#Railnatter

#RailNatter Episode 150: Things Are Going Just Great

Returning champion Bonnie Price is joining us to go through The News, since quite a bit has been happening since the holidays. Government data obfuscation, strikes, European shenanigans... Bonnie and I will chew through it and see if there's some light at the end of the tunnel!
It's not all bad, either... There'll be some fun stuff as well!
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 149: Light Rail Does Not Exist (and other #NotAMetro fun)

People are still talking about "light railways" as if those actually, meaningfully exist. In this episode, I'll explain why THEY DON'T!
We'll look at why it is useful to avoid daft, meaningless names for types of transport, we'll talk about how unhelpful the Light Railways Act is, and in turn we'll shout at the Germanosphere for propagating the use of names such as "Stadtbahn" and so on... All via the still-working #NotAMetro sorter!
As ever, think up and send in your edge cases to try and break the sorter...
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 148: Every* way that the Railways Act 1993 has resulted in today’s mess

It's the 30th anniversary year of the Railways Act 1993 - the legal instrument that formally privatised Britain's railway system. In the first of probably quite a few episodes on the subject, we'll be looking at the history of Britain's railways from 1990 to today...
We'll pick out why privatisation happened the way it did, who was responsible for it, how that lined everything up to fail, and how pretty much all of today's problems can be attributed to the mess that was the Railways Act 1993.
If you're an academic, you'll have free access to the paper I've just written on this subject for @IpprOrg here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/f...
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 147: European railways and the ”implementation gap”

Happy New Year! #RailNatter is kicking off 2023 with a visit from Jon Worth, online communications and policy specialist, who has been blogging and vlogging about the EU and its railways for a long while now...
Together, we'll discuss his experiences through 2022, where his #CrossBorderRail project explored the mess that mainland Europe's railway connections are in... There are problems at both the micro and macro levels, and we'll try to tackle both.
#CrossBorderRail website: https://crossborderrail.trainsforeuro...
Jon's blog: https://jonworth.eu/ Jon's #CrossBorderRail route map: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/...
Jon's #CrossBorderRail crossings map: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/...
Jon's #CrossBorderRail Top 20 map: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/...
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 146: An Advent of Oddities

Yuletide greetings all! This time, you lovely lot are getting a live show in the midst of the holidays, as we are joined by returning champion Emily Turner from @roundelroundwego for some more festive gluposti...
This time we will be opening the doors of our #RailNatter Advent of Oddities to hear from past versions of ourselves as well as a few chums. Let's see if this works at all - join LIVE and bring your favourite tipple!
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 145: A Mostly British History of Concrete Sleepers

This week, #RailNatter is diving back into the Deep Lore of Railways, with a proper techy session on the origin of concrete sleepers (starting international, ending British)...
Want to know where they came from, and how they developed? Join us LIVE on Weds/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.

#RailNatter Episode 144: Should We Abolish The Treasury?

This week's #RailNatter is finally tackling the big question: should we abolish the Treasury? Luckily, Stian Westlake is joining us to attempt to give an answer!
Why should we do it? What would take its place? Is this a daft suggestion, or is there a meaningful, constitutional benefit to obliterating the department that arguably has caused the UK the most damage throughout its history?
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 143: Amtrak Joe Lets The Side Down (and other tales of woe)

Well, he only went and did it. The USA's "most labor friendly president" has just used executive legislation to break a strike and ensure rail workers continue to be horrendously exploited until they just leave the industry.
There's also a lot of other stuff going on, some good, some bad. We'll see what the new Secretary of State for Transport (Mark Harper) is all about. We'll also see how easily buses could be made free in the UK.
Watch the @BadFaithPodcast episode I refer to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyaCB...
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.