Join award-winning rail engineer
@GarethDennis
and many guests talking about all things TRAINS and TRANSPORT.
#Railnatter
goes out LIVE every Wednesday at 8pm.
We're always grateful for post in the PO box at Natter Towers... Particularly when we find out we've annoyed some bigoted guy. Sorry [some bigoted guy], but this is an unashamedly pro-trans podcast 🏳️⚧️
And anyone who thinks you can talk about HS2 without talking about politics isn't a grown up and therefore falls outside of our target audience.
This show might be more in their wheelhouse:
So after reaching 10k subscribers and having been going for four years with an unbroken run of 200+ episodes going out each week... It's time for a brief break! We'll be back on the 27th.
In a change to the schedule, we've the absolute pleasure of being joined by
@bessbbe
for tonight's
#Railnatter
!
Ever wondered how to become a freight train driver? Bessie can answer that question, whilst also telling us how to be an award-winning author at the same time... 💪
I’ve just had the pleasure of driving 0Z73 from Eastleigh Works to Landor Street in the pouring rain 🤩
It’s taken me a little while to get used to driving at any speed greater than 5mph, but today is the first day I felt truly confident in my ability to drive.
🥰🚂💙
WE'RE BACK, WE'RE LIVE AND WE'RE ANGRY 🤬
What better thing to do than throw the planned episode in the bin and talk all things HS2, given that Hunt, Sunak and Harper have completely cancelled it.
It's a Q&A, so bring your Qs! LIVE, Weds/7pm:
IT'S OFFICIAL! The
#RailNatter
store opens today, including such gems as:
🚇 the
#NotAMetro
sorter, but on your chest
🚆 a simple message to
@hmtreasury
about HS2
📐 hoodies with the cant equation on them
🏳️⚧️ pro-trans tee (profits to
@YorkLGBT
)
Head to 👕
As we just identified on tonight's show using the latest ORR data, the average train length on EMR is... 4.6 coaches.
Yes, this includes some secondary services, but the lions share of trains are intercity services that should all be 9-car trains at least. Squeeze 'em in!
Just an absolutely shambolic service once again from
@EastMidRailway
. Packed in the vestibules, and people standing in the aisles on a short form train.
As ever, passengers come last.
With
@UKLabour
dithering worryingly on reinstating HS2 to Manchester and Leeds, let's take the chance to look at how the finished railway might fit into a fully-complete high speed network for the UK and Ireland... 🇬🇧🇮🇪
Join LIVE at 8pm on Weds:
No
#Railnatter
this week, but we'll be back next week looking at West Midlands mass transit... If the discord server is anything to go by, people LIKE THIS:
This week's
#RailNatter
is a return to Gerrards Cross and all the shenanigans that led a tunnel with a Tesco on it to collapse onto a live railway...
Why did the
@H_S_E
not publish their original report? Well, thanks to an intrepid fan of the show, we've finally got hold of it!
Derby is the home of Rolls-Royce, hot dogs, Lara Croft…and now Great British Railways! 🚉
But it’s not just a win for
#Derby
– GBR will level up our railways across Great Britain.
Find out more 👉
#DestinationGBR
Level boarding, badly designed trains and platforms long overdue corrective works are being talked about on here again...
For the (mostly) definitive story of the platform train interface,
#Railnatter
Episode 31 has you covered. Watch here:
Safety, accessibility, and the railway's attitude to both are under extremely uncomfortable public scrutiny now, and so far the industry has not stepped up. What's next in the Hendygate mess?
Watch
#Railnatter
LIVE tonight at 8pm to ask your questions:
No episode this week as
@GarethDennis
is on "leave" whatever that means when you don't have a job... In the meantime, this show still seems to be rumbling on:
A bridge is out, only the rails are left: do you take the train fast or slow over the bridge? There's a lot to think about: gravity, dynamics, waves, stiffness, materials, energy, vibrations...
#RailNatter
will cover it all!
TONIGHT, 7pm:
This week we are asking the question "How do you build a modern train simulator game?" and who better to answer this than two of the team behind
@RailSimulator
and
@TrainSimWorld
?
Join the
@DovetailGames
crew LIVE on Weds at 7pm:
HS2 might have been walloped by stupid decisions since the Integrated Rail Plan (aka
#RailBetrayal
), but it wasn't exactly perfect before that, either...
This week's
#RailNatter
looks at the five ways the line could have been better. Join LIVE Weds/7pm:
For a rather thematic
#Railnatter
, we're asking:
🚂 Should the railway run trains on Christmas again?
🚧 Should the railway stop doing focusing its engineering work over the holiday season?
Join LIVE at 8pm, and bring your favourite festive tipple:
This week
#RailNatter
is trying to break the
#NotAMetro
sorter again... Intensive bus services, monorails, airport doodads: YOU bring them!
Why? Because we can learn more about which public transport does and doesn't work!
Episode 162, LIVE on Weds/7pm:
Well, they did it.
@UKLabour
published their plans for Britain's railways. But what are they actually proposing? Is it any good? Will it solve anything? What aren't they saying? Why "Great British Railways"?
Labour Will* Nationalise Rail, Weds, 8pm:
2024 is a big year for Ireland - in advance of the publication of the All Ireland Strategic Rail Review in Spring, we're looking through the consultation document and thinking about what the ideal Irish rail network would look like...
Join LIVE, Weds 8pm:
100,000 downloads (give or take, we've missed off a load from before we transferred accounts)! We are one fiftieth as popular as
@KillJamesBond
! Thanks everyone! 🎉🚂
We're taking our first actual break for four years of constant run, but we'll be back in a week or two and we'll be talking ALL THINGS NEW TRAINS with Robin Davis...
#Railnatter
Episode 208, Weds 27th March, 8pm:
This week we are joined by
@AlexHynes
, MD of Scotland's Railway, to understand the interface between transport policy and railway operations...
#RailNatter
Episode 176: A Week* In The Life Of A Railway Managing Director, LIVE on Weds/7pm:
You've all* been asking for this one! How do the non-CAD maps used in the show get created? It's PowerPoint, literally the best tool for the job. So for this week's
#Railnatter
, we're drawing some to show how it's done!
Weds/7pm:
Recently,
@Sam_Dumitriu
and
@Ben_A_Hopkinson
looked at a big list of infrastructure projects, suggesting high costs were the reason the UK delivers so little, so slowly...
This week's
#RailNatter
explains why they've missed the mark.
Weds/7pm:
In a slight change to the schedule, today's Colton Junction cracked crossing nose calamity means we'll be parking our burning Tesla and talking all things cracking noses in this week's
#RailNatter
...
Episode 167, Why do crossing noses crack? LIVE on Weds/7pm.
We all know that Hyperloop is, on various levels, a scam intended to take cash from both venture capitalists and public bodies, and to delay real projects - railway projects - from actually happening.
Yet it still hasn't died! Why?! Join LIVE, Weds, 8pm:
Over a year ago, the
#RailNatter
live show raised a wee sum of £300 for
@YorkLGBT
Forum...
Now, less than a day after launching, our TRANS-SUP-PORT merch is the most popular in our store and is adding to that total... Thanks, and
#TransRightsAreHumanRights
! 🏳️⚧️
It's an HS2 episode! We're looking through the latest
@NAOorguk
to see what a mess the project has been left in after five years of malicious meddling, seeing what can be recovered from it, and understanding the stakes involved.
Join LIVE at 8pm TONIGHT:
🎉 IT'S EPISODE 200 🎉
How have we got here? 200 episodes of interactive chaos - is there another podcast that brings its weekly audience in live for questions like this? 🚂🛤️🚦📊🫂
Join LIVE as we work out what we've learned since Episode 100, Weds 8pm:
Well
@Greens4HS2
got things done and changed
@TheGreenParty
's rail policy into something rational - and this week we are delighted to be joined by key activist and campaigner
@eegarnett89
to tell us how they did it! 🚄💨
TONIGHT, 8pm:
Everyone voted! The Conservative Party are toast! Labour won on fewer votes than they got in 2019 and the era of two party politics in the UK is over!
But what does this mean for transport and railways? Join
@Railnatter
LIVE to find out, TONIGHT at 8pm:
There's only a week until the election, so
@Railnatter
is looking at the manifestos of
@TheGreenParty
, the
@LibDems
and
@UKLabour
to see which shapes up best when it comes to transport...
Episode 220: The 2024 General Election Special No. 1
Weds, 8pm:
It's forty years (and a month) since the UK built its first high speed line, and good grief have we forgotten how to do so in the meantime... Join Chris Valkoinen and GD in the
@RailwayMuseum
as we look over the drawings for the Selby Diversion!
Weds/7pm:
TONIGHT! We'll be talking about how and why we should not REOPEN the Borders Railway... Which as regular viewers will know doesn't exactly mean what it sounds like it means.
There will be MAPS. ROUTES. CAD. All the good stuff, at 8pm:
We're joined this week by
@ETWriteHome
to talk about railway 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.
Join us on Weds at 7pm:
You've all* been asking for this one! How do the non-CAD maps used in the show get created? It's PowerPoint, literally the best tool for the job. So for this week's
#Railnatter
, we're drawing some to show how it's done!
Weds/7pm:
Here it is! The now-world famous annual gingerbread station... We'll be getting
@ETWriteHome
on soon to make up for
@GarethDennis
's lack of organisational capacity and we will be hoping for MORE PICTURES.
The UK government's "Plan For Drivers" didn't end up being as popular as they thought it might be... For a festive treat,
@GarethDennis
will be doing a page turn of a well thought-through piece of long-term transport policy*.
TONIGHT, 8pm, 🚘
🚨 NEW PLAN: IT'S A LIVE ONE 🚨
Last minute change of plan - this one's going out live. It's a CORKER.
#RailNatter
Episode 165, What really happened when the Tesco tunnel collapsed? TONIGHT, 7pm:
Last week,
@The_TUC
released their report "Public transport fit for the climate emergency" - and in true
#RailNatter
style, we are going to flick through it! 🚌🚎🚐🚃🚄🚅🚋
Just how much more public transport does the UK need? Weds/7pm:
2024 is a big year for Ireland - in advance of the publication of the All Ireland Strategic Rail Review in Spring, we're looking through the consultation document and thinking about what the ideal Irish rail network would look like...
Join LIVE, Weds 8pm:
Welcome to the new
#RailNatter
podcast profile page!
With 153 weekly episodes (and counting), 500,000 views on
@YouTube
and 50,000 downloads of the audio-only podcast,
#RailNatter
is the little engine that could, covering all your train and transport needs 📻
This week,
#Railnatter
is digging into the messy history of the (good, necessary and long overdue) Transpennine Route Upgrade, looking at why the story around the project represents a classic failure of UK over-centralisation.
LIVE, Weds, 8pm:
#HowTheRailwaysWillFixTheFuture
is out on 12 November, and
#Railnatter
viewers get the first chance to ask question about the book, and get a sneak peak at what it will contain... Also there's some news to cover!
Join LIVE, Weds 8pm:
Last week,
@TracyBrabin
launched the first two proposed routes of the West Yorkshire mass transit system... BUT are these proposals any good? Are they ambitious enough? Will they achieve sufficient modal shift?
Join LIVE at 8pm TONIGHT:
Yes, HS2 is in the news again, with the IPA (not beer related) suggesting the project is looking unachievable... What does that actually mean? And how do recent announcements about getting HS2 to Yorkshire and beyond factor in?
Watch LIVE on Weds/7pm:
This week, we're cracking our knuckles to understand why crossing noses fail, and why their failure is often very predictable... Perhaps just as importantly, we'll answer the question: what is one of those?
#RailNatter
Episode 167, Weds at 7pm:
It's the first of a three-part
#RailNatter
odyssey through the former Yugoslavia, following one of the world's most scenic railways from Belgrade in present-day Serbia to Bar in present-day Montenegro... In part one, we get to (Titovo) Užice.
Weds/7pm:
This week's
#Railnatter
is "celebrating" exactly 30 years since the Railways Act 1993 received royal assent, by reminding ourselves how dreadful a piece of legislation it was and the quickest way to reverse it.
LIVE, Weds/8pm:
So much has happened since our last
#RailNatter
news episode that I had to scoop it all into the same place for a giant catch-up... Nothing major though, surely? 🔥🔥🔥
Note we are LIVE at the NEW time slot of 20:00 this week!
Thanks to all our audio-only fans! If you're interested in what our most downloaded episodes via your favourite podcasting platforms... Here's the Top Ten.
Shout out to
@who_shot_jgr
,
@NQRW
,
@Kevin_D_Tennent
and
@SimonZev
for making the audio-only cut!
Tonight's
#Railnatter
is all about what the railways should be doing over the winter holiday period... And it seems a few people have Thoughts™ on this.
On the question of services on Christmas Day itself, what do you think? Share far and wide!
This week
@ralph_palmer
from
@transenv_UK
joins us to dig into the numbers on the extremely rapid rise of SUV ownership in the UK and what this means for the future of transport (spoilers: it isn't good).
Ep 211, Britain's SUV problem, TONIGHT at 8pm:
IN FIFTEEN MINUTES
@bessbbe
(train driver, author, illustrator, columnist and all-round railway industry treasure) will be telling us all she's learned about becoming a freight train driver... And much besides along the way!
Join LIVE at 8pm:
This week,
#RailNatter
is joined by the brilliant
@triofrancos
, talking about resource extraction and its impacts, and how we cannot shape our future around tech that relies on things like lithium batteries... Not to be missed!
Weds, 7pm (UK time):
Great British Railways was due to arrive by March 2024. It didn't. The reasons why tell us a lot about the problems at the top of the industry... And how to fix them.
#Railnatter
Episode 218: What four years of rail reform has delivered, TONIGHT, 8pm,
This week,
@_JulietPhillips
tells us a cautionary tale of how hydrogen hype has disrupted the home heating market - for the worse - and slowed down the roll-out of actually sustainable technologies.
Sound familiar? Join us on Weds/7pm to see:
For those who missed it last week, we have a new, no expense spared, high budget intro sequence courtesy of the inimitable
@MrTimDunn
... Here's a taster:
This week! Among a general news catch-up, we'll be digging into the numbers to see if there is a particular problem with track defects on the Great Western... THERE WILL BE GRAPHS 📈
Join
#Railnatter
LIVE, Weds, 8pm:
This week we are discovering how
@jobyaviation
is going to save all transport (if the UK government is to be believed)... Yes, it's another news episode, and as ever there's loads to get through!
Weds, 8pm:
There's more! The
#RailNatter
store also sell things you can drink out of, store pipe cleaners in or play ball sports with. One or more of these are recommended purchases for new Secretary of States for Transport.
These and future designs available at 🫖
He's back, and this time IN-PERSON!
@MrTimDunn
and I get let loose in the
@RailwayMuseum
's BRILLIANT new education gallery - Wonderlab - in the only way we know how... CHAOTICALLY 💡🔧🧱⚙️
This is possibly the most fun
#RailNatter
yet (Weds/7pm):
#RailNatter
is joined this week by
@chappersmk
from the
@NEF
to discuss his research into the economic benefits of the aviation industry to the UK... Or rather the fact that there basically aren't any 🛬🗑️
It's going to be a good one... Join Weds/7pm:
Talk about last minute dot com... See those of you with a free evening tomorrow for a LIVE festive
#Railnatter
of - apparently - talking about why Britain needs to stop switching the railway off at Christmas.
TONIGHT,
@Railnatter
is going through the draft Rail Reform Bill and its notes page-by-page to understand what exactly N̶e̶t̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ R̶a̶i̶l̶ G̶r̶e̶a̶t̶ B̶r̶i̶t̶i̶s̶h̶ R̶a̶i̶l̶w̶a̶y̶s̶ the Integrated Rail Body is going to look like.
Join LIVE at 8pm to share your thoughts!