Gareth Dennis

Gareth Dennis

@garethdennis.uk

Rail engineer and writer. Hosts @railnatter.uk and @trainsatlantic.uk. HOW THE RAILWAYS WILL FIX THE FUTURE (https://bit.ly/HowTheRailways) available everywhere. He/him.

14.8K followers3.6K following4K posts

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Gareth Dennis reposted

It's a blatant display of intellectual dishonesty: he claims to believe that "AI" is the future of gaming development and it should be embraced, but he also seems to think its use should be a matter of privacy and not to be broadcasted to customers. Such an intolerable dipshit.

Rock Paper Shotgun@rockpapershotgun.bsky.social

Steam's AI disclosures are akin to "forcing developers to list their voting history", says man who must hate seeing eggs virtue signal that they're free-range. https://bit.ly/4yHFEyK

Gareth Dennis reposted

I think my favourite quote from @garethdennis.uk in this piece is: "The railways were built by moronic Victorian capitalists who had no view of the future." 🤣🤣 The comment on NPR is also good. Anyway, this is an incredibly crucial point! #NPR #Railways

The Exchange@theexchangeleeds.bsky.social

The announcement of a brand spanking new station in Bradford this week was delivered with excitement. But plenty were confused.Officials have danced around the elephant in the room since as well. Bradford Interchange is a dead end. @garethdennis.uk tells us a through-station isn't viable there.

Gareth Dennis reposted

Miatta can clearly see right from wrong but she's rowed into line twice with a Labour government siding with Shell and Donald Trump on climate vandalism, and into line now on cruel immigration reforms. What is the point of Labour if they can't even do the basics to protect people and the planet?

Gareth Dennis reposted

Tonight on #Railnatter! Bradford’s cancelled through station and Tracy Brabin’s Westminster problem, the London Assembly report on driverless taxis, and GBR’s proposed temporary train liveries. Plus, why train design matters and the latest transport news!

So now we've got some clarity via the local newspaper, this announcement is actually cancellation of the through station and a public admission that the design of the station is now being delayed by years. We're in a worse position now than we were in 2022. Appalling.

This ironclad commitment to a new station is an important milestone for Bradford.🤝🚆 The city has so much untapped potential, and faster, more frequent trains to Leeds and Manchester, alongside the transformation of its centre, will help to finally unleash it.💪

I was working on the single option design for Interchange back in 2022, with Motts leading the design. St James was being tested for option selection by Systra in 2024. Why has the design gone backwards by 2-4 years?

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What an utter shame and embarrassment for everyone involved that so little is happening of any meaningful value in terms of rail expansion projects nationally that this total non-announcement is seen by the utterly useless DfT press team as newsworthy.

Gareth Dennis reposted

Gareth Dennis@garethdennis.uk

What a silent fart of an announcement. Absolutely nothing to it, but it stinks. Two key requirements of this "new station" aren't even mentioned in this press release (St James site location, through station), which suggests to me this is a de-scoping of original plans.

Gareth Dennis reposted

Replying to @garethdennis.uk

What an utter shame and embarrassment for everyone involved that so little is happening of any meaningful value in terms of rail expansion projects nationally that this total non-announcement is seen by the utterly useless DfT press team as newsworthy.

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This is what the new station and connecting lines SHOULD look like, with my work-in-progress Weaver Metro proposals overlaid: bsky.app/profile/gare...

Gareth Dennis@garethdennis.uk

For years, people have been asking me about "Bradford Crossrail" and my response has always been "I need to think about that strategically, not just because it might look nice on a map". Well, now I've looked at it. You do need a tunnel under Bradford, but not the way everyone's been saying:

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The total public secrecy around the development of "Northern Powerhouse Rail" is a democratic abomination and the railway press should refuse to use the phrase until it's properly defined.

My current understanding is "we're going to hijack existing suburban lines and obliterate local capacity" as that's the last time there was any detail and there's been no clarity since. And now it looks like they are going back to retaining the dead-end station at Interchange.

If that's the case, this is once again a cancellation and retreat from previous plans dressed up as a "positive" announcement. Why wouldn't your press statement say these things explicitly if they were still part of the scope?

Gareth Dennis reposted

transmisogyny in service of liberal anti-communism is accidentally the perfect representation of why liberals are such terrible advocates for the actual material needs of trans people absolutely no substance, just pure vibes and rhetoric. the USSR is somehow the comparison here, not Nazi Germany?

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Gareth Dennis reposted

I cannot recommend @garethdennis.uk book "How the Railways Will Fix the Future" enough. It is well argued from deep systems knowledge, and a revolutionary hope for the future. We can and we should - we must - build a better world, and trains are a necessary part of that. We owe it to our children.

That a metro system would be built in a northern UK city involving underground tunnels and stations is supposedly an impossible, unrealistic idea from an unserious mind. Meanwhile, Newcastle with 13km of bored tunnels and 9 underground stations built 13 years after first plans:

Leeds needs more than one tram line in 50 years of planning. This only requires 27km of tunnels, a little over twice what Newcastle got in the 1970s: bsky.app/profile/gare...

Gareth Dennis@garethdennis.uk

After this week's @railnatter.uk, I've had the pleasure of writing up my proposals for an extensive Leeds (and West Yorkshire) Metro for @theexchangeleeds.bsky.social - if you want maps, we've got maps! If you want an explanation of repeat station designs, it's here! Are trams good enough? No!

Once again, I cannot express the extent to which the least anyone cheerleading trans segregation deserves is hounding out of public life.

Sophie Molly@sophiemolly.co.uk

She was murdered by transphobia 😥😥😥

Gareth Dennis reposted

With the Meta thing, the credible accusations of Hondurasgate, the US forcing Autistici/Inventati to shut down, and that $4 million for right wing news in Europe, it really does seem like an international right-wing public-private influence plot.

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social

" A judge of Brazil’s top electoral court ruled Thursday that Meta must adopt measures to immediately secure equal treatment of the two presidential candidates ahead of an Oct. 25 runoff." www.nbcnews.com/world/south-...

Gareth Dennis reposted

“These tools have been rolled out without proper testing, quality assurance and training. This careless approach could have catastrophic consequences for those people whose future is in the hands of Home Office decision-making.” New report exposes how UK asylum decision-makers are using ChatGPT.

openrightsgroup.orgThe Use of ChatGPT in Asylum DecisionsErrors, Inaccuracies and Home Office Incompetence Executive summary Deciding whether someone can or cannot seek refuge in the UK is one of the most serious and life-changing decisions that the state ...

Gareth Dennis reposted

Dems need to haul Zuck up to Capitol Hill every week to answer for this shit treat these people like the political enemies they are

Ezra Levin ❌👑@ezralevin.bsky.social

Full update from our team. We STILL do not have admin access to the account.

Gareth Dennis reposted

One for the #LUFC fans. Each and every one will have an opinion on a Leeds tram/metro network 😃

Gareth Dennis@garethdennis.uk

After this week's @railnatter.uk, I've had the pleasure of writing up my proposals for an extensive Leeds (and West Yorkshire) Metro for @theexchangeleeds.bsky.social - if you want maps, we've got maps! If you want an explanation of repeat station designs, it's here! Are trams good enough? No!

Gareth Dennis reposted

In 2010 I moved from Copenhagen to Leeds. I still haven't got over the shock of how a major uk city can be so failed by its shitty infrastructure. Goes a long way to explaining how Leeds is so fragmented- outwith the city center it feels more like an agglomeration of villages than a real city.

Gareth Dennis@garethdennis.uk

After this week's @railnatter.uk, I've had the pleasure of writing up my proposals for an extensive Leeds (and West Yorkshire) Metro for @theexchangeleeds.bsky.social - if you want maps, we've got maps! If you want an explanation of repeat station designs, it's here! Are trams good enough? No!

For years, people have been asking me about "Bradford Crossrail" and my response has always been "I need to think about that strategically, not just because it might look nice on a map". Well, now I've looked at it. You do need a tunnel under Bradford, but not the way everyone's been saying: