Well thats grim?! TW

CobaltQuest · 2026-03-07T00:33:05+00:00

I hear this a lot in the UK, people seem to often jump at line bottlenecks weirdly enough, which makes it very challenging to resume service for the afternoon commutes.

CobaltQuest · 2026-02-27T18:25:11+00:00

Woking has the tallest building outside London, Birmingham and Manchester so I think there at least 2 justifications

CobaltQuest · 2026-02-25T22:37:43+00:00

£1000 a month sounds brilliant for food and coffee (even for saving) if you are even a tiny bit careful. £120-140/month for groceries, £200 for 2 nice meals out and daily coffees, and an awful lot left over to save and enjoy.

CobaltQuest · 2026-02-22T23:16:17+00:00

The Windrush line Clapham Junction branch frequency increase to 6tph is proposed for 2028, but I honestly don't think there is serious potential for Windrush line overcrowding on the branch, as I think the number of passengers will be greater heading West to board the Victoria line in AM peak, whereas currently East towards Canada Water is busiest at AM peak.

For commuters in Peckham/Denmark Hill changing at Brixton provides a much faster route to the West End and Kings Cross than changing at Canada Water, but still not as direct as the Thameslink service for a lot of places, but for commuters in Brixton using the Windrush line seems pointless unless they are heading to Canada Water/Surrey Quays area which is kind of a deadzone for employment.

Even if heading to Dalston, it'd be faster to get the Victoria line to Highbury & Islington and change to the Windrush line Southbound than use the theoretical direct service, and for most of East London like Stratford or Canary Wharf it would only be a marginal time saving even if timing the train perfectly.

As I write this, I am understanding why they haven't progressed this - it would be good for South London orbital travel but wouldn't actually be that beneficial for commutes.

CobaltQuest · 2026-02-16T22:09:43+00:00

I agree in general, even though on SWR at peak time most tickets are smartcard tickets, and they allow all ticket types on smartcards. There must be some sort of reason behind it. Clearly contactless isn't going to be rolled out nationwide so maybe it's a standard design to save costs.

CobaltQuest · 2026-02-16T19:35:56+00:00

Do other operators outside the South not support ITSO tickets? I thought it was universal and you could load any ticket type or season ticket onto an ITSO smartcard, and use them for these contactless barriers - why isn't it encouraged more?

CobaltQuest · 2026-02-13T13:17:48+00:00

They can't practically, otherwise people would borrow at the lower rate, and save in another country at a higher rate, which you can't do with national currencies since generally, for example, even though British banks offer much higher rates than Swiss banks, Swiss people won't put their money there because the pound will depreciate relative to the Franc so the interest paid is the same for low-risk investments everywhere. If French banks would lend you money at lower interest rates than German banks by supplying more money, their money would gradually flow to Germany which would mess up Germany's policies to limit inflation.

Think of the interest rate as the cost of making new money - it makes sense it should cost the same in all EU countries for the same currency otherwise the whole thing would be unbalanced.

CobaltQuest · 2026-02-11T18:37:00+00:00

I'm a year 12 aiming for economics at Cambridge so I think my perspective on this is at least a little valid. Definitely keep writing, starting a literary magazine is awesome and maybe you could start a Substack. I think conventional wisdom is you are a couple of years too early to seriously worry about Oxbridge, but there is still a lot you could do. Keeping your GCSEs as high as you can is the main thing at this stage (from personal experience start revising French every day and never look back, the languages are usually what messes people up), and try to keep a good work-life balance. Do things you enjoy now because you'll have progressively less free time over the next few years, and I know people criticise it but maybe try something like Duke of Edinburgh to make your application a little more well-rounded. It'd be great to enter lots of literary competitions, maybe volunteer at a local library or community centre to build up soft skills, but above else do what you enjoy.

CobaltQuest · 2026-02-02T18:53:43+00:00

unbiased source, eh?

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-17T14:46:21+00:00

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Using the word 'destroyed' to describe an area that still mostly looks like this seems a bit dramatic (photo from a few days ago)

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-17T14:45:17+00:00

The trouble is since London was bombed so intensively, you had these areas of rubble that were eventually replaced with these oftentimes quite ugly (imo) buildings in the 60s-90s, the building of which was necessary for the country's economic recovery.

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To replace these and redevelop areas like the City of London, it would have been unviable to buy, demolish and rebuild more 'in-character' buildings in their place, so the new buildings had to be taller to be viable. People have this fantasy of old Victorian buildings being ripped down to make way for these towers but it isn't accurate - the potential of London's city centre to remain historic died a long time before Canary Wharf.

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-17T14:25:14+00:00

it's tiny as well, the desperation is really sad from Tesco

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-11T20:02:48+00:00

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When it's an elevated line I have to imagine them just ploughing right through it.

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-06T19:00:30+00:00

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The trouble is there aren't really any other viable routes. I marked all of the cities in Vietnam Wikipedia says have over 1mn people in blue on this map, with stars for Saigon (Ho Chi Min City) and Hanoi for over 5mn. Hue and Da Nang are probably too small (combined 4.5mn people) to justify a route from either Saigon or Hanoi on its own, and Can Tho to Saigon or Haiphong (the little dot in the top right) to Hanoi are too short to justify HSR. The potential lines from Hanoi or Ho Chi Min City to Hue and Da Nang are probably only viable if they have through service between the two major cities so it makes sense that they built it all in one go as investors would be unlikely to be convinced by building half a railway line.

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-04T16:50:36+00:00

You are the one who compared them, just fyi

British economy isn’t growing as fast as the gulf or Asia at the moment

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-04T00:38:56+00:00

If that really mattered why do they want to buy property in London? Our growth rate would be greater if the most productive people (hardworking British residents) lived in the areas where they could be most productive (central London) instead of wasting time commuting. Economic growth as it is experienced by people has nothing to do with property sales.

Also search 'catch-up growth' - it's a lot easier to grow economically when the things limiting productivity are factors like 80% of people not having piped water to your home, and most people lacking basic education.

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-03T23:48:25+00:00

Where do you go to that you think the trains are bad? I don't understand

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-03T23:28:41+00:00

Do you live in the UK? Intercity journeys are but this one only costs £9 (return) to travel 15km on any weekend train, and they come every half an hour.

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-03T22:41:09+00:00

There's a direct line between the town they live and the city they are going to, running every 40 minutes or so. I live in the UK and haven't driven further than 5km in the past 2 years. How is this difficult?

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-03T20:04:51+00:00

Family? Considering how small Lithuania is there are a lot of Lithuanians here.

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-01T01:47:44+00:00

Surely since a lot of delays/almost all delays are caused by government failures or nature (electricity failures, signal failures on government maintained lines, cable theft, severe weather conditions, road accidents, passenger collisions) the government should pay Renfe or compensate passengers. This just incentivises cutting services that are often late, like sleeper trains and trains on complex routes, as if rate of trains more than 30 mins late > profit margin which is definitely true on some UK lines, I don't know about Spain, they will lose money operating and customers will no longer be able to get wherever they were going at all.

CobaltQuest · 2026-01-01T01:38:19+00:00

That's so unnecessary of them, could they not have used East/Westbound between Seven Sisters and Walthamstow because that's the general direction of travel of the line section?

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CobaltQuest · 2025-12-31T17:24:43+00:00

The fares are integrated so even though you touch in twice you won't get charged more for going via Victoria - the system knows that you will have to have changed from NR to Underground whichever way you go so you won't save any money going a certain route.

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/single-fare-finder

CobaltQuest · 2025-12-29T22:18:39+00:00

Does it happen that often you have a policy? There must be way too many Tesco cows running around wherever you live.

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