#Railnatter – Details, episodes & analysis

In the second of what will definitely now be a three-part miniseries on Ireland, we are joined by Iain (anoniaino on Twitter!) to talk about the what Ireland's railways look like today... lining us up nicely for the next and final episode on what's next!

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Before the election, the UK Labour Party commissioned Juergen Maier to head a review into railways and urban transport strategy... And it was published literally today. So the hell with the original schedule, let's take a look and see if it proposes anything useful - and more importantly consider if it will be ignored by Rachel Reeves.

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With the election approaching, we do a page-turn of the Public Accounts Committee's report into rail reform in Britain, as published back in May.

Six years have passed since the DfT said the railway needed reform, and four years have passed since initiating that reform programme, via its white paper (we've been through the ill-fated Williams-Shapps Plan For Rail already) in 2021. We were supposed to have Great British Railways by March 2024. No such organisation has appeared.

The reason it didn't tells us a lot about the challenges that the next government will face in changing the rail industry for the better - whether radically or incrementally.

You can download the report here: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/news/201745/rail-reform-noone-in-government-putting-needs-of-passengers-and-taxpayers-first-pac-reports/

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This week's #RailNatter is answering the ultimate (?) question - are Stadler's FLIRTs Britain's best train?

Joining me on this quest shall be friend of the show Simon Kendler, who shall guide you and me on an odyssey into the east...

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Much has been happening in the world of transport, so it's time to pause, take stock and catch up with current happenings again...

We'll be talking about strikes quite a bit, but there's plenty else to flick through, including the UK's broader economic outlook, the energy crisis and the impacts of the ongoing heatwave. Join #RailNatter live to get involved!

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It's a #RailNatter page-turn again - and we're sinking our metaphorical teeth into the Transport Select Committee's Integrated Rail Plan (a.k.a. #RailBetrayal) report... It's the one I appeared in Parliament for!

We'll dig into the detail, but it summarised by saying that there was little evidence of valid assessment in IRP, that government should prepare for their cuts to be reversed, that journey time benefits were not achievable and that there was not enough focus on capacity. In other words, they leave government's plans in tatters!

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It's been over two years since we've done a proper alternative history episode (Episode 7 was on what might have happened if the APT had made it) so for Episode 125 it's only right that we look to the InterCity 125 (a.k.a. the High Speed Diesel Train) and have a think about what might have happened if it had simply never come into existence...

What might have changed? Would the railway renaissance that came about in the 1980s never have come to being without them? Might we see a very different-looking railway network today had they not appeared and been so successful? Tune in to see what I reckon!

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For quite a long time, Scandinavia has been a quiet hub of railway modernity - indeed, Sweden had the most per-kilometre electrification in the world for a number of years. Denmark has constructed enormous rail infrastructure in recent years, and on average trains across the region are pretty young. X2000s and various excellent metro systems are a delight to behold.

To talk about all of this good stuff, and perhaps dig into what we can learn from our Scandi pals, we've the pleasure of being joined by writer Dominic Hinde on this week's #RailNatter... Dominic will guide us across the railways of northeastern Europe with aplomb, and you can all ask your questions as it's a live one!

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Well I am very pleased to say that this week, we are joined in #RailNatter towers by podcaster extraordinaire Alice Caldwell-Kelly (famed for @Trashfuture Podcast, @Well There's Your Problem Podcast and Kill James Bond)!

Alice and I will be going on a ferroequinohorological odyssey through time (quite literally) to see how small clocks and the operation of the railways are interlinked - and we'll also be gawking at some very fetching hand-held rail timepieces... Pocket watches and wristwatches galore!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Merch is at https://masquette.co.uk/collections/railnatter. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

Well a lot has happened in the world since we last did a news segment, so it's another general news catch-up for this week's #RailNatter...

We'll focus in on Shapps' signalling tweet from a couple of weeks back, where he made a hash of just about every sentence he was fed - as well as looking at the horror show of the Tory leadership contest if our special boy Grant Shapps is the one who has the best stance on human rights.

Also, as promised last week, we'll do the Very Light Rail (both rural and urban) Q&A session!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Merch is at https://masquette.co.uk/collections/railnatter. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.