Breda MB100 Stock at Colosseo, May 2, 2008

Do you like trains?  You’re here, so the answer to that is probably “yes.”  Do you like podcasts and if so, what are your favorites?  I’m going to go out on a hunch and assume many people reading this have heard of 99% Invisible.  The show’s own website describes the podcasts as “a sound-rich, narrative podcast hosted by Roman Mars about all the thought that goes into the things we don’t think about — the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world.”  Naturally, this includes many topics related to urbanism, cities, and transportation.

This week’s episode is entitled “Train Set” and features seven short train related topics.  You may be familiar with some of them even before listening to the podcast, such as the publicly staged train crash in Crush, Texas or the challenges of building the Rome Metro (which I’ve written about previously).  It is definitely worth a listen, and you can do that by clicking here (or finding 99% Invisible wherever you listen to podcasts).  

Oren’s Reading List is an occasional feature on The Travelogue in which I share articles that I’ve read that might also be of interest to the readers of this website.