#Railnatter

What if we've been getting railway upgrades wrong for decades? What if big, grand, finite projects were about the worst way to deliver the change to transport Britain so desperately needs? By looking at what the Transpennine Route Upgrade is delivering in detail, including the latest look at some massive civil engineering, we'll ask ourselves: "What if the secret to modernising a nation’s infrastructure isn't a grand opening ceremony, but a series of tiny, invisible victories?"Support #Railnatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis. Merch at https://merch.railnatter.uk. Join in the discussion at https://discord.railnatter.uk. You can also buy my book #HowTheRailwaysWillFixTheFuture: https://bit.ly/HowTheRailways

Can the adoption of a Swiss taktfahrplan provide a blueprint for rural and regional transport in Britain?

This is the question we'll be asking tonight, as we dig into the plans for the Hope Valley transport integration demonstrator, what £6M is paying for, and whether it can work. We'll also ask: what is a taktfahrplan? Why do these sorts of timetables matter and how would they fix things in the UK?

Read the Hope Valley takt report: https://hopevalleyclimateaction.org.uk/plans-published-for-mini-switzerland-a-national-demonstrator-to-transform-rural-public-transport/

Support #Railnatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis. Merch at https://merch.railnatter.uk. Join in the discussion at https://discord.railnatter.uk. You can also buy my book #HowTheRailwaysWillFixTheFuture: https://bit.ly/HowTheRailways

Can the adoption of a Swiss taktfahrplan provide a blueprint for rural and regional transport in Britain?This is the question we'll be asking tonight, as we dig into the plans for the Hope Valley transport integration demonstrator, what £6M is paying for, and whether it can work. We'll also ask: what is a taktfahrplan? Why do these sorts of timetables matter and how would they fix things in the UK?Read the Hope Valley takt report: https://hopevalleyclimateaction.org.uk/plans-published-for-mini-switzerland-a-national-demonstrator-to-transform-rural-public-transport/Support #Railnatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis. Merch at https://merch.railnatter.uk. Join in the discussion at https://discord.railnatter.uk. You can also buy my book #HowTheRailwaysWillFixTheFuture: https://bit.ly/HowTheRailways

Last week, the Campaign for Level Boarding published its letter to the Old Oak Common project endorsing a non-standard platform height. But what's that about? And how does it link to Crossrail's most expensive and damaging design flaw?

Read the full Campaign for Level Boarding letter here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/vs7rqv8utn1s9ne3kah36/CampaignForLevelBoarding_LetterRegardingOOC.pdf?rlkey=onqv8b9bk0qcslvn1unthfdwu&dl=1

Watch Philip explain the level boarding solution at OOC in more detail here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KryXjiUycZU

Support #Railnatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis. Merch at https://merch.railnatter.uk. Join in the discussion at https://discord.railnatter.uk. You can also buy my book #HowTheRailwaysWillFixTheFuture: https://bit.ly/HowTheRailways

This week we are talking about Network Rail's PLPR train - the incredible and now pretty experienced train that put machine learning into practice in a way that makes today's AI boosters look more like hucksters than they already are. Alex Cusdin joins us to talk through the train and its tech, and tell the story of how it came into being.

Capturing an incredible 18TB of data a day, this train captures 70,000 photos a second to enable a very high resolution view of the track to automate and improve inspection, in the process making railways safer. This is an example, now well proven, of how technologies can be applied to make better use of skilled people, rather than displacing them. And it's about to be replaced.

Support #Railnatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis. Merch at https://merch.railnatter.uk. Join in the discussion at https://discord.railnatter.uk. You can also buy my book #HowTheRailwaysWillFixTheFuture: https://bit.ly/HowTheRailways