Book Details⊕ A First Class seat for a First Class book.

Title: How The Railways Will Fix The Future : Rediscovering the Essential Brilliance of the Iron Road.
Author: Gareth Dennis
Publisher: Repeater
Year: 2024
ISBN: 978-1-915672-48-3

Introduction

In his debut book rail engineer, writer and broadcaster Gareth Dennis makes a convincing case for rail being the primary mode of transport to meet the needs and demands of an increasingly complicated human world. As humanity faces increased threats from a changing climate and the increasing atomisation and isolation of society, it is only natural for one to ask the question of how we are going to move about in the future. Dennis does so, taking us on a whirlwind tour of rail history, the current existing global system of railways and proposes a framework for a rail focused future of mobility for people and goods alike.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

It is important that I disclose that Gareth is a personal friend and as a result, this review may present a potential conflict of interest (an interesting ethics question). In this review, I have attempted to be as impartial and honest as possible. There is no denying that I quite like and have enjoyed reading How The Railways Will Fix The Future and am very proud of my friend for achieving what he has. Having said that, I have taken every opportunity and made every attempt to review the work as if it was by any other author. Gareth hasn't seen this before it has gone live either.

A Strong Debut

Dennis describes this book as two things. Firstly as a "polemic non-fiction book" Dennis 2024, p. 252. about railways. The second as a handbook for finding solutions to mobility in the future. Dennis 2024, p. 267. It most certainly is the former, identifying some of the core issues plaguing the development and successful operation of railways, both in the United Kingdom (a central focus, being that Gareth is a British author and engineer) as well as the other systems globally in his very ADHD and enthusiastic style. ‡ RailNatter fans will know what I'm talking about.

Efficiency, Economics and Environment

The work is also the latter. While this aspect of the book is less obvious on first glance, Dennis has set out an excellent set of fundamental principles that one can use to analyse future transportation conundrums and why rail is nearly always the solution to solve the problem. Rail's key advantages over road, aviation and water based transport is the advantage of the steel wheel on steel rail and it's self guiding nature. Jerrelind et al. 2021, Dennis 2024. Throughout the book, Dennis repeated asks the question "what should a transport system do" when discussing the aims of a railway and the authority in control of it. This question should always be central to any discussions around any transit related policy or project and the book returns repeatedly to why the gains in energy, space, time and environmental efficiencies the steel wheel-rail mode allows for should be used by readers to sway debate in favour of a rail based solution.

If not more important to Dennis' case for rail is what I'll call "the lithium question". The production of lithium batteries is a highly contentious topic and has severe ethical concerns attached to it. Lithium cells require various heavy metals (including cobalt) which are often mined through the use of child and/or forced labour. Malpede 2024, Tilly et al. 2024. As much as battery electric vehicles may be the future of our road based transit, Dennis makes it abundantly clear that this is not a sustainable way to solve our travel energy requirements. Not only is the increased kerb weight a problem, the lifetime emissions of a road BEV are atrocious due to the environmental impact of mining, refining, shipping and building of batteries and the associated circuitry that is required for their safe operation in road vehicles. Tilly et al. 2024 The advantages of the alternative technology that rail provides (overhead line electrification) are made so plainly clear by Dennis one would have to perform some impressive mental gymnastics to suggest that road electrification is the economic and environmentally superior (and sustainable) solution to our future transit needs.

Troubled Histories

I'm also pleased to see that Dennis is willing to engage with rail's less than stellar track record when it comes to being the 'mode of the people'. He openly and frankly engages with the deep rooted histories of slavery, exploitation (of people, communities and environments) and corruption that made the railways as successful as they are today. This has been a subject that has historically slipped under the collective radar. While there has been recent interest in the subject, it has been met with (underserved) criticism from the wider interested public. York, Betts, and Knight, n.d. It's very positive to see a book targeted at a wider audience engaging with such a sensitive topic and giving it the focus it deserves.

A series of comments discussing the National Railway Museum's research into slavery. Stephen Wynn-davies, n.d.

Humans are not Machines

While writing this review, I've been spending a lot of time hanging around friends who work on the railway. The thing that has struck me the most about everyone I've had the pleasure of meeting, as well as those who I've interacted with in the past is that everyone (baring an absolute tiny minority) wants to help and wants the best for the future. There is no denying that there are disagreements. There always will be. But the notable thing is the importance of that human touch. The importance of that human touch is what underpins this book. Without the humans that make rail what it is, rail would never work and for them to fix the future, we need to invest and expand that fundamental human base, as is apparent throughout the book.

It is also very pleasing to see that in the sections on automation, Gareth does not advocate for the removal of the human. Where automation is to be applied, it is to be applied to augment the human. The book makes a great case for the power of the GoA2‡ Grade of Automationrailway and why the lust for GoA4 is misplaced. Too often we see political statements about "driverless" trains being used as threats to get staff (and unions) to fall in line. A railway that actually wants to succeed should have degrees of automation, but should also fully have humans at every step and Dennis identifies the value in the "grey matter" side of humans. The human will always be able to predict and react in a way that a computer cannot, due to lived experiences. As we've seen with "driverless" cars, no matter how much training data you feed the (climate destroying) machine, they still need some poor soul to pretend they're playing with an RC car and intervene when they come across the tiniest thing outside their terabytes of training data. Bott, McGee, and Campbell 2023. Humans don't need this. They also don't get stuck in wet cement.

A Framework for the Future

Section 2 of the book is the most valuable for those looking to improve the railways, both now and in the future. In these 139 pages, Dennis lays out a eight step framework for better railway governance, engineering and provision. Historically we've seen a relative lack of diverse individuals in leadership, with the pre-nationalisation companies being the run by a narrow group of bankers, politicians, lords and other powerful families and the British Rail Board (and earlier BTC) being run in a similar way. The modern railway structure is also a mess of private investment and equity firms, powerful businessmen and of all things, the Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan. Railway Gazette International 2010.

Dennis' suggestions focus predominantly on breaking this cycle, suggesting that local communities, the railway employees, a democratisation of the decision making processes and a focus on modal shift‡ The driving of people and things to move from one form of transport to another. are all key to securing rail's future. Dennis is right here, especially on that last point. Modal shift to (especially electrified) rail has the potential to significantly reduce climate impacts. Electric intercity service has an 88% decrease in CO₂ emissions (CO₂E) per passenger; compared to an air service, the electric train has a 98% decrease in CO₂E. Shirres 2023. Settings actually useful targets and placing those who understand them in power (rather than people who are there to seek a profit) is the way to elicit change and leverage the railways for good and it's pleasing to see Dennis highlight the importance this.

Creeper, aw man!

Technology is everywhere in our lives. Heck, I'm writing this on a laptop and not on a typewriter. My notes link together in a way that makes it feel like I have built my own personal Wikipedia. The railway is also full of technology and was often at the forefront of it. However we have moved into a new era of technological interconnectedness and the railway certainly isn't being left behind. As we have seen recently with the TfL incident, public transport is just as vulnerable to cyberattacks as any other connected computer system is. Transport for London, n.d. It is very pleasing to see Dennis highlight the importance of considering this as we plan and build our future railway systems. Dennis 2024, pp. 223-228. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Dennis calls out the Newag Incident in Poland, an especially terrifying incident as it would appear that an internet connected device on that train is also directly connected to the train's emergency brake system. media.ccc.de 2023.

Discussions about how we manage what is and isn't connected and how to protect the most critical systems (e.g. signalling, train controls, communications) need to be happening and really should have begun yesterday. It's good to know that there are people within the industry (like Dennis) who are also concerned about this.

Realpolitik

What jumped out about the book the most to me was how optimistic and idealistic Dennis' commentary was. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, I personally do not believe that there is the political will, stakeholder interest from both industry and government nor the wider general public understanding for the proposed targets for rail to be met. To borrow a german term, it's a question of Realpolitik - the realistic or practical politics given the circumstances facing one.

Electrify All The Things

Electrification is undoubtedly the future for the railways. In many ways, the question of powering the railway was solved as early as 1879 when Siemens demonstrated a third rail powered electric train and was fully solved by means of overhead line electrification by the mid-to-late 1880s. Duffy 2003. So why, in 2024, am I sat writing this on the objectively worse diesel powered train - one with a diesel engine grinding away under my feet turning what would be an otherwise peaceful coach into a noisy and rattly tin can being flung down the line at 125mph?‡ Thanks to the friends who gave me the First Class Ticket!

The case in favour of electrification is set out right at the start in a frank and rather disheartening discussion about lithium and other rare earth materials. As we discussed earlier, Dennis makes a good case for electrifying with overhead wires. While battery technologies require many rare earth materials, the most valuable resource (other than the humans who build and maintain the thing) in an OLE system is the copper. This isn't to say that copper is free of environmental and ethical issues (just look up "open-pit copper mine"), copper is at least "renewable" in that you can melt it down and reform it into new things (such as wires). However I do not think that (at least in the UK) there's currently the will, nor (more importantly) the public understanding for why OLE is the superior choice. Much of the opposition to OLE is the visual impact (see the Great Western Electrification Project Save the Goring Gap 2015. ) and in certain cases I fully agree with the opposition. It's notable that the GWML electrification is quite heavy duty in comparison to other systems (see Gary Keenor's work for the differences between the "High Speed 1" and "Series 1 Range" Keenor 2021. ). I would have appreciated some guidance towards how one may begin to tackle this problem with engineers, designers and planners.

Level Boarding

Level Boarding should be a fundamental concept when building railways. Due to cheapness, laziness, incompetence and many other reasons, the railway doesn't have level boarding. It's a topic that I'm continuing to cover elsewhere on my blog (and have made some interesting discoveries about). Dennis' assertion that it should be a fundamental part of renewal works is the only reasonable opinion to have on the matter, if you ask me. I do, however, think that he's a little optimistic about it's implementation timeframe and method.

While I do agree that a rolling programme of accessibility improvements to stations should be a core programme, I do not believe that the current (British) government will support such investment. As we've seen with their recent budget, there is little interest from this government in funding such matters - focus is entirely on filling in holes and releasing stress where the network is most likely to burst. Reeves 2024. Sadly the current solution is deemed to be "good enough" and the only provider of level fleets in the UK (Stadler) has an order backlog that effectively deters it from taking on any more work in the UK. Feldges 2022. I won't be too harsh here though; Dennis is providing an idealistic future that (hopefully) can be achieved. I believe that with the right incentives (as Dennis says consult with people and have a diverse leadership) we can see improvements and hopefully universal level access throughout the railway in the medium to long term.

Thatcher's Legacy

It's known that Thatcher was fearful of British Rail. Famously it was the one thing she couldn't privatise. She's alleged to have compared the privatisation of British Rail to Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.‡ Wikipedia cites Andrew Marr's book, however I've not confirmed this I lack as easy access to a copy. Yet the Iron Lady maintains a grip on the railways that many may not have expected - her ideas about fiscal policy and spending. Nearly every project we see on the railways is always thought of (at least in political and public circles) only in terms of capital expenditure. The long term costs and benefits and how they weigh up are almost never thought through. Subsidy is seen of as a bad thing and wider consequences of inaction are quietly brushed away. I would have like to see Dennis explore this problem in more detail and potentially offer ways to convince those on the fence in favour of a higher CapEx projects that long term offer benefits - financial, environmental, mobility and time wise.

Small Frustrations

Many Hands Make Light Work

The book is not without it's faults. Chief among these for me‡ This is very much from the viewpoint of someone who's foolish enough to engage in academic pursuits. is the lack of any further reading, reference list or otherwise cited work. I've talked about this choice with Gareth. While the book may be a general text for wider public consumption, a source list would have gone a long way to aiding people in helping to build the cases for rail that he sets out. Easy location of source material would help activists, designers, planners and all manner of people involved in the processes that help to specify, construct, renew and operate railways build their case and fight back against watered down proposals or auto-oriented proposals that only lock in the inequalities that Dennis so wishes to have shattered by rail. I do understand that it's a more general book with the aim of providing a commentary rather than a deep dive and scrupulous footnoting would be a little over the top, but even a source list would have been super appreciated.

Consistent Framing

I also question how Dennis choses to introduce a new framework only a few pages from the end of his first chapter. This framework - the "four C's" Dennis 2024, p. 92. that decide how suitable a mode is to filling the requirements of a transportation technology is introduced only to debate the efficacy of the mostly theoretical "Hyperloop" technology. These tests, namely capacity, corridor, complexity and cost, would have been particularly valuable in also discussing the proposed (and now abandoned) Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro (CAM) and Translohr systems discussed in prior pages; it also has much wider application for the reader in interrogating other proposed technologies that (as Dennis rightly states) are often just a re-imagined car, a badly implemented train or magic pixie dust. I feel that an opportunity to demonstrate how well this framework works in discussing the value of proposed technologies. Take the discussion of CAM Dennis 2024, pp. 68-91. , a system of "autonomous" buses buses that was proposed to be put in a tunnel under Cambridge's centre. On the capacity front, Dennis calculates CAM to have a system capacity of 5,580 passengers per hour per direction (awkwardly shortened to pphpd) and compares this to an equivalent tram-based system yeilding 9,000 pphpd. On corridor, Dennis and I agree that the concept isn't half bad - Cambridge would benefit from a tram system and potential expansions of that system further afield into the wider conurbation would yield a valuable addition to the region. Regarding complexity, as Dennis identifies, the system's "autonomous" claims may as well be vapourware, while the maintenance headaches of any guided rubber tyre system (see the later discussion on Translohr) make the system a non-starter. Finally, cost. £300m a mile is laughably overpriced (compared to the equivalent tram-based solution). I needn't flog this horse any more than Dennis does.

Considering this exercise we have just done, I find it rather baffling that the four C's are not introduced early and used liberally. They could even have provided great value earlier as a secondary device for analysing the "Top Twenty" list. Take the Swiss railways (held up as an "elite" system). It's got a good set of corridors, it's complex but well managed, the capacity is pretty much as good as you can get for a mixed traffic system but it's costs are astronomical to maintain this complexity. Dennis 2024, pp. 49-52. This is just one example of where they could have been deployed to hammer a point home hard.

The four C's are an excellent idea, especially for those looking to get projects evaluated critically and I would argue that they're one of the best concepts in the book for anyone involved in transport planning and activism. It would have been great to see them deployed in more places to push the main points of the book harder.

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, I would suggest you go out and buy the book. I think it serves a very valuable purpose of being an idea generator. It highlights the key advantages of rail transport and how these advantages will be of significant benefit to us as a society as the pressures of a warming planet, increasing travel demands, ever more intensely used logistics networks and the shift from one limited natural resource to another mount. The focus on how rail can be a catalyst for reshaping our society into a more equal one is also a welcome and important one. While I do have some frustrations, it is well worth reading and do not let them put you off the book.

While there is a lot of idealism, it is realistic idealism. Do I think the UK will electrify at the same pace as India or achieve level boarding as fast as Gareth suggests? In a word, no. In more words, I think the overarching goals are very realistic; half of it is just writing a few standards and sticking to the ones we have at the end of the day, however it will require a lot more buy in from politicians, the public and the wider rail industry to achieve. But it's achievable. We need dreamers to give us the goals, after all.

I whole heartedly can recommend the book. Even if you disagree with Mr Dennis' conclusions, I still would encourage you to read it as it may open your eyes to aspects of rail that you may not have noticed before.

Addendum

On the day this review was published, I purchased a copy of the book for a friend's birthday gift. If that's not a recommendation, I don't know what is!

Cited Works

• Bott, Ian, Patrick McGee, and Peter Campbell. 2023. ‘Here Come the Driverless Taxis’. Financial Times, 18 August 2023, sec. The Big Read. https://www.ft.com/content/84ef1d6c-f731-4c78-a056-5bf368beac2b.

• Dennis, Gareth. 2024. HOW THE RAILWAYS WILL FIX THE FUTURE : Rediscovering the Essential Brilliance of the... Iron Road. [S.l.]: REPEATER.

• Duffy, Michael C. 2003. ‘Electric Railways and American Practice’. In Electric Railways, 1880-1990, 11–22. Institution of Engineering and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1049/PBHT031E_ch2.

• Feldges, Dominik. 2022. ‘Stadler Rail kann es den Anlegern nicht recht machen’. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 15 March 2022, sec. Economy. https://www.nzz.ch/wirtschaft/stadler-rail-sichert-sich-einen-grossauftrag-nach-dem-anderen-und-kann-es-den-investoren-trotzdem-nicht-recht-machen-ld.1674674.

• Jerrelind, Jenny, Paul Allen, Patrick Gruber, Mats Berg, and Lars Drugge. 2021. ‘Contributions of Vehicle Dynamics to the Energy Efficient Operation of Road and Rail Vehicles’. Vehicle System Dynamics 59 (7): 1114–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/00423114.2021.1913194.

• Keenor, Garry. 2021. Overhead Line Electrification for Railways. 6th ed. Brentwood: Permanent Way Institution.

• Malpede, Maurizio. 2024. ‘Lithium-Ion Batteries and Fertility in Africa’. Journal of Population Economics 37 (1): 25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-024-01005-y.

• media.ccc.de, dir. 2023. 37C3 -  Breaking ‘DRM’ in Polish Trains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrlrbfGZo2k.

• Railway Gazette International. 2010. ‘Railway Gazette: High Speed 1 Concession Awarded to Canadian Pension Consortium’. 8 November 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20101108014309/https://www.railwaygazette.com/nc/news/single-view/view/high-speed-1-concession-awarded-to-canadian-pension-consortium.html.

• Reeves, Rachel. 2024. ‘Autumn Budget 2024 Speech’. GOV.UK. 30 October 2024. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/autumn-budget-2024-speech.

• Save the Goring Gap. 2015. ‘The Railway Action Group (RAG) - Save the Goring Gap’. 8 December 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20151208110615/http://www.savegoringgap.org.uk/the-railway-action-group-rag.html.

• Shirres, David. 2023. ‘DfT Undersells Modal Shift’. Rail Engineer (blog). 2 May 2023. https://www.railengineer.co.uk/dft-undersells-modal-shift/.

• Stephen Wynn-davies. n.d. ‘National Railway Museum Will Investigate STEAM TRAINS for Links to Slavery | Daily Mail Online’. Accessed 7 November 2024. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10174983/National-Railway-Museum-investigate-STEAM-TRAINS-links-slavery.html.

• Tilly, Niklas, Tan Yigitcanlar, Kenan Degirmenci, and Alexander Paz. 2024. ‘How Sustainable Is Electric Vehicle Adoption? Insights from a PRISMA Review’. Sustainable Cities and Society 117 (December):105950. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2024.105950.

• Transport for London. n.d. ‘Cyber Security Incident’. Transport for London. Accessed 14 November 2024. https://www.tfl.gov.uk/campaign/cyber-security-incident.

• York, University of, Oliver Betts, and Rosie Knight. n.d. ‘Links between Railways and Slavery to Be Explored in New Research Project’. University of York. Accessed 7 November 2024. https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2021/research/steam-slavery-railways-research/.

Changes

Content changes are denoted in bold.

11^th January 2025

• Made comments section not appear on prints.

18^th November 2024

• Added comments section.

16^th November 2024

• Fixed some Meta Tag issues. (What's new, Scooby Doo?)

14^th November 2024

• Initial release.