatter Episode 131: New government, new ministers, but what’s next for UK rail? Sep 14, 2022

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

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

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

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

#RailNatter Episode 130: How engineers made the Great Western Britain’s first 125mph railway line Sep 07, 2022

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

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

#RailNatter Episode 129: Not quite ten of mainland Europe’s missing high speed rail links Aug 31, 2022

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

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

#RailNatter Episode 128: Have Stadler really built Britain’s best train fleet? Aug 24, 2022

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

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

#RailNatter Episode 127: Avanti and the ”unofficial strikes” (yes, it’s a News episode) Aug 17, 2022

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

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

#RailNatter Episode 126: The Transport Select Committee’s Integrated Rail Plan report Aug 10, 2022

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

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

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/railnatter. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

#RailNatter Episode 125: What if the InterCity 125 had never existed? Aug 03, 2022

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

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

#RailNatter Episode 124: Railways and modernity in Scandinavia Jul 27, 2022

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

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

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