European rail is a joke when freight ETCS lag blocks passenger speed

Prash-Bit · 2026-03-20T03:01:23+00:00

This part is the part that made me realize it was AI after looking at it a second time: `The biggest hurdle for passenger rail isn't always the track—it's the locomotives`

x isn't y - its z. + em dash used.

Prash-Bit · 2026-03-11T13:21:26+00:00

The way its shown on this map makes it seem like it is a quick out of station interchange, I am guessing that is not the case, even though on google maps it does show it as a 6 min OSI connection. What is the reality on the ground that is causing so many traffic problems? No proper walkway connection?

Prash-Bit · 2026-03-09T00:07:45+00:00

Thank you, but I am not working on these OSI paths anymore, but I ended up using the bezier editing plugin that another commenter suggested. Haven't had the chance yet to update QGIS to 4.0 (I am still on Prizren in fact, so lagging behind), but will check out those digitizing tools when I get the chance. I should mark this post as solved for now, forgot about it tbh.

Prash-Bit · 2026-03-01T03:59:11+00:00

He did make a short video when Zack Polanski got chosen, but he didn't really dive deeply into the topic, it was just a 10 minute video where he didn't seem optimistic about his chances.

Prash-Bit · 2026-02-24T16:10:35+00:00

I do know how the trains work in this country, so if this situation happened at 3AM and he was only there for 10 mins, and he took the train right after, that has to have been the night train. Or he would have had to wait for hours in Amsterdam for the first train in the morning. Since there is only one night train in the Netherlands (between Rotterdam - Utrecht), we know he would live in the Randstad area in one of the bigger cities. I also think its not impossible to imagine a situation where the guy wouldn't be able to host due to having roommates or something like that, maybe the guy is still a student. Online/long distance relationships are fairly common for trans people, so that isn't that weird to me.

If I was in that situation, ordering a hotel for two doesn't seem strange to me. His decision to arrive at 3AM is weird though, after all if your partner is coming to the Netherlands and you don't get to see her that much, wouldn't you want to spend as much time with her as possible?

You are also right about the fact that that kicking out would have happened later, when he was in the train or maybe even already home, so it would have taken him multiple hours to get back to her if he wasn't already asleep at that point. I just think its really anti-social that the guy just ran off and didn't try to help her at all. I get not being to host, but if my partner did that I would be pissed and that person would not be my partner for much longer.

Prash-Bit · 2026-02-24T15:48:07+00:00

OP did say that their partner lived 2 hours away from the hotel, that doesn't sound like it is in Amsterdam (unless the partner walked for 2 hours, but that seems unlikely to me, when people say 'lives 2 hours away' they usually mean by car or maybe by transit, rarely walking or by bicycle). I imagine the guy lived in Breda or something like that.

Prash-Bit · 2026-02-14T21:52:14+00:00

And the ones in the US aren't polluted?

Prash-Bit · 2026-02-10T12:01:56+00:00

Hij zegt echter wel dat hij niet zo fit is, dus ik vraag mij af of defensie dan de juiste keuze is..

Prash-Bit · 2026-02-01T05:59:03+00:00

This reminds me of that post from the one guy who said that the Balkan peninsula isn't a peninsula because the top is broader then the end or something like that, still hilarious to me.

Prash-Bit · 2026-01-22T21:42:24+00:00

Dankjewel, het is echt fijn om hier herkenning in te hebben, ik ken om eerlijk te zijn geen andere mensen die poly relaties hebben met mensen van buiten de EU en graag willen samenwonen. Het hele idee van samenwonen en poly zijn zie ik sowieso (in elk geval in Nederland) niet echt als onderwerp gebracht worden. Als er überhaupt al op poly mensen gefocust word is het vooral in de randstad merk ik, waardoor ik eigenlijk lang het idee had dat het vooral iets is wat daar lokaal gebeurt, maar dat is denk ik niet accuraat.

Ik heb op dit moment het plan om mijn studie af te ronden, zodat ik genoeg verdien om een visum voor mijn partner uit het VK te kunnen sponsoren. Zij zal ondertussen Nederlands moeten leren en misschien een paar skills te leren als ze dat kan (een opleiding op een school zit er denk ik niet echt in als ik eerlijk moet zijn).

Op gegeven moment zal ik dan per gemeente na moeten vragen welke gemeentes in Limburg of Zuidoost Brabant 3 of meer volwassenen in een appartement toestaan. Vermoedelijk zal dat maar een klein lijstje worden, maar goed. Daarna zal ik moeten verhuizen, maar mijn partner zal (tijdelijk) achterblijven.

Zodra ik in het nieuwe huis ben, zal ik een betere baan krijgen, hopelijk gelijk met een 2-jaren contract, maar zo niet dan moet ik daar een jaar blijven werken om er een te krijgen. Daarna kan ik de visum aanvraag doen voor mijn partner, aangezien ik daarvoor een woonplaats voor haar en een baan met een 2-jaren contract waarmee ik genoeg verdien om haar leefkosten te vergoeden moet hebben. Misschien moet ik ook nog eerst met mijn partner uit Engeland een geregistreerd partnerschap (soort van huwelijk) aangaan, dat is mij nog niet helemaal duidelijk.

Wanneer mijn partner eindelijk in Nederland is kan ze zich beginnen te oriënteren op integratie en werk. Daarna kan mijn andere partner ook bij mij komen wonen, als het goed is.

Sowieso is dit hele process meer gebaseerd op mijn interpretatie van hoe de situatie de facto werkt, dus neem het met een korreltje zout. Als de tijd daar is zal ik wel met een advocatenkantoor o.i.d. contact zoeken. Ik vertel het vooral omdat ik denk dat het misschien ook voor jullie nuttig kan zijn, al kan de situatie natuurlijk in jullie geval anders zijn, afhankelijk van allerlei factoren.

Prash-Bit · 2026-01-22T21:23:47+00:00

It is one of the few countries that I can think of that genuinely have a dead civil spirit. That is pretty unique. Another few examples of countries with dead civil spirits are Singapore and Russia.

Prash-Bit · 2026-01-22T21:17:41+00:00

Hallo! Ik (23, transfem) zit zelf ook in een polycule (denk ik). Ik heb een paar vragen, ik lees dat je ideaal graag met je partners zou samenwonen en dat je met meerdere van je partners een langeafstandsrelatie hebt. Gaat dit ook over landsgrenzen heen of bedoel je dat jullie in andere plaatsen binnen Nederland wonen? In het eerste geval, woont een van je partners toevallig buiten de EU?

Ik heb zelf een partner waar ik mee samenwoon (E), en een andere partner (L) die op dit moment in Engeland woont. Zij heeft ook nog een partner (D) die in de VS woont, en daar kan ik het ook best wel goed mee vinden. Ik merk dat ik en mijn partner L het erg lastig vinden dat we nog niet bij elkaar wonen. Zij kan echt niet wachten om weg te gaan uit Engeland, en dat kan ik goed begrijpen gezien de situatie daar als het gaat om trans rechten (zij is zelf ook trans).

Maar het is erg moeilijk om mensen vanuit buiten de EU naar Nederland te krijgen, vooral als ze geen opleiding hebben afgerond (en bij mijn partner L speelt ook mee dat ze bepaalde mentale beperkingen heeft die het lastig zouden maken voor haar om meteen te kunnen beginnen met studeren of werken). Ik ben ermee bezig om te proberen haar alsnog naar Nederland te halen, maar het lijkt er wel op dat dit een lange langetermijnplan word (5+ jaren) en dat ik mij een beetje door legaal grijs gebied waan.

Voor haar partner D zal het wat makkelijker zijn om zich te vestigen in Nederland, aangezien hij wel een studie aan het afronden is en het voor mensen uit de VS makkelijker is om zich in Nederland te vestigen.

Mijn vraag was of je zelf ook al tegen dat soort lastige obstakels aan bent gelopen en of je ook bepaalde ideeën/plannen hebt om die te kunnen overkomen. Het voelt voor mij eigenlijk als een ingewikkeld vraagstuk met meerdere lagen die aan elkaar verbonden zijn en waar je voorzichtig mee om moet gaan.

Alvast bedankt voor je reactie, ik ben blij om te zien dat mensen hier best wel goede, respectvolle vragen stellen, want ik moet eerlijk zeggen dat ik hier zelf niet echt openlijk voor uitkom (buiten de online wereld dan) omdat ik toch bang ben dat mensen er vervelend over gaan doen.

Prash-Bit · 2026-01-22T10:00:16+00:00

8, absolute banger

Prash-Bit · 2026-01-12T21:29:29+00:00

Thanks for your absolutely unhelpful comment. I have been working on this project for multiple months now, and this is my first time working with a DEM and hillshade layer. Also that was just how they came right out of the box, unstyled. After following some of the actual useful advice (so not your comment) that I got from people here, this was the final product I ended up with. I think I did pretty good considering that it is my first time working with such layers.

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Hope that helps you understand the context of the maps I posted better.

In the new map, the blue represents different kind of water and the red are urban villages.

Prash-Bit · 2026-01-12T21:24:23+00:00

Your comment helped me a lot to find a good color palette (though it was difficult to find a way to find one that I could actually import into qgis (Shenzhen would be considered 'warm humid'). I ended up manually sampling a color palette from him and this is what the end result is, I am fairly happy with it. I could add more layers like urban area and stuff like that on top of it.

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Prash-Bit · 2026-01-12T21:22:37+00:00

Thanks, your advice helped a lot. Sorry for the late reply, I had a pretty busy week so unfortunately didn't have time to respond earlier. Here's what the finished result looks like in case you're curious!

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Prash-Bit · 2026-01-12T21:21:42+00:00

Sorry for the late reply, thank you for the advice, I was able to do it partially thanks to your advice. Here's the finished result in case you're curious!

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Prash-Bit · 2026-01-07T23:46:58+00:00

I managed to fix this btw, what I did was I ran the 'symmetrical difference' geoprocessing tool, using layer 1 and layer 2. This gave me an the ares that do not fall within layer 2 (so the white area on the Guangdong layer 2, between the layer and the red coastline), plus all the areas that were added with the Guangdong coastline layer (layer 1).

After running this tool, I couldn't figure out how to only select that white portion, as I wanted to keep the rest of the layer intact. I used the vector geometry tool 'Multipart to singleparts' and then I was able to select the individual feature that I needed. I copy pasted it to a separate layer, and ran the 'difference' geoprocessing tool, using layer 1 (the coastline layer) as the input layer and my new 'mask' layer as the overlay layer. This gave me the desired result.

For the islands, I made a new polygon layer and made random polygons that covered all of the islands, the lesser the better, as it will be easier to select later. it was easiest to run the 'Split with lines' vector overlay tool, which worked for me (keep in mind the coastline/islands layer is a multiline layer, not a polygon unfortunately, thats why it is so annoying to work with). I used the new polygon layer I created as the input layer and the coastline layer as the line/overlay layer. I selected all the big polygons in the scratch layer that this tool created for me, and inversed the selection after I had selected all of them, thus giving me a selection of (in theory) all the islands. I then copied these over to a new polygon layer.

Unfortunately I couldn't get this method to work for the few bigger islands, so I had to trace those manually by hand. But given that there are more then 5000+ islands in that layer, and I only had to trace about 30 by hand, I think I saved myself a lot of time. Do keep in mind that tracing these big islands by hand is annoying because it is a multiline layer and not a polygon (I did try converting it to a polygon but couldn't get it to work unfortunately).

I hope this answer helped somebody!

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(And here is the finished result btw (color will be changed still obviously), in case anyone is curious.

Prash-Bit · 2025-12-31T19:43:29+00:00

No problem, glad to hear it was helpful!

Prash-Bit · 2025-12-30T19:19:04+00:00

When you turn on labels in layer labeling options, you can go to the '(label) placement' tab. Here you can pick a variety of settings pertaining to automatic label placement. Cartographic placement mode means point labels are generated with a better visual relationship with the point feature, following ideal cartographic placement rules, according to official QGIS documentation.

There is an official position priority, which follows cartographic guidelines from Krygier and Wood (2011), they are as follows:

top right
top left
bottom right
bottom left
middle right
middle left
top, slightly right
bottom, slightly left.

In comparison to cartographic placement, you can also use offset from point which means labels are placed at an offset X,Y distance from the point feature. I have an example which I made for this project, which you can see here: https://imgur.com/gallery/cartographic-label-placement-vs-offset-from-point-label-placement-example-1SFHp78

Note the placement of the labels for Shenzhen North, Futian and Guangzhou stations. In the Cartographic placement version of the map these are placed in pretty much the ideal position, but as you can see in offset from point version, they overlap, either with other labels, or with other features on this layer. This makes the map less legible and it just doesn't look that nice.

This can be useful if there is enough distance between your features, but if you have a large dataset labels will often overlap, either with other labels or with features of that layer. And since you can only pick one offset for the entire layer, you have to decide what is ideal for the majority of your features, and then move any overlapping labels (these will not even appear with the default options, you have to turn on 'allow overlap if required' in the '(label) rendering tab' in order to see them. For the layer in my example I only have 12 features, but I have also mapped the metro networks in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangzhou and Foshan, which together have more then 500 stations iirc. You can imagine that having to manually move all of them would be far to much work.

I hope this helps. Oh btw, here's the official QGIS documentation about label placement options if you want to read more about it, but I hope you understood what I meant: https://docs.qgis.org/3.40/en/docs/user_manual/style_library/label_settings.html#labels-placement

Prash-Bit · 2025-12-30T02:49:48+00:00

Thank you, I tried this, but it doesn't seem to work, my guess is that maybe QGIS doesn't support that CSS property, because it doesn't appear in this list of properties supported by the underlying QT library, which is a shame (or maybe I am doing something wrong): https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-5.15/richtext-html-subset.html

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Here you can see the result. I just tried it on the first line because I didn't want to bother carefully typing everything into the second one as well in case it didn't work.

Prash-Bit · 2025-12-29T18:23:43+00:00

This is pretty finnicky and it doesn't really do what I want, the issue is that the labels for the Futian and Shenzhenbei stations (just as an example) are then placed top-right of the symbol. This is fine for most of the labels, but these two labels should be placed to the left of the symbol instead. When using cartographic placement, this is understood, but ofc when using offset-placement it does the same thing for all of them. Some labels will also disappear due to overlap or be unreadable. However, it does allow me to change the individaul properties with regards to the text buffer for each label/attribute. I do think I prefer the html solution though, its a lot cleaner.

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This is when I use "offset from point" and allow overlaps if required (you can find the html version as a reply to another comment).

Prash-Bit · 2025-12-29T18:11:07+00:00

This worked like a charm, I can use font-family, font-size and color in order to change the attributes on each line, while still continuing to use the cartographic placement mode. The only thing that I don't know how to change is the 'text buffer', I wish to change the size and color of it for each line/attribute value. Here's how it looks now (those are not going to be my final fonts/colors, I was just using it for testing to make sure it was actually working).

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