#Railnatter

I harp on about slab track quite a bit, not least in relation to its improvement in the whole-life costs and impacts of intensively-used railway infrastructure… But what exactly is it, and how does it work?

Well, Ivana Avramović is from PORR, which is the world’s leading manufacturer of slab track, and she’ll be joining us for tonight’s #RailNatter to explain all!

Tune in LIVE to ask your questions!

This week’s #RailNatter is for everyone who thinks that cycling and railways are a perfect match… Lindsay Broadwell and I will be talking all things e-bike! We’ll touch on bike provision on trains, trolley buses and nuclear, too…

See you LIVE for much chat!

There’s been a lot of transport nonsense in the news recently: Hyperloop pretended it carried some passengers, Elon Musk’s Loop outed itself as completely useless, the Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro is asking for people to submit ideas as to what on earth it is…

In all cases, real transport solutions are pushed further away. So I thought I’d do an episode of #RailNatter explaining why it is so important to trash talk this junk, how best to do it, and the best tools in your rhetorical armoury to make use of.

Join LIVE to ask all your questions!

In Episode 36 of #RailNatter, we are being joined by bona fide young rail professional Simon Kendler!

Given that both of us call ourselves sustainable transport advocates, we thought it would make sense to discuss what exactly “sustainability” means in a transport context… What constitutes “sustainable” transport? Is it all about the colour green? Are railways sustainable? Is anything?

Join us LIVE to ask us your questions!

For Episode 35 of #RailNatter, we are trying a new intermittent format: Scenic Rail Tours of An Hour In Length (as requested by the Patreon people)!

For the first episode, we are going back to my roots and taking a virtual trip from Inverurie to Elgin… What is there to see and do? What will we find out along the way? Will this format actually work?

Join LIVE to find out!

Here’s the link to the NLS’s old mapping comparison website: https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/

This week, I am very pleased to say we have long-time audio-only #RailNatter listener (oh, and the Independent’s Policy Correspondent) Jon Stone joining us to talk about his experiences of mainland Europe’s railways during his time posted as Brussels correspondent…

Where could Britain learn from our mainland railway colleagues? Is there anything that we do better? Just how terrible is #RailNatter in an audio-only format?

Join us LIVE where Jon will be answering these and many other questions.

In Episode 33 of #RailNatter, we are looking at what a fixed link to the island of Ireland (via Northern Ireland) might look like…

Should it be high speed? Are either a bridge or a tunnel possible? Should it link from Wales, England or Scotland? How much might it cost? Given that Boris Johnson likes the idea, is the whole thing completely nonsensical from an engineering perspective?

Join me LIVE for a chat all about it… But a warning: we may raise more questions than answers!

This week (or rather, a month ago as this is a pre-record), railway writer Richard Long is joining us to talk about the mysterious Island of Tube Trains, or the Isle of Wight as it is generally written on the map.

This will be a #RailNatter full of tales of little engines, gauge clearance and a second chance for many a former metro train…

Buy Richard’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B01DS2I7H4

This week’s #RailNatter aims to get to the root of an issue incredibly close to my heart, and something we as an industry do a very bad job of: actually letting everyone get on our trains.

In Episode 31, we’ll be looking at the issue of level boarding: what do I mean by this, why is it an issue, and is it as hard to achieve as lots of people say it is? I’ll also look at why an industry in the 2020s still thinks it is okay to exclude huge numbers of people from using trains like everyone else.

Join us LIVE to ask all of your level boarding questions… This won’t be the last episode on this subject, either.

It is #RailWeek! Which means we are having a special Rail Week-themed #RailNatter!

In Episode 30, we'll be joined by brilliant transport planner Harriet Glen for a live, hour-long ASK US ANYTHING session! Interested in a career in the railways? This is the Q&A for you!

We'll be setting out to answer the following questions... What is the skills gap and how bad is it? Why do we have a skills gap? How can we look to address the skills gap?

As promised, here are some links to help with...

FINDING RAIL JOBS: https://www.railwaypeople.com/

https://www.morson.com/disciplines/ra...

https://www.prospects.ac.uk/jobs-and-...

OUTREACH:

https://stemettes.org/

https://www.thegirlsnetwork.org.uk/

https://www.wes.org.uk/content/educat...

RESEARCH:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/seeing-be...

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