#Railnatter

Latest Episodes:

Episode 63: The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail (PART ONE) May 26, 2021

Show notes

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…

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 62: Pacers were bad and saved nothing (with Dr Kevin Tennent) May 19, 2021

Show notes

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.

#RailNatter Episode 61: Let’s talk about buses May 13, 2021

Show notes

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…

#Railnatter Episode 60: Why bother with electrification? May 06, 2021

Show notes

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…

#RailNatter Episode 59: The Carmont derailment (looking at the interim report) Apr 28, 2021

Show notes

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).

#RailNatter Episode 58: That time Gerrards Cross Tesco fell on the railway Apr 23, 2021

Show notes

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!

#RailNatter Episode 57: What should the Welsh railway map look like? Apr 23, 2021

Show notes

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…

#RailNatter Episode 56: How governments use evidence to make transport policy Apr 23, 2021

Show notes

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…

#RailNatter Episode 55: Why Is Standard Track Gauge Four Foot Eight And A Half Inches? Apr 23, 2021

Show notes

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!

#RailNatter Episode 54: The Engineer’s Guide to Being A Good Crayonista (Part 2) Mar 25, 2021

Show notes

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!

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