#Railnatter

We're back! This week we return to the studio to attempt to demystify the supposedly intractable "last mile problem" that is oft repeated by policymakers, technoprats and car people.

What is it? Why doesn't it really exist? Why do people keep saying it does? Let's take a look!

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We talk about it a lot, but what is "integrated transport" when it isn't just a meaningless buzzword? Why is the UK so bad at doing it?

Transport researcher Martha Lauren joins us to talk about this history of truly integrated transport, including how the UK was actually ahead of its time until bus deregulation ruined everything...

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The @NatRailwayMuseum in York is hallowed ground for me and is loved by nearly a million visitors a year, but it has always struggled with being more of a collection than a museum.

Vision 2025 will be a great leap forwards in the ability of the museum to tell the story of the railways rather than just telling the story of its objects... And it is happening now!

With the sound of saws and hammers ringing around us, I have a chat with the brilliant Charlotte Kingston (the NRM's head of design, exhibitions and communications) to understand what's happening and what's next.

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.

After nearly three years, Luke Agbaimoni returns to #RailNatter to talk about his second book, "London Underground Symmetry & Imperfections". Once again, he's given us a tease of some of the photographs we can find in the book, and we walk and talk our way through each, exploring the aesthetic sublime of London's public transport systems.

Make sure to follow Luke on Instagram, and you can find links to buy Tube Mapper Book 2 here: https://tubemapper.com/tube-mapper-ph...

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This week, I'm delighted to be joined by Bob Gwynne, the National Railway Museum's associate curator, on an odyssey of historical curiosity, picking out questions from our past historical #RailNatter episodes (which you can find in the relevant playlist by the way)...

Watch Bob and the team on camera at @NatRailwayMuseum.

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Precisely one year ago, a few folks and I had the delight of a tour inside one of HS2's tunnel boring machines as it scoured its way underneath Long Itchington Wood in Warwickshire... And what a spectacular experience it was!

Hopefully I'll capture some of that excitement and energy as I bring you along on the tour with me... And will I unlock the mystery of the pink helmet?

Watch @geofftech2's video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wM6v...

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After WW2 and nationalisation, Britain's railway operations essentially assumed their 1923 structure and shape, and this may not have led to the best outcomes... When it came to infrastructure, each company may have had their main line, but were these the best routes when you took a view of Britain as a whole?

This episode we'll have a look, courtesy of some serious map explorations!

Download the Google Earth map file here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pg1yvt2zy0dcmc3/%23RailNatter_Ep152.kmz?dl=1

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.

I talk about it a lot, but what is modal shift, how does it work, and why is it both a critical tool and a critical outcome of enhancing and expanding public transport?

We'll be page-turning Greengauge21's report on the subject, mostly covering HS2 but also considering high speed rail and its wider released capacity benefits.

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.

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!

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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.