Taking a series of trains, buses and fun facts about them
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14. Made it to London!
Thameslink train from Gatwick
@skinnylatte Welcome! I hope you have a wonderful time here.
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@skinnylatte *waves from my flat* That looks like Thameslink and Southeastern? I sometimes take Thameslink into work when the tube is borked or it's too hot. Thameslink has AC!
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@skinnylatte The last vestiges of a messy and failed privatisation system in which a bunch of different companies (many ultimately owned by other countries' governments) provided all the mainline trains in England and some of Wales.
By the back end of next year, everything will once again be nationalised and part of the new Great British Rail organisation.
@RolloTreadway @skinnylatte One can only hope!
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14. Made it to London!
Thameslink train from Gatwick
@skinnylatte Glad to see you on this side of the Big Pond
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Yay welcome to London!
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@skinnylatte Welcome to London!
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@RolloTreadway @skinnylatte One can only hope!
@mplouffe @skinnylatte It will be. The law was passed in the autumn of 2024. It'll just take until September next year for all the existing private contracts to expire.
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@skinnylatte I've given up on trying to understand trains and the different operators in the UK
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@mplouffe @skinnylatte It will be. The law was passed in the autumn of 2024. It'll just take until September next year for all the existing private contracts to expire.
@RolloTreadway
Awesome! I remember a lot of chatter about it but wasn't aware that anything actually happened.
@skinnylatte -
14. Made it to London!
Thameslink train from Gatwick
@skinnylatte brings back memories of living in Brighton and travelling on those trains
Hope you enjoy your trip 
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@skinnylatte one of my fav things about living here now - trains everywhere
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@timrichards @skinnylatte plus you’ve perfectly timed your visit for the infrequent depot open days https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/depot-open-days/icons-london
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I really like cities that are best by bus. I love the Tube, but London buses are very familiar to me (mostly coz we’ve got similar buses and bus routes in Singapore / Hong Kong). For local travel I prefer buses, most places.
Buses don’t have to suck (they’re so good in places where they’re good!)
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I really like cities that are best by bus. I love the Tube, but London buses are very familiar to me (mostly coz we’ve got similar buses and bus routes in Singapore / Hong Kong). For local travel I prefer buses, most places.
Buses don’t have to suck (they’re so good in places where they’re good!)
@skinnylatte a growing number of our busses are electric, too, which has been a huge quality-of-life improvement.
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The other indispensable travel accessory for me: a portable bidet. With pressure control. (Way better than using a water bottle)
I just can’t with toilet paper
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The other indispensable travel accessory for me: a portable bidet. With pressure control. (Way better than using a water bottle)
I just can’t with toilet paper
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I really like cities that are best by bus. I love the Tube, but London buses are very familiar to me (mostly coz we’ve got similar buses and bus routes in Singapore / Hong Kong). For local travel I prefer buses, most places.
Buses don’t have to suck (they’re so good in places where they’re good!)
@skinnylatte I agree up to a point, especially for shorter distances. Long journeys are far faster by tube though.
And I agree about Singapore, I naturally tend to gravitate towards metro/undergound, but in Singapore I realised there are lots of places that are actually quicker and easier to get to by bus (it probably helped that there was a bus stop right outside the place we stayed at
). And Singapore buses have AC, which London ones are mostly lacking...
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I really like cities that are best by bus. I love the Tube, but London buses are very familiar to me (mostly coz we’ve got similar buses and bus routes in Singapore / Hong Kong). For local travel I prefer buses, most places.
Buses don’t have to suck (they’re so good in places where they’re good!)
@skinnylatte when I lived in London I would always tell visitors to use the buses, rather than the tube. It's the only way to connect the city, if you just teleport from tube station to tube station London ends up incomprehensible and fragmented.
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@timrichards @skinnylatte plus you’ve perfectly timed your visit for the infrequent depot open days https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/depot-open-days/icons-london
@staticnz @timrichards @skinnylatte the depot is fantastic and well worth the trip out. I was lucky enough to visit a couple of times circa 2009. So good.
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@skinnylatte I agree up to a point, especially for shorter distances. Long journeys are far faster by tube though.
And I agree about Singapore, I naturally tend to gravitate towards metro/undergound, but in Singapore I realised there are lots of places that are actually quicker and easier to get to by bus (it probably helped that there was a bus stop right outside the place we stayed at
). And Singapore buses have AC, which London ones are mostly lacking...
@mario @skinnylatte Singapore’s MRT is also mostly very deep underground, at least around the more central parts; it often took us ages to get down to the platform from ground level and back up the other end. (Especially as we had the kids with us.) So we reached the same conclusion about buses being more efficient for shorter distances. (3-4 MRT stops)
In London, it’s more of a mixed bag; the older cut-and-cover lines are super quick to hop on and off.
