national-rail

[national-rail]

Reading the new checks that might come in due to the Online Safety Act in the UK and this is actually bullshit

[Image Transcript:

And how will I prove my age?

There’s a number of methods a site or app might use to ask you to confirm your age. They might do this check themselves or use another company to do the check. These methods include:

Facial age estimation – you show your face via photo or video, and technology analyses it to estimate your age. 

Open banking – you give permission for the age-check service to securely access information from your bank about whether you are over 18. The age-check service then confirms this with the site or app.

Digital identity services – these include digital identity wallets, which can securely store and share information which proves your age in a digital format.

Credit card age checks – you provide your credit card details and a payment processor checks if the card is valid. As you must be over 18 to obtain a credit card this shows you are over 18.

Email-based age estimation – you provide your email address, and technology analyses other online services where it has been used – such as banking or utility providers - to estimate your age.  

Mobile network operator age checks – you give your permission for an age-check service to confirm whether or not your mobile phone number has age filters applied to it. If there are no restrictions, this confirms you are over 18. 

Photo-ID matching – this is similar to a check when you show a document. For example, you upload an image of a document that shows your face and age, and an image of yourself at the same time – these are compared to confirm if the document is yours.

End Transcript.]

Not only is this such a fucking breach of privacy, but this is going to hurt adults in vulnerable and abusive situations. Some adults don’t have bank accounts or credit cards or even a fucking phone. I’m one of them. I could not give half of this information even if I wanted to. What the fuck is this. Fuck the UK government. This isn’t going to protect kids, this is just going to hurt adults, and I know full well when they say “sites that allow pornography” they’re going to be going after sites that have huge amounts of queer content, like tumblr and Ao3. Queer kids are gonna lose their fucking communities because of this shit. Abuse victims are going to lose online support systems because of this.

I’m genuinely fucked off about this, and worried about whether I’m going to lose every single one of my online friends. Anyone in the UK, please email your MP and sign this petition. It needs to reach 100k signatures to pass through Parliament.

I’m only hoping the backlash will be big enough for them to stop implementing these measures.

[national-rail]

busgirl who’s embarrassed because the traingirl’s penis is so much larger and more efficient then her own.

[national-rail]

There are no explicit regulations regarding sexual intercourse on board. However, the conditions of carriage stipulate that other passengers may not be harassed. It is a public nuisance anyway. /ti

so just quietly in the on board toilet?

[national-rail]

"and survive"??? what are you going to duel me to the death??

I intend to be the first faggot to ever be in London and survive this July

[national-rail]

Explanation: Currently, the government is in the process of renationalising more of the railway. The current passenger operators (the franchises) are being taken under government ownership and will be merged with network rail (own and manage the infrastructure) to become "Great" British Rail*. This leaves out freight operations which will continue to be run by private companies, as well as also leaving out ownership of the rail vehicles themselves (including the passenger rolling stock that the government needs to run services with).

Ideally, the whole system would be nationalised as right now the government will need to spend a lot of money leasing rolling stock to run it's trains, and the freight sector will continue being run only for the profits of other companies (or states in the case of DB? idk how that one works).

Is this likely to happen? Dunno. That's what this poll is for i guess.

*A lot of people do not like the name great british rail for a number of reasons. The most is that it's a bit of a right wing lean on the thing. What was wrong with just calling it british rail anyway? we had that already...

[national-rail]

i tagged this hs2 for clarity but apparently that's a homestuck tag lmao

my fucking god JUST BUILD THE SODDING THING

[national-rail]

my fucking god JUST BUILD THE SODDING THING

[national-rail]

what if i ran an openhrt game for pride month...

[national-rail]

the train's number is actually 69016. it's a class 69. sex cop train.

SEE IT SAY IT SORTED TRAIN? 61016?

[national-rail]

"I want to build an elevated metro system, but make it unnecessarily complicated and sacrifice functionality for the sake of making it look more futuristic."

The Inferior Monorail:

[national-rail]

really appreciate how trains have gender neutral bathrooms unironically a massive upside for a tgirl like myself yippee

[national-rail]

late news: altnabreac reopened a while ago now the land ownership dispute has ended.

If you didn't know, the National Rail network has several stations that are technically still open despite having no service. These include:

Barlaston, Wedgewood and (previously) Norton Bridge.

These are all on the line between the west coast mainline and Stoke. These stations (along with Stone) were closed during upgrade work to the WCML to allow for pendolino to be used on the route. Stone has so far been the only one to regain train service, and Norton Bridge is the only one to be officially closed albiet over a decade after losing service. Barlaston and Wedgewood received a (now discontinued) rail replacement bus for over a decade and at least one of them is still set to reopen. Their last rail service was 2006.

Teeside Airport

Oh, an airport station! How is this (basically) closed? Well there's two main reasons. Teeside Airport is not a big airport with ~225,000 passengers a year. The station is also a 15 mibute walk away from the station along a service road. Trains slowly stopped serving the station, then stopped serving in one direction when the airport owner stopped funding maintenance for the footbridge and then stopped serving altogether when the airport refused to pay for repairs. Well done guys great job here. A new station from the airport is to be built using money from the cancelled HS2. Great... love that.

IBM

Built to serve an IBM factory. The IBM factory shut and now it just serves an abandoned industrial area. The station lost its service to prevent antisocial behavior but remains technically open in case of redevelopment. I hope it keeps its name if it reopens, it's unique.

Redcar British Steel

Served the British Steel plant outside of Redcar. The plant closed and now it's just in a field surrounded by industrial property. You legally cannot leave the station on foot. There is no road. I think it just remains open because the paperwork is a faf.

Sampford Courtenary

I don't think this station technically reopened? This station is on the Okehampton line which was a heritage line up until recently. It was served by heritage trains and special summer service trains from GWR up until the heritage lines collapse during the pandemic. The line was then acquired by Network Rail and Okehampton now recieves regular service, however with no intention of serving Sampford. I guess it counts? It might be replaced by a new Okehampton Parkway station but I think that's up in the air rn.

Altnabreac

This is one of many stations on the Far North line in the middle of nowhere. It is currently closed due to a land access dispute on the only path to the station (common land ownership L). It will reopen once this is resolved.

Weymouth Quay

This station served boats departing from Weymouth until they stopped in the 1980s. The lined remained open for rail tours for a while but the track was pulled up in 2021. They never bothered legally closing the station though and it has now been demolished.

Stanlow and Thornton

This station serves an industrial area. It was served a parliamentary service until the footbridge used to access the station became unsafe and no one wanted to repair it. They'll totally fix it one day guys trust 👍

Manchester United Football Ground

Glorified siding with platform served on match days by a shuttle service. Services were withdrawn by request of Manchester United for health and safety concerns. No one bothered actually closing it but I guess it could reopen?

[national-rail]

do you know if OpenHRT is compatible with FIRS?

it isn't sadly :(

[national-rail]

favorite biscuits, and favorite line to travel

if you put any biscuit in front of me i will eat it, but i'd probably go for custard creams first

west highland line i think, reading to plymouth/penzance line is in close second

[national-rail]

courtesy of gwr i have an hour to kill if anyone wants to shoot questions at me

[national-rail]

hey gwr where did you put the other half of my train

hey gwr where did you put the other half of my train

[national-rail]

hey gwr where did you put the other half of my train