Much as the situation appears to be improving year on year, the railways still aren’t safe enough, as we were tragically reminded of earlier this year with the death of Tyler Byrne at Surbiton station.

But how has railway staff safety changed over the years? Is there anything we can learn from accidents from decades and even centuries gone by? There are few better people to ask than Dr Mike Esbester, who leads the Railway Work, Life & Death project out of the University of Porstmouth. We’ll talk about both contemporary and historic safety incidents, and see what we can learn from both.

Join us LIVE as we chat about the project and what Mike has learned…

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 week’s #RailNatter​ is harking back to the days of AOL and email chains (oh, and more recently, THAT daft Twitter thread about track gauge, horses bottoms and rocket boosters)…

Yes, friend of the show John Morgan Christoph is joining us to bring his space and geology skills to bear and guide us through the more interesting spacey side-stories associated with this silly set of myths! Why did the Shuttle use solid rocket boosters? Why did they travel by rail? How did the railways help build the Kennedy Space Centre in the first place?

Join us LIVE at the usual time to find out this and more!

The Hyperloop paper is here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/…​

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

It’s another solo #RailNatter​, and this week we are also doing another page turn…

This time we are picking through the West Yorkshire mass transit proposals. Are they any good? Is there anything that needs to change? What is the likelihood they will actually happen? Is there anything we can learn from them?

All this and more, LIVE and with you lot asking the questions!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

We’re back for another #RailNatter​, and this one is somewhat topical…

A month after everyone got a really good look at the inside of the US Capitol buildings, we are joined by the brilliant Ann Gavaghan (@anngav on Twitter) to talk about the tunnels underneath this complex of buildings.

Join us LIVE as the secrets are revealed to ask all your questions!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

#TheArchitectureTheRailwaysBuilt​ has returned to our tellies, which means that Britain’s most effervescent ferroequinologist is coming back on #RailNatter​!

One of the loveliest and most pleasingly knowledgeable railway folks out there, replete with his array of books, miniatures and scarves, joins us again to talk about his new series, with more behind the scenes goodies and hints as to what lies in store for us in future episodes.

Join us LIVE to ask all of your questions and to see the two of us quaff wine like it is out of fashion…

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

#RailNatter​ started with the first of the coronavirus lockdowns… With the virus having been around in the UK for around a year, and with passenger levels still at less than 20% of pre-COVID levels, what does the future look like for Britain’s railways?

For Episode 46, we’ll look at a lot of the myths, forgotten realities and plans elsewhere in the world to get an idea of whether the doom and gloom currently being peddled is in fact misplaced…

Join LIVE to ask all of your questions, make your suggestions as to what happens next, and generally get involved in the discussion!

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter​ at patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/garethdennis. Join in the discussion at garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

For Episode 45 of #RailNatter, we’re grabbing a copy of the National Infrastructure Commission’s “Rail Needs Assessment for the Midlands and the North”.

This was supposed to be the stepping off point for a revolution in railway transport for the regions outside of London and the south, and yet it appears to have signified the start of a major abandonment of by the current government. But why?

Join me LIVE to ask your questions as I flick through the report and explore its contents in detail…

Read my piece on why the report was a failure here: https://garethdennis.medium.com/the-n…

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

We’re back for our first LIVE #RailNatter of 2021… For episode 44 we are heading to South Wales, where James Bennett will update us on the progress of the South Wales Metro, and indeed explain a bit more about what it is.

Will I have to hammer the #NotAMetro buzzer? What type of traction is being used where? How much of the system will be electrified?

Join us LIVE for the answers to these and any other questions you might have!

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

That’s it! 2020 is finally over! It can only get better, right?!

To celebrate, this episode of #RailNatter is a corker: we’ve got Justin Roczniak a.k.a. @donoteat01 off of Franklin and @Well There’s Your Problem Podcast bursting some preconceptions that us exceptionalist Brits might have about US railroads… Oh, and quite a lot of other stuff, too (this one ran long, as you might have imagined it might)!

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

Well, everyone is hopefully stuffed full of carb-rich food at this point, and given that (for British viewers at least) it is probably four degrees and drizzling outside, I thought it would be best for us to think about snowier times…

Who better to join us to talk about snow than certified/certifiable snow nerd and in-denial Bahnnerd Alex Priestley? We’ll cover what snow is, how it impacts on the railway, how the railway deals with it, and two times we escaped snow-based railway calamity (and yes, we’ll mention snow sheds and jet engines mounted on flatbeds).

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

This episode is also the meaning of life, the universe and everything.