#Railnatter

Tonight, we’re talking about the Titfield Thunderbolt! To celebrate its re-release in 4K we’ll be speaking to the team behind its loving restoration, talking about its impact and where its predictions hit the mark (and where they perhaps didn’t) and we’ll be taking a deeper look at the railway that inspired it all – the  @TalyllynRailway1865  .Support #Railnatter at https://patreon.com/garethdenni...

We have a packed show for you tonight! We start at the new Cambridge South station, taking stock of what major station budgets can buy you. Then we review Starmer's Labour legacy for railways, and how much of Louise Haigh's original vision remains intact. Then we blast our way through two months of news - joined by  @MikeWillSee  of  @NetworkNewsUK  !Support #Railnatter at https://patreon....

On 21 October 2024, two Welsh regional trains collided with each other at Talerddig on the line between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury, resulting in the death of a passenger and serious injuries to three others. A week ago, the RAIB released their final report into this terrible crash. Given extra poignance by the appalling crash between two East Midlands trains near Bedford last week, this episode we...

He's back! Chris Brownbill grips the reverser for this week's episode with another trip to an Australian city: this time we are in ADELAIDE, or rather TARNDANYA. We cover all manner of transport systems, but we hone in on the O-BAHN for its pure ridiculousness, and I bring a long a bit of a historical deep-dive. Support #Railnatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis. Merch at https://merc...

Well, they did it. Labour got a drubbing and are in the process of collapsing. The Tories are nowhere. Reform are ascendant and the Greens are hot on their tails. But what does it mean for transport in Britain? What does it mean for GBR? We'll get stuck in, alongside a bit of news too. Support #Railnatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis. Merch at https://merch.railnatter.uk. Join in the di...

Westminster has always infantilised local elections, but local authorities are the most persistent interface between our lives and the functioning state, and this is absolutely true when it comes to transport. In this "local" election special, we'll dig into this relationship, talking with Nathan Goldup-John, first candidate in Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd and Charlotte Husnjak, second cand...

This month, the Foundation for Integrated Transport released its paper on decarbonising suburban transport in Britain. Led by Jonathan Bray, it looks at the key challenges with providing adequate transport options to Britain's suburban communities, it picks out the main lessons we can learn from other cities that are way ahead of the UK on this, and makes a series of recommendations for the UK gov...

What if we've been getting railway upgrades wrong for decades? What if big, grand, finite projects were about the worst way to deliver the change to transport Britain so desperately needs? By looking at what the Transpennine Route Upgrade is delivering in detail, including the latest look at some massive civil engineering, we'll ask ourselves: "What if the secret to modernising a nati...

Can the adoption of a Swiss taktfahrplan provide a blueprint for rural and regional transport in Britain? This is the question we'll be asking tonight, as we dig into the plans for the Hope Valley transport integration demonstrator, what £6M is paying for, and whether it can work. We'll also ask: what is a taktfahrplan? Why do these sorts of timetables matter and how would they fix things...

Last week, the Campaign for Level Boarding published its letter to the Old Oak Common project endorsing a non-standard platform height. But what's that about? And how does it link to Crossrail's most expensive and damaging design flaw? Read the full Campaign for Level Boarding letter here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/vs7rqv8utn1s9ne3kah36/CampaignForLevelBoarding_LetterRegardingOOC.pdf?rlkey=on...

This week we are talking about Network Rail's PLPR train - the incredible and now pretty experienced train that put machine learning into practice in a way that makes today's AI boosters look more like hucksters than they already are. Alex Cusdin joins us to talk through the train and its tech, and tell the story of how it came into being. Capturing an incredible 18TB of data a day, this train cap...

In the first of a series of chats with political leaders who are shaping the mobility landscape in the UK, I was delighted to spend a long lunch with Maryam Eslamdoust, general secretary of the TSSA. We talked about a range of subjects including union saturation into the consultancy world, the Iran war and its impacts on the cost of living, rail reform and GBR, as well as her current campaign on v...

10 hours, 22 locations and about 100 miles (probably) of travel later, and we've got a real feast of an episode to mark our 300th... Tonight, we rate ALL OF LEEDS for mobility using our patented science-based system: the PROCIV system. In doing so, we will consider the West Yorkshire mass transit plans and whether they are prioritising the right solutions. We'll also drop a few bombshells, not lea...

Back at the start of February, the UK's Transport Select Committee published its report into rail investment pipelines and how to end the boom and bust cycle that double prices and delays improvements... But is the report any good? Does it propose any useful solutions? Will government have any interest in doing anything it suggests? It's a classic page-turn, and you can grab the report yourself, h...

Are there three movies that better define US transit culture better than Speed (1994), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and The Warriors (1979)? Probably not, if our guest this week is to be believed! Because who could be better to guide us on this silver screen odyssey than Josh Boerman, co-host of  @TheWorstOfAllPossibleWorlds  and  @IllConceived  ? Nobody, that's who! Support #Railnatter at https...

It's a delight to say we welcome back Justin Roczniak of  @wtyppod  fame as we sift through some local, national and international news and try to work out: WHAT IS GOING ON? Support #Railnatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis. Merch at https://merch.railnatter.uk. Join in the discussion at https://discord.railnatter.uk. You can also buy my book #HowTheRailwaysWillFixTheFuture: https://bit.ly/...

This one's important. If the Greens win, it will end Starmer's short stint as PM and - as importantly - show that Reform are NOT the default winners at the next general election. But can they do it? Transport is a key local issue in this byelection, and given its importance for communities and indeed the future of our democracy, it was time to create a new scoring system to help target where impro...

I'm joined by not one, not two but THREE guests tonight, as fellow rail industry employees Georgia Haslam, Kostas Kuklys and Katie Williams help demystify the immensely complicated British railway industry... Find out more about this year's Rail Week here: https://www.railweek.com/ Support #Railnatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis. Merch at https://merch.railnatter.uk. Join in the discussion...

I've been teasing this one for ages, but we are finally looking at how HS2 gives Birmingham and the West Midlands a metro system, and what its wider suburban railway network COULD look like... Plus there's a bit of news. Support #Railnatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis. Merch at https://merch.railnatter.uk. Join in the discussion at https://discord.railnatter.uk. You can also buy my book #H...

Have you heard of Lillian "Curly" Lawrence? Get comfy for a story of genius, wit, charm and tragedy - and of a transgender woman who shaped the model railway scene perhaps more than any other individual. We'll also touch on LGBTQIA+ history more broadly, dipping into the Railway Museum's oral archives as well as looking at existing exhibits through a different lens. Here's a link to the project: h...

On Sunday, two trains collided near Adamuz in Spain in an appalling, extremely unlikely and hugely tragic crash, which so far has claimed the lives of 40 people. Enough detail has been released that we can plot out how the two trains derailed with reasonable confidence - and that's what we'll do, using photos and video from the scene. Rob and Jamie from Podcasting Is Praxis drop in to explore the...

Northern Powerhouse Rail has been announced by government, again, and this time what's being proposed is even more nebulous than last time... If we ignore Network North, that is. We dig into the details to understand what is being promised, what is new (if anything) and what we've been left since the 2020 high point in UK railway aspirations. Read the full government release here: https://www.gov....

On 6 September 2024, a freight train derailed over a bridge in Audenshaw in Greater Manchester. At the end of 2025, the RAIB published their report into the crash, looking in detail at the sequence of failures that let to this event. It lays out a series of mistakes and engineering limitations that force us to look more closely at the way we run our railway and train our engineers. Download the  @...

We've reached the end of 2025! It's been an extremely difficult year across the board, with some points of light dotted around for nourishment, but I wanted to end with some hope. Also with a bridge collapsing on my head. Support #Railnatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis. Merch at https://merch.railnatter.uk. Join in the discussion at https://discord.railnatter.uk. You can also buy my book #...

Merry Christmas! Raise a glass to all the folk out there this holiday season prodding, building and generally messing about with railways in the freezing cold. It's a brief, last minute news filler episode really - and we'll cover a few things including West Yorkshire mass transit delays, two Slovak trains playing chicken on the same track and negging the IEA. Support #Railnatter at https://patreo...