#Railnatter

#RailNatter Episode 76: High Speed 2 – building Britain’s longest railway tunnel

It’s another on-location #RailNatter! Join me and a motley crew as we explore one of Europe’s largest construction sites – High Speed 2’s Chalfont Lane staging point for the construction of not one, not two, not three but FOUR record-breaking things: the UK’s first and second longest railway tunnels, the UK’s longest railway viaduct, and Europe’s largest chalk habitat regeneration project.
This episode will look in detail at the HS2 Chiltern Tunnels, getting up close and personal with a tunnel boring machine and touring the factory that manufactures the tunnel lining segments. We’ll also go for a bit of a walk to explore the far reaches of the site…
Watch an excellent and decidedly more concise video from the day, with me popping up here and there, by @Geoff Marshall.
See the official HS2 Ltd TBM tour with the brilliant Adrien (as heard in this podcast too)
Watch the YouTube release of this podcast (for the visuals!)
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 75: Bessie’s Ballast – raising money for Samaritans (in style)

This week’s #RailNatter is an utter delight, with Bessie Matthews joining us to talk about her role on the railway and her incredible (and wonderfully artistic) efforts to raise money for Samaritans by making the most of a big bag (and later a much littler bag) of ballast…
Join in LIVE(ish) at 7pm on Wednesday!
Find out more about Samaritans here: https://www.samaritans.org/
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 74: A page-turn through the UK’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan (Part 2)

PART TWO The UK government has FINALLY released their Transport Decarbonisation Plan, and in this week’s #RailNatter we’ll be looking at whether it’s worth the paper it hasn’t been printed on… I have so many questions that need answering, frankly.
It’s a classic page-turn, and you can see what whent on in the live chat on YouTube.
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 73: Is electrifying motorways really a good idea?

We’re getting back to our #RailNatter roots in this week’s episode, as I’ll be doing a mostly “big face” Q&A to talk about the e-Highway plans proposed by the UK government for trial on the M180 near Scunthorpe. Is putting catenary over a motorway a good idea? How will it actually work in practice? Is this yet another distraction technique for a government desperate not to actually invest in rail?
Tune in LIVE to find out!
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.
This was Ela’s first proper upload. How did she do? Tweet Gareth and tell him!

#RailNatter Episode 72: A page-turn through the UK’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan

The UK government has FINALLY released their Transport Decarbonisation Plan, and in this week’s #RailNatter we’ll be looking at whether it’s worth the paper it hasn’t been printed on…
I have so many questions that need answering, frankly.
It’s a classic page-turn, so do join LIVE to get involved!
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 71: What happened to all the freight?

This week we’ve the pleasure of being joined by Iain Kitt, who will use British Transport Films to guide this #RailNatter through the story of rail freight’s twentieth century decline…
We look at the key figures and establish if the common villains actually had anything to do with this trend, or whether there were bigger things at stake. Indeed, we explore how this is actually a story of innovation against almighty odds, and one that is now, ever so slowly, paying off again.
Join LIVE to get involved!
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 70: Reopening the Great Central is no alternative to HS2

Right, well it is high time we had another proper live #RailNatter like the olden days, so your wish is my command…
I’m back in the chair this week to talk about the Great Central Railway, why it was brilliant, why that doesn’t make it some form of panacea today, and to talk about how engineers choose between reusing existing alignments versus creating new ones.
Join LIVE on Wednesday at 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 69 (nice): How to make trains go faster

This week’s episode is charging forwards at an increasing rate of knots, as Steve Wood guides us through the ways that we can make trains faster… And no, Hyperloop is not the answer!
We cover the law of unintended consequences, bang the “the railway is a system” gong a few times, and point out that playing with the slow bits may well be far more useful than playing with the fast bits. We also touch on HS2 and get a signallers perspective on the beauty of Colton Junction!
I’m properly on holiday this time, so whilst you can all join LIVE I will in fact be entirely unable to… So fingers crossed this launches when it is supposed to!
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.