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All aboard! This episode we're discussing the non-fiction genre of Transportation and Transit! We talk trains, buses, bicycles, spaceships, and more! You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jam Edwards Things We Read (or tried to…) The Art of the Locomotive by Ken Boyd Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America by Michael Hiltzik Ghost Train (four part podcast by Denver Public Radio) Transit Maps of the World: The World's First Collection of Every Urban Train Map on Earth by Mark Ovenden Transit Maps of the World: Expanded and Updated Edition of the World's First Collection of Every Urban Train Map on Earth by Mark Ovenden Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town by Charles L. Marohn Jr. Canadarm and Collaboration: How Canada's Astronauts and Space Robots Explore New Worlds by Elizabeth Howell Links between two cities: historic bridges between Ottawa and Hull by Lucien Brault. Other Media We Mentioned The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of the Railways by Mike Ashley Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie Orient Express by Graham Greene Maiden Railways by Asumiko Nakamura Heaven's Design Team, Vol. 1 by Hebi-Zou, Tsuta Suzuki, and Tarako For 2 Weeks, Switzerland Has A Rail Replacement Helicopter Vancouver's Expo Line 1990 vs 2020 Mini Metro Soviet Bus Stops by Christopher Herwig There's a documentary movie! Soviet Metro Stations by Christopher Herwig How To F#€k Up An Airport (five part podcast by Radio Spaetkauf) Some YouTube channels and videos about trains and transport things: CityNerd Not Just Bikes Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) Crossing the Street Shouldn't Be Deadly (but it is) (See the building Anna and Matthew used to live in!) RMTransit The Tim Traveller This New LA Metro Station Should be PACKED - Here's Why It's Not Denver's Transit System is Problematic Freight Trains: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments by David Foster Wallace Links, Articles, and Things Note to self: Make “derail” joke about conversation going off topic. Train_Station-Katowice_Poland.wav by jgrzinich Rail replacement bus service (Wikipedia) Slow television (Wikipedia) “It was popularised in the 2000s by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), beginning with the broadcast of a 7-hour train journey in 2009.” Fort Collins Trolley ‘I am done': Amid rider woes, is Ottawa's transit system a victim of its own success? Heritage Minutes: Avro Arrow 12 Transit/Automotive/Planes/Trains/Boats books by BIPOC Authors Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers' Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here. Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance by Mia Bay Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance by Alvin Hall Empire's Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad by Manu Karuka Bicycle/Race: Transportation, Culture, & Resistance by Adonia E. Lugo Making a Chaputs: The Teachings and Responsibilities of a Canoe Maker by Joe Martin with Alan Hoover Taxi!: Cabs and Capitalism in New York City by Biju Mathew Crash Course: If You Want To Get Away With Murder Buy a Car by Woodrow Phoenix Colored Travelers: Mobility and the Fight for Citizenship Before the Civil War by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor Why Flying Is Miserable: And How to Fix It by Ganesh Sitaraman Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sorin Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy A. Taylor The Diary of Dukesang Wong: A Voice from Gold Mountain by Dukesang Wong, translated by Wanda Joy Hoe Give us feedback! Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read! Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, February 6th just in time for Valentine's day we'll be discussing the genre of Humorous/Funny Romance! Then on Tuesday, February 20th we'll be talking about our reading resolutions for 2024! (2024? That can't be right. That's definitely the future.)
This week's podcast is sponsored by Europe Talks. Sign up to have a conversation with a random European here! Now that we are FINALLY turning our attention to other things, this week we bring you the enjoyably chaotic story of Berlin's new airport. Jöran Mandik is one of the co-hosts of How To F#€k Up An Airport, an entire podcast series about the saga. We chatted about too-short escalators, human fire alarms, and scandalous overspending. Also this week: carrier pigeons, Denmark's vegetarian u-turn, and how to punish undemocratic governments. Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our show and want to help us keep running, you can chip in a few euros/dollars/pounds at patreon.com/europeanspodcast. How To F#€k Up An Airport is a series from Berlin's English-language news show, Radio Spaetkauf. Dominic has been listening to this Esther Perel interview. Katy has been watching The Queen's Gambit and enjoying this Twitter thread about the German filming location. Katy is speaking at Bulgaria's Listen Up podcasting festival next week! Get tickets here. Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | hello@europeanspodcast.com
Every Berliner knows the new airport is about to open. But few know about the disasters that could happen next. We’re here to explain. Masie, Joel and Jöran take part in a test of the new terminal and find it functional, if a bit dull. We meet the only hero in the BER saga – Engelbert Lütke Daldrup, the airport’s fourth CEO, and the one who finally finished the job. He’s a bureaucratic nerd who visited the building site on weekends to check on progress. And he has a penchant for prose when talking about his airport: “In the evenings, when the sun disappears behind the horizon, or when airplanes with their landing lights are touching down at Schönefeld… I don’t want to call it romantic, but there are special moments.” But just as BER was turning the corner, COVID-19 has slashed air traffic by 70% and put a huge hole in an already shaky budget. Critics say the pandemic is masking a passenger capacity crunch. Can the airport really handle all of Berlin’s travellers? We’ll only know after the crisis. How will BER pay the bills? We talk to business professor Hans Georg Gemünden from the Techniches Universität, who says the airport company has used accounting tricks to hide serious financial problems, and predicts it will go bankrupt in several years. Should BER open at all? Environmental activists from Am Boden Blieben (Stay On The Ground) will blockade the airport to protest unnecessary air travel. They propose a frequent flyer tax to discourage jetsetting. Radio Spaetkauf urges you to support any of the many charities rescuing people from drowning in the Mediterranean. We all deserve a good and safe life, no matter where we are born. European governments are acting immorally, but some people are trying to save lives. Donate to: Sea-Watch: http://www.sea-watch-org Mare Liberum: https://mare-liberum.org/ Alarm Phone: https://alarmphone.org/ Sea Eye: https://sea-eye.org/ Or any other Mediterranean rescue organization. How To Fuck Up An Airport is presented by Radio Spaetkauf and RadioEins. Producer: Joel Dullroy Presenters: Joel Dullroy, Maisie Hitchcock, Jöran Mandik and Daniel Stern Music: Ducks! Artwork: Jim Avignon
Every Berliner knows the new airport is about to open. But few know about the disasters that could happen next. We’re here to explain. Masie, Joel and Jöran take part in a test of the new terminal and find it functional, if a bit dull. We meet the only hero in the BER saga – Engelbert Lütke Daldrup, the airport’s fourth CEO, and the one who finally finished the job. He’s a bureaucratic nerd who visited the building site on weekends to check on progress. And he has a penchant for prose when talking about his airport: “In the evenings, when the sun disappears behind the horizon, or when airplanes with their landing lights are touching down at Schönefeld… I don’t want to call it romantic, but there are special moments.” But just as BER was turning the corner, COVID-19 has slashed air traffic by 70% and put a huge hole in an already shaky budget. Critics say the pandemic is masking a passenger capacity crunch. Can the airport really handle all of Berlin’s travellers? We’ll only know after the crisis. How will BER pay the bills? We talk to business professor Hans Georg Gemünden from the Techniches Universität, who says the airport company has used accounting tricks to hide serious financial problems, and predicts it will go bankrupt in several years. Should BER open at all? Environmental activists from Am Boden Blieben (Stay On The Ground) will blockade the airport to protest unnecessary air travel. They propose a frequent flyer tax to discourage jetsetting. Radio Spaetkauf urges you to support any of the many charities rescuing people from drowning in the Mediterranean. We all deserve a good and safe life, no matter where we are born. European governments are acting immorally, but some people are trying to save lives. Donate to: Sea-Watch: http://www.sea-watch-org Mare Liberum: https://mare-liberum.org/ Alarm Phone: https://alarmphone.org/ Sea Eye: https://sea-eye.org/ Or any other Mediterranean rescue organization. How To Fuck Up An Airport is presented by Radio Spaetkauf and RadioEins. Producer: Joel Dullroy Presenters: Joel Dullroy, Maisie Hitchcock, Jöran Mandik and Daniel Stern Music: Ducks! Artwork: Jim Avignon Subscribe to Radio Spaetkauf on iTunes. Support us with a monthly donation!
How To F#€k Up An Airport team presents: Rent Freeze, a podcast about Berlin's rental revolution. Berlin's rent freeze has begun, but nobody seems to know what's going on. Landlords and tenants alike are confused about what to do next. Rents are now capped at the rate paid in June 2019 - all increases since then are invalid. New contracts can't exceed about €9.80 a square meter - half as much as many advertised prices. And landlords face fines of half a million euros for cheating. On this episode we go inside Berlin's parliament to hear the moment the rent freeze law was passed. Supporters and opponents gave fiery speeches in a rowdy session, which ended with politicians voting to suspend the free market for rental property for five years. We hear what landlords think about the new law. Some are devising ways to cheat - by renting to ignorant foreigners: "Those who screw their landlords are old Germans." Despite the threat of huge fines, some don't think the city has the resources to prosecute them. And what should tenants do if they hope for a rent decrease? Lawyer Daniel Halmer from Wenigermieter.de says they should start adding three magic words to their rent transfers: "Zahlung unter Vorbehalt." It means paid with reservations, and gives tenants the right to to try to claim back overpayments at a later date. Rent Freeze is produced and presented by Joel Dullroy, Maisie Hitchcock, Jöran Mandik and Daniel Stern. Artwork by Jim Avignon. Music by Tom Evans and Ducks!. Recorded by Stephan Lindner. Rent Freeze is a production of Radio Spaetkauf and RadioEins.
A special live recording of the fourth and (maybe) last episode. Take a tour of all four of Berlin’s under-construction, out-of-use, falling-apart and over-capacity airports. Each has had a part to play in the story of how Berlin f#cked up an airport. At BER, we hear the airport company's side of the story: damn high regulations got in the way, they say. Tempelhof is closed, Tegel is operating precariously, and only socialist-built Schönefeld is muddling through. The end is in sight - October 2020. But even now Berlin is planning to double BER's floorplan and build a new government terminal. BER critic Dieter Faulenbach da Costa tells us the building is rotten to the core and should be scrapped. "I am convinced this airport can never open. They should pray for a miracle." We are joined on stage by Martin Delius, the former Pirate Party politician who led the Berlin parliamentary investigation into BER. Who was responsible for BER? All Berliners, he says. We ignored warning signs and re-elected incompetent politicians. This episode was recorded live on stage at Prachtwerk Neukölln on Sunday April 29, with audio support from Craig Schüftan from Ducks! How To F#ck Up An Airport is presented by Radio Spaetkauf and RadioEins. Producer: Joel Dullroy Presenters: Joel Dullroy, Maisie Hitchcock, Jöran Mandik and Daniel Stern Music: Ducks! Artwork: Jim Avignon
A special live recording of the fourth and (maybe) last episode. Take a tour of all four of Berlin’s under-construction, out-of-use, falling-apart and over-capacity airports. Each has had a part to play in the story of how Berlin fucked up an airport. At BER, we hear the airport company's side of the story: damn high regulations got in the way, they say. Tempelhof is closed, Tegel is operating precariously, and only socialist-built Schönefeld is muddling through. The end is in sight - October 2020. But even now Berlin is planning to double BER's floorplan and build a new government terminal. BER critic Dieter Faulenbach da Costa tells us the building is rotten to the core and should be scrapped. "I am convinced this airport can never open. They should pray for a miracle." We are joined on stage by Martin Delius, the former Pirate Pary politician who led the Berlin parliamentary investigation into BER. Who was responsible for BER? All Berliners, he says. We ignored warning signs and re-elected incompetent politicians. This episode was recorded live on stage at Prachtwerk Neukölln on Sunday April 29, with audio support from Craig Schüftan from Ducks! How To Fuck Up An Airport is presented by Radio Spaetkauf and RadioEins. Producer: Joel Dullroy Presenters: Joel Dullroy, Maisie Hitchcock, Jöran Mandik and Daniel Stern Music: Ducks! Artwork: Jim Avignon
BER has been built twice - the first time incorrectly, the second time incompletely. We hear from Marco, an engineer who worked on site. Employees were busy stealing copper instead of fixing the fire system. Some managers got rich taking bribes. Informers had their coffee poisoned. Joel and Jöran drive out to the unfinished BER terminal to inspect the too-short escalators that end with stairs. They were just one of 150,000 mistakes discovered in an audit after the 2012 cancellation. Cables were stuffed together in overloaded enclosures - a fire risk. The sprinkler pipes too small to carry the required water. More than 600 fire walls had to be reconstructed. And the builders forgot to install lightning rods. Even when it's fixed, BER will need another overhaul: "As soon as they open it they have to modernize it," Marco says. "The technology is old standards. New airports are already building in a different way. This is going to be from the beginning an old airport." But finally, heads are starting to roll... the wrong heads. The BER supervisory board fires the only people who know what's going on, creating new chaos. Then they fire the CEO Rainer Schwarz, but bungle the paperwork. Will any politician ever take responsibility? How To F#€k Up An Airport is presented by Radio Spaetkauf and RadioEins. Producer: Joel Dullroy Presenters: Joel Dullroy, Maisie Hitchcock, Jöran Mandik and Daniel Stern Music: Ducks! Artwork: Jim Avignon
BER has been built twice - the first time incorrectly, the second time incompletely. We hear from Marco, an engineer who worked on site. Employees were busy stealing copper instead of fixing the fire system. Some managers got rich taking bribes. Informers had their coffee poisoned. Joel and Jöran drive out to the unfinished BER terminal to inspect the too-short escalators that end with stairs. They were just one of 150,000 mistakes discovered in an audit after the 2012 cancellation. Cables were stuffed together in overloaded enclosures - a fire risk. The sprinkler pipes too small to carry the required water. More than 600 fire walls had to be reconstructed. And the builders forgot to install lightning rods. Even when it's fixed, BER will need another overhaul: "As soon as they open it they have to modernize it," Marco says. "The technology is old standards. New airports are already building in a different way. This is going to be from the beginning an old airport." But finally, heads are starting to roll... the wrong heads. The BER supervisory board fires the only people who know what's going on, creating new chaos. Then they fire the CEO Rainer Schwarz, but bungle the paperwork. Will any politician ever take responsibility? How To F#€k Up An Airport is presented by Radio Spaetkauf and RadioEins. Producer: Joel Dullroy Presenters: Joel Dullroy, Maisie Hitchcock, Jöran Mandik and Daniel Stern Music: Ducks! Artwork: Jim Avignon
Days away from the planned 2012 opening party, nothing seemed amiss at BER. What was really going on? On this episode, we look at how the airport managers and politicians were messing with the plans, even as construction was underway. They demanded a 70% increase in terminal space to add hundreds of extra shops, and requested special double story boarding gates for the supersized Airbus A380, even though no airline requested it. Instead of a working fire safety system, they planned to hire up to 800 people to act as human fire alarms. Despite multiple warnings, the airport board pushed ahead with opening party plans right up until May 8, 2012, when the first major delay was announced. We meet the man who put a stop to it all - Stephan Loge, the administrator of the Brandenburg building department. Also on this episode, Joel and Jöran visit the Schönefeld S-Bahn station in search of the empty train that runs nightly to the unfinished airport to keep air moving through the tunnels. How To F#€k Up An Airport is presented by Radio Spaetkauf and RadioEins. Producer: Joel Dullroy Presenters: Joel Dullroy, Maisie Hitchcock, Jöran Mandik and Daniel Stern Music: Ducks! Artwork: Jim Avignon