Thought this was worth mentioning. Comes out November 12th. I know Gareth Dennis is someone who tends to attract strong opinions...
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New book from Gareth Dennis - How the Railways Will Fix the Future
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Busaholic
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I hadn't heard of him, interested if he's had previous books released, because Amazon references none.
Mcr Warrior
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Can't find anything else he might have done previously on 'Bookfinder' either. @eldomtom2 What's his background?
alxndr
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It's his first book. His background is as a p-way engineer and did some lecturing when the National College for High Speed Rail existed.
His podcast/stream episode on his book can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/live/6gIJIeVCpQQ?si=o7Wfsmb_Tgu-sxuQ
His podcast/stream episode on his book can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/live/6gIJIeVCpQQ?si=o7Wfsmb_Tgu-sxuQ
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
An extremely arrogant railway engineer who believes in railways to the point of an utter lack of realism, i.e. he believes they should be in receipt of infinite money for anything they like. His diatribe on Twitter got so annoying a while back that I blocked him so as not to read his drivel any more. I find it quite odd the way he's wheeled out by all manner of media when (outside of his actual profession i.e. engineering) he is utterly clueless.
Your opinion of course may vary, but in my book he does more harm to the railway than good. Shan't be purchasing.
I enjoy his Railnatter YouTube series, and the variety of subject matters covered, but my constructive feedback would be too much political opinion when I’m there to hear about railways.
I don’t agree he does more harm to the railway than good. Every industry needs cheerleaders, and he does a good job of explaining, for example, the importance of HS2 to the public who, for the most part, couldn’t care less about the railways.
I’ll certainly consider buying this book!
I don’t agree he does more harm to the railway than good. Every industry needs cheerleaders, and he does a good job of explaining, for example, the importance of HS2 to the public who, for the most part, couldn’t care less about the railways.
I’ll certainly consider buying this book!
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GRALISTAIR
Established Member
I only watch the odd episode of RailNatter now. I used to watch them all. I still make a small contribution to help financially.
Wivenswold
Established Member
Is is possible to distance politics and the railways? We all do it the moment we mention Beeching, nationalisation, privatisation, Railtrack, all manner of disasters that killed staff and passengers or re-nationalisation. Some people don't like politics, some people don't like some political opinions. Either way, Westminster affects every aspect of our lives, so ignore what "they" are up to at your peril.
The intertwined history of politics and our railway network is worth a read, I recommend "Signals Passed At Danger"by Richard Faulkner or "A Very Political Railway" by Wayne Asher.
The intertwined history of politics and our railway network is worth a read, I recommend "Signals Passed At Danger"by Richard Faulkner or "A Very Political Railway" by Wayne Asher.
Gareth Dennis was on the Quiet Riot podcast a couple of days ago, talking about his book
www.globalplayer.com
Quiet Riot - Podcast Episode | Global Player
Quiet Riot Special: TRACKS OF OUR TEARS – Why are our railways so bad?
www.globalplayer.com
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Wivenswold
Established Member
That's him. Oh, the perils of overlapping threads. I assume Mods may feel a merge would be appropriate.
From the podcast, it sounds like the book mentions Euston, but it covers a lot of other stuff.
The summary at Amazon says:
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More harm than good in what way? From what I've seen he comes across as articulate and knowledgable in his appearances on BBC News etc. There is also the little matter of him being unjustly fired by his employer for talking about something that is public knowledge, thanks to interference from a certain rail minister...
In a word, no. Everything to do with the railways boils down to politics.
Railways, health and education. The three big political footballs.
Without getting into his employment, he is one of the most incredibly binary commentators I have come across, where something is either right or it is utterly wrong. The inability to disagree civilly, and the dismissal of anyone slightly less to his left as either "centrist" or right wing, gives me as much confidence in his judgment as in any other polemicist. His boasting of use of blocking, and response on Twitter to a post on here, reinforce that view.
Based solely on his own output and the publisher's blurbs, I shall not be contributing to his royalties.
Extremely ironic considering half of the users on this website are armchair wannabe railway policymakers with the knowledge of the library of Babylon who utter disgust at the thought of disrupting their fragile echo chambers, you being a keen example. Double down and look into yourselves.
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I'm sure he won't. But if politics is the art of making change, then those who opt for my way or the highway tend to be quite unsuccessful.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Ha ha, fantastic!
I'm not angry with him, why would I be angry? I just don't think he lives in the real world and that hasn't changed.
I'd love the situation to be more like what he wants, but the reality (as he found) isn't.
I'm not angry with him, why would I be angry? I just don't think he lives in the real world and that hasn't changed.
I'd love the situation to be more like what he wants, but the reality (as he found) isn't.
Transilien
Member
You can't really call it a review if the person writing it hasn't read the book.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It definitely wasn't a review of the book, it was an opinion on its author!
Transilien
Member
Wait he acknowledged that my mistake! 
Given that I have given the positive review of the book that has apparently made its back cover (!) I think this is a natural point for me to note that it is a very good read indeed and to recommend it. Disclaimer: He's a good friend, but whilst we mightn't always agree on how railways might fix the future, we do agree that they quite possibly could.
It is a political work - how could it not be - but even if you perhaps don't like all the things he says on podcasts etc, this is a chap who has now spoken directly to (and asked questions of) dozens of well-informed individuals across the railway for his programmes and columns, of all sorts of political leanings. There are some extremely good ideas in the book and it was (certainly for me) a timely chunk of big thinking; I think some of us get mired in the day-to-day all too easily. It's been written by Gareth with passion, and edited by others judiciously - and I believe it's already on the third or so print run, rather unexpectedly. So there you go.
It is a political work - how could it not be - but even if you perhaps don't like all the things he says on podcasts etc, this is a chap who has now spoken directly to (and asked questions of) dozens of well-informed individuals across the railway for his programmes and columns, of all sorts of political leanings. There are some extremely good ideas in the book and it was (certainly for me) a timely chunk of big thinking; I think some of us get mired in the day-to-day all too easily. It's been written by Gareth with passion, and edited by others judiciously - and I believe it's already on the third or so print run, rather unexpectedly. So there you go.
I came across a copy on the new books display in the city reference library and sat down for half an hour looking through it.
I thought it was quite turgid to read and the lack of an index makes browsing hard. It is all text - he describes his top-twenty national railway systems, which could have been presented graphically but without a table it's unclear what the metrics are. The Netherlands and Britain score quite low because there is relatively little freight traffic; big countries with long-distance freight flows (and big fossil fuel industries) score higher. Space is given to debunking Hyperloop, which is fair enough, but it could have been done more clearly and concisely.
It struck me as a book for the politically-commited but I don't see it changing minds in the wider public.
I thought it was quite turgid to read and the lack of an index makes browsing hard. It is all text - he describes his top-twenty national railway systems, which could have been presented graphically but without a table it's unclear what the metrics are. The Netherlands and Britain score quite low because there is relatively little freight traffic; big countries with long-distance freight flows (and big fossil fuel industries) score higher. Space is given to debunking Hyperloop, which is fair enough, but it could have been done more clearly and concisely.
It struck me as a book for the politically-commited but I don't see it changing minds in the wider public.
I've not read it. Seeing an online poster put a screenshot of a page up, at the start of a chapter on the dominance of the car, I was interested to read it. What I saw was a classic example of post hoc rationalisation - I don't like the dominance of cars, and cars are built by nasty exploitative capitalists, so the dominance must be the result of their intervention.
The absence of thought about the role of personal transport previously, and why the coming of the internal combustion engine mapped so neatly onto the decline in building new railways, left me with no confidence in any of the wider analysis - nor any desire to invest time in reading it.