[HN Gopher] UK 2022 rail station flow images
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       UK 2022 rail station flow images
        
       Author : admp
       Score  : 147 points
       Date   : 2024-01-03 10:37 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | bob1029 wrote:
       | This page is completely hosing my iOS Safari client.
       | 
       | GitHub made a huge mistake with their client side rendering
       | rework. I get stuff like this multiple times a day now.
        
         | hhh wrote:
         | no issues here, latest ios
        
         | avianlyric wrote:
         | Honestly I think the issues is more likely iOS safari. Been
         | noticing an increasing number of rendering, navigation, and
         | memory exhaustion issues in newer versions of iOS.
        
         | jimjambw wrote:
         | What version of iOS/which iPhone? 12 Pro Max here on 17.1.2 and
         | having no issues.
        
       | jimlikeslimes wrote:
       | If you're wondering what to click and not from the UK:
       | 
       | Paddington (busy station):
       | https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/P/...
       | 
       | Penzance (rural endpoint):
       | https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/P/...
        
         | ExoticPearTree wrote:
         | So it displays the number of people that transit through a
         | specific station? Or is it the station "reach"?
        
           | avianlyric wrote:
           | It's the number of passengers that traveled from a specific
           | station to any other station in UK.
           | 
           | Passengers are assumed to have taken the shortest rail route
           | from station A to B. Which is interesting, because it might
           | not have been the fastest route. For example there are a few
           | different routes between Euston and Crewe, and I don't think
           | the fastest non-stopping trains take the shortest route.
        
             | VBprogrammer wrote:
             | Yeah, I noticed that there was no link from Edinburgh to
             | Glasgow on the East Coast mainline from my local station.
             | Presumably the passengers that took this route were assumed
             | to have taken the West Coast Mainline.
        
             | mytailorisrich wrote:
             | Someone adventurous did Wick-Bodmin Parkway... I hope he's
             | arrived by now.
        
             | midasuni wrote:
             | Crewe does take the shorted route - Stafford, Trent valley,
             | then bypassing rugby.
             | 
             | The cheap trains do the same route and just stop along the
             | way. The ticket itself is valid for say journey into
             | Birmingham, soend the day, then continue via Banbury to
             | Marylebone. I've done that myself several times, but it's a
             | minor flow compared to the direct train.
             | 
             | Manchester to London - at least pre covid, had 3 trains per
             | hour, one via Crewe which was slightly longer, the others
             | via Stoke.
        
           | Symbiote wrote:
           | I think it's showing the shortest path routes from the chosen
           | station A to the destinations B, weighted according to the
           | number of tickets sold from A to B.
        
           | michaelt wrote:
           | I believe this data is based on ticket sales.
           | 
           | In the UK you can buy a ticket from Cambridge to Norwich
           | where you can get a direct train _or_ you can change at Ely,
           | depending on what time of day you use the ticket. But the
           | ticket sales data can 't tell if you changed at Ely or not.
           | 
           | So presumably this visualisation draws cambridge-to-norwich
           | tickets on the shortest route, without trying to figure out
           | or show if they go via Ely.
        
             | tialaramex wrote:
             | The UK sales data (if that's what they have) actually _can_
             | tell you the route in some cases. This is in fact a bad
             | thing, so let 's explain...
             | 
             | Britain has repeatedly elected Conservative Party ("Tory")
             | governments, the Tories have an ideological preference for
             | the Free Market, regardless of whether that makes any
             | sense. So, instead of a single nationally owned and likely
             | unprofitable railway industry, it is divided into a lot of
             | separate elements that in theory could be profitable but in
             | fact take enormous subsidies to keep around, for our
             | purposes we care about just one of those elements, the Rail
             | Franchises, a whole lot of separate companies which
             | undertake to provide passenger journeys on set routes and
             | employ staff to operate trains, provide custom services,
             | hire the rolling stock and so on.
             | 
             | Originally these Franchises were supposed to compete for
             | passengers. But if they provide unrelated routes obviously
             | that's not much "competition". A route from Leeds to
             | Glasgow isn't in any meaningful sense "competing" with a
             | route from Salisbury to Cambridge. So OK, what if they're
             | competing only where the endpoints are the same? Well, the
             | immediate problem is that the _customers_ don 't want to
             | buy a ticket for "Bob's Railway" they want a ticket from
             | one place to another and couldn't give a shit who provides
             | that journey.
             | 
             | So the franchises "fixed" this by creating special tickets
             | with weird rules. For example instead of a "Bob's Railway"
             | ticket you make a ticket which requires passengers to
             | travel via Tinyton, a small town nobody cares about but
             | which is served only by Bob's Railway. Do the trains _stop_
             | in Tinyton? Technically yes they do, but you 'd barely know
             | it, this is mostly just a way to satisfy the requirement
             | that "Via Tinyton" means "Only use Bob's Railway" and so
             | Bob's Railway can claim 100% of revenue for these tickets.
             | That revenue doesn't actually matter any more, for a few
             | years now the government just takes all revenue and pays
             | the franchises whatever they want instead - but the
             | pretence of competition must remain, because you know,
             | "Free Market".
             | 
             | The result is that tickets are needlessly complicated or
             | incredibly expensive or both, indeed if you're not using
             | software or a specialist human to help plan your journey
             | you will probably pay far more than you should _and_ you
             | might have a terrible journey anyway. The Tories love to
             | say somehow the  "Free Market" is going to fix this, but of
             | course the correct fix is ideologically impossible for
             | them, "Take the railways back into public ownership" is at
             | once cheaper, more practical, and _completely unthinkable_
             | thanks to ideology.
        
               | CWIZO wrote:
               | But there are tickets that are only valid for certain
               | providers?
        
               | tialaramex wrote:
               | That's true, to do _that_ they use a different hack and
               | we can actually (very expensively) route those too.
               | 
               | These tickets are valid only on a particular service (and
               | connections), since the franchises run the services they
               | can sell tickets for services they run.
               | 
               | Example from a journey I made near Xmas:
               | 0908 from Bingley to Leeds (Northern Rail)
               | 0945 from Leeds to Kings Cross (LNER)            1309
               | from Waterloo towards home (SWR)
               | 
               | The three franchises get 100% of their part of these
               | routes, and I'm notionally forbidden from, say, getting
               | on an XC to zigzag South and avoid London altogether
               | instead.
        
               | lstamour wrote:
               | That sums up the complexity better than I ever could, but
               | as a tourist visiting London it was relatively painless
               | to tap my Apple Watch and pay by contactless credit card
               | when I got on and when I got off, as long as you're
               | travelling through supported stops within the city
               | region. This generally included any routes to and from
               | London airports.
               | 
               | Comparing the process in London to that of, say, Paris,
               | it is night and day better with London's system. Yes,
               | trips might cost more than a flat rate, but you don't
               | need to have a special card - contactless payments are
               | charged at the same rates as an Oyster card would get
               | charged, including discounts if you take multiple trips
               | in a day.
               | 
               | Compare to Paris where it's a flat rate, but you can't
               | get a normal ticket because your anonymous card is
               | somehow designed only for tourist pricing. Let's not even
               | bother with how long the lines can be to buy said card.
               | I'll take a system where you tap on and tap off any day
               | of the week over a flat rate system that doesn't support
               | easy contactless payment at the same rates as everybody
               | else.
               | 
               | I should clarify though - this only applies to any travel
               | by train that you can do from stations that have
               | contactless to stations that also have contactless.
               | Anywhere else, you're expected to tap off and pay a
               | normal fare for the rest of your travel to an unsupported
               | station by buying it from a website.
               | 
               | And while it is unusual to have such complexity, I should
               | mention that rail travel between countries often has
               | similar complexity - I bought a ticket once from
               | Copenhagen to Malmo, Sweden, but got on a train operated
               | by a different company and had to buy a second ticket -
               | the trains left at the same time to and from the same
               | stations but from two different operators. The confusing
               | part is that the train ticket I needed to buy wasn't
               | available from a Denmark regional train travel ticket
               | kiosk, it was timed ticket you had to buy in advance from
               | a website as the train's origins was in Sweden rather
               | than Denmark. (And the Denmark station didn't have
               | Swedish kiosks.)
               | 
               | I guess what I'm saying is that trains can make airlines
               | look efficient, at least when it comes to buying and
               | handling tickets. ;-)
               | 
               | Edit: I should also mention if I got any of this wrong,
               | I'm actually from North America and about all I can say
               | in response is "at least you have (express, high speed)
               | trains," as I look at our preference for highways and
               | buses and how most rail in North America is for cargo...
        
               | pm215 wrote:
               | Public transport within London has always been both
               | differently managed/funded and also massively better than
               | public transport anywhere else. If you're using London as
               | your only data point you get a very skewed view of the UK
               | public transport situation.
               | 
               | In this case, Transport for London (a public body) has
               | always had much more control over public transport,
               | specifically local political control, and has had the
               | funding and long term planning horizon to set up things
               | like the oyster and contactless payment systems. (And
               | there are also practicalities, like the worst cases fare
               | within the oyster zone being not very large, so it's OK
               | to not take payment immediately but only when the system
               | finds out where you got off, because you're not
               | potentially out hundreds of pounds for a London to
               | Edinburgh fare if it turns out the card being used
               | declines the payment.)
        
               | tialaramex wrote:
               | London is special.
               | 
               | Literally.
               | 
               | Take bus companies. You don't say if you used any buses,
               | but if you did they all work the same _in London_ ,
               | they're all painted red, they take Oyster (your Apple
               | Watch will work), the system keeps track and lets you use
               | more than one to get to your destination without special
               | fees. There are a bunch of bus companies in London, but
               | there's no reason you would care about that, they're all
               | the same to you.
               | 
               |  _Everywhere else_ in the UK is forbidden from doing
               | that. In my home city for example there were _four_ major
               | bus companies, each painted their buses a different
               | colour, each used separate tickets, each had its own
               | "integrated" travel pass system. If I caught a 20 out of
               | the city, then boarded a U6 that's two separate journeys
               | with two separate companies, and thus two separate
               | charges and the city government is _legally prohibited_
               | from telling them to knock it off and just charge a
               | single fee like London.
        
               | mytailorisrich wrote:
               | Even where there is a single (or 2) bus company, the
               | ticketing structure is often crazy complex.
               | 
               | Fares webpages for Oxford:
               | 
               | https://www.oxfordbus.co.uk/fares-and-tickets
               | 
               | https://www.oxfordbus.co.uk/zone-tickets
        
               | johneth wrote:
               | > Everywhere else in the UK is forbidden from doing that.
               | 
               | Thankfully this seems to be changing. Greater Manchester,
               | through its devolution in the last few years, has in the
               | last few months started the 'Bee network',[0] which
               | operates similarly to London's bus system. It's being
               | brought in in phases.
               | 
               | Hopefully other areas start doing this too.
               | 
               | [0] https://tfgm.com/
        
               | AlecSchueler wrote:
               | The Dutch system seems to suit your expectations quite
               | well.
               | 
               | There are a bunch of disparate organisations providing
               | busses, water busses/taxis/ferries, rental bikes and
               | trams, metro lines and trains running on publicly owned
               | infrastructure.
               | 
               | One card allows you to check in to all of them, all over
               | the country. You can get a subscription card for a 40%
               | discount (EUR10 per month) or you can check in anywhere
               | with contactless payments or anonymous cards for the full
               | price.
        
               | ExoticPearTree wrote:
               | From experience, I think the OV-chipkaart was the best
               | option traveling the Netherlands. You would just to
               | remember to check-out at the end of your journey so you
               | wouldn't be charged end-to-end pricing. And the fact that
               | you would pay only for the portion used in a trip (there
               | was a few eurocents difference if you took the tram two
               | stops or three stops, same for buses) it also made a lot
               | of economic sense versus the all you can eat model
               | everyone else employs.
               | 
               | Second best from recent years I like the new system in
               | the NYC subway: tap & go, same price as a MetroCard
               | without the hassle of buying one.
        
               | mytailorisrich wrote:
               | Ideology works both ways. Public ownership is not a magic
               | solution that would solve everything, and in fact it'd
               | probably create its own set of problems.
               | 
               | Maybe a state-owned company that must operate on
               | stringent efficiency requirements with private sector
               | best practices.
        
               | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
               | The former British Rail was cheaper to run, cheaper to
               | use, and provided a better service which integrated
               | service delivery, maintenance. engineering, and national
               | R&D (with valuable IP which was given away for nothing
               | after privatisation.)
               | 
               | It was often joked about because it was underfunded and
               | run down, but in financial terms it was hugely efficient.
               | 
               | The ideology isn't really about "free markets", it's
               | about giving public money to donors, cronies, and -
               | bizarrely - foreign businesses, because much of the
               | privatised network is foreign-owned.
               | 
               | In fact the ideology is fundamentally about not spending
               | public money on working people - because they're poor and
               | inferior, they don't deserve it, and if life gets too
               | comfortable for them they'll start talking back instead
               | of knowing their place.
               | 
               | Over the decades the definition of "working" has expanded
               | from "factory workers and semi-skilled" to formerly
               | middle class professions like law and medicine.
               | 
               | Engineering has always been considered a low-status
               | profession, as has competent - as opposed to venal and
               | self-interested - management.
        
               | mytailorisrich wrote:
               | Ideology goes both ways... When Corbyn wanted to
               | nationalise railways and in fact turn them into coops it
               | was ideology as well. Throwing money at things without
               | clear business case and ROI is ideology as well. Your
               | comment is hitting at the Tories for the sake of it,
               | frankly, which seems like ideology as well.
               | 
               | We need pragmatism.
               | 
               | Perhaps state-owned railways would deliver more value but
               | most likely that would mean running the company on sound
               | principles with high efficiency and private sector
               | management principles, and no strikes (none of which is a
               | given in the public sector, unfortunately).
        
               | AlecSchueler wrote:
               | We can also legislate without polarising catch all
               | ideologies. It's not a dichotomy between two extremes of
               | full free market or full public ownership.
        
               | tialaramex wrote:
               | Right, there are places where Free Market solutions
               | worked, and equally we shouldn't go "That's bad, get rid
               | of the Free Market". But I'm highlighting the Tory
               | ideology in this case because (a) their ideology makes it
               | impossible to just fix this and (b) they've had a _long_
               | time in power to do so if they were able and prove me
               | wrong.
               | 
               | The use of Contracts for Difference to fund renewable
               | power generation is an example where ideology and
               | practicality aligned. This is a Free Market solution
               | which nicely matches the problem.
        
               | rjmunro wrote:
               | It often makes sense to offer a cheaper ticket e.g. I can
               | go to Brighton via London, which is faster and easier, or
               | I can change at Reading and Gatwick, which is harder and
               | slower, but the trains are less busy, so it makes sense
               | to encourage people not to go via London.
               | 
               | The "via" restrictions are usually dropped if there are
               | problems on the lines allowing people who are delayed to
               | find other routes, but this can lead to problems in one
               | area causing overcrowding problems in another.
        
         | johndunne wrote:
         | This is very interesting. It looks like most of the London
         | train stations have a regional focus. I often travel to London
         | from Leeds, so Kingscross is the terminating station (true for
         | Scotland and the North East), Euston seems to be mostly North
         | West, St Pancras is the midlands and South East, Paddington is
         | South West and Victoria is South/South East. Fascinating to see
         | this illustrated in Graph form. Nice!
        
           | mytailorisrich wrote:
           | Yes, that's exactly how train stations were built around the
           | centre of London. It's the same in Paris, for instance, where
           | the stations' names make it more obvious.
           | 
           | It's also interesting to see the reach of London. Many people
           | as far as Oxford and Cambridge seem to commute into London.
        
             | xenocratus wrote:
             | And weirdos like me who commute out from London into
             | Cambridge, via London Liverpool Street mostly.
        
               | FartyMcFarter wrote:
               | That must be a nice quiet commute.
        
               | varispeed wrote:
               | I used to commute out of London. It was anything but nice
               | and quiet. I actually had to buy a car, because using
               | train was not viable (expensive, always late and crowded
               | or trains cancelled, often impossible to board). After
               | coming late nth time, manager said either improve this or
               | we will be looking at letting you go. Getting a car was
               | the best thing I've done.
               | 
               | Our country really need to focus on improving the public
               | transport as at its current state is not fit for purpose.
        
               | tharmas wrote:
               | That is so sad. Here in North America (with the odd
               | exception) we don't even have a choice. Its the car only.
               | The only good thing about a car is autonomy: you leave
               | when you want to leave, and you have control of the
               | environment => no noisy cell phone chats and you can
               | choose whatever music you want to listen to or not.
        
               | Symbiote wrote:
               | Many commuters in London also leave when they want to
               | leave, or close to it. Metro trains run every 2-10
               | minutes on most of the network (I'm including the ends of
               | the lines there), urban/suburban/regional trains around
               | every 10-20 minutes.
               | 
               | Personally, if the service is at least every 10 minutes I
               | won't check the time when I leave. If it's 20 or more I
               | will, and in-between probably depends on the weather and
               | if the station is indoors or not.
        
               | Symbiote wrote:
               | For a year I commuted out of London, and it was wonderful
               | -- usually 1-4 people per carriage, almost always on
               | time, very quiet. Returning to London was busier, but I
               | always had a seat.
               | 
               | There is probably a political discussion based on when I
               | did this vs. the sibling comment, but HN isn't the place
               | for it.
        
               | xenocratus wrote:
               | Unlike varispeed's unfortunate experience my commute is
               | indeed very chill and consistent! Train that I catch
               | comes in full, unloads, a total of maybe 50 people board,
               | leaves. Coming back in the evening is a bit more crowded,
               | but it's very rare that I don't get a seat. I use that
               | time to work or read and can enjoy the wonderful English
               | countryside as a background :) Almost the opposite of
               | what a dear friend has to experience in his reverse
               | commute from Cambridge to King's Cross.
        
               | spacedcowboy wrote:
               | Many moons hence, when I was working for Logica, they had
               | a campus out in Cobham ("Cobham Park"). The place was
               | gorgeous, an old mansion on its own land, peacocks in the
               | grounds, Chesterfield leather sofas in reception etc.
               | 
               | Cobham is just off the A3, so my commute from South
               | London was outbound, on a clear road, watching the
               | traffic jam start in the other direction, a few miles
               | outside the M25 (the orbital motorway around London).
               | 
               | Coming back in wasn't quite so clear, London being
               | London, but still a comparatively serene drive compared
               | to the other direction :)
        
             | bobthepanda wrote:
             | There was a policy in the early part of the 20th century to
             | establish a green belt of preserved space around London.
             | 
             | This didn't stop people from sprawling ever further, they
             | just skipped over the green belt.
        
               | Symbiote wrote:
               | Leaving the gap was also policy. Stevenage was the first:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevenage#Stevenage_New_Tow
               | n
        
           | globular-toast wrote:
           | The stations were all originally built by separate private
           | railways companies which, naturally, served different parts
           | of the country. Euston, for example, was built by the London
           | and Birmingham Railway.
        
           | thebruce87m wrote:
           | Reminder to non-UK people: when people in England refer to
           | the "North East" and "North West" and so on, they are
           | referring to only England, even when talking in the context
           | of the UK.
        
         | dspillett wrote:
         | Also York (popular destination, middle of the east coast main
         | line but good connectivity to stations west (Leeds, Manchester,
         | ...) & elsewhere, with both through-trains and those that
         | start/terminate there):
         | https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/Y/...
         | 
         | Not as busy as any of the London terminals, but a key station
         | for many travellers.
        
           | gnfargbl wrote:
           | York is a good example of how building high-ish speed
           | railways that actually take people somewhere they want to go,
           | leads to people using those railways.
           | 
           | Look at the way the plots taper off to the north and south of
           | York; this isn't just people shuttling to and from London,
           | this is ordinary commuters and rail travellers using the
           | railway as a decent mode of transportation.
           | 
           | I wish the government had the gumption to recognize this and
           | respond appropriately.
        
             | DrBazza wrote:
             | Rob Holden, who lead HS1, and delivered it under budget
             | said HS2 has been such a disaster, paraphrasing, because
             | HS2 publicly declared its budget for each section, so the
             | Cotswold tunnels, for example had a budget of, say, $10bn.
             | So the contractors bidding to do it, bid... $9.9bn. Whereas
             | HS1 invited bids from contractors who had no idea how much
             | the government was prepared to spend.
             | 
             | Absolute idiocy.
             | 
             | More details in this and the links in the story:
             | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hs2-rishi-
             | sun...
        
               | AlecSchueler wrote:
               | I remember they started doing it this was because there
               | was concerns about companies with insider information
               | being unfairly advantaged in the bidding stages.
        
               | DrBazza wrote:
               | Interesting. I'd assumed it was something to do with the
               | Office for Budget Responsibility and "transparency" of
               | Government spending. I guess not.
               | 
               | It's still absurd that the Government would announce how
               | much they're prepared to pay in advance, and act
               | surprised when bids come in at or above that amount.
        
             | dspillett wrote:
             | _> York is a good example of how building high-ish speed
             | railways that actually take people somewhere they want to
             | go, leads to people using those railways._
             | 
             | Not just directly from York: there are many trains stopping
             | both here and Leeds, giving us, for example, indirect-but-
             | easy access to some of the north further west (smaller
             | lines to/through Shipley/Keighley/Skipton,
             | Ilkley/Settle/Carlisle) which I find handy when I want to
             | go run around the Dales, and that people from those areas
             | presumably find handy for access to the east coast main
             | line North & South.
             | 
             | York's rail connectivity is one of the (many) advantages of
             | living here (despite the key disadvantage of housing costs
             | & such) for me, as I don't drive.
        
         | DrBazza wrote:
         | Ashford International, one end of the HS1 line is pretty well
         | served:
         | 
         | https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/A/...
         | 
         | or the other end of HS1, St Pancras:
         | 
         | https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/S/...
         | 
         | And yet, we've more or less cancelled HS2. Oh well.
        
         | n_plus_1_acc wrote:
         | Can anyone explain why there so little traffic to Heathrow? Do
         | most people take the Tube and not the Heathrow express? It also
         | looks like traffic between the Terminals is not shown. IIRC,
         | you have to get a ticket to cross the ticket gate (which is
         | free I think), so they must have the numbers somewhere.
        
           | Marazan wrote:
           | The Heathrow Express is extremely expensive. I imagine most
           | people tube, bus or get dropped off by car.
        
             | krallja wrote:
             | Yes, and the expenses get much worse if you're traveling in
             | a group. I certainly took the Tube, with my family of four,
             | to Heathrow last spring. It was hundreds of pounds for us
             | to take the Express, or <PS30 for the Tube.
        
               | Symbiote wrote:
               | The opening of the Elizabeth Line was partway through the
               | statistic period used here. That line provides the
               | cheaper and almost-as-fast option to Central London and
               | beyond, using the same tracks as the Heathrow Express but
               | also stopping at some intermediate stations.
               | 
               | Unfortunately, Heathrow Airport have very good signage to
               | the Heathrow Express, and abysmal signage to the
               | Elizabeth Line. I assume this is intentional.
               | 
               | I'm thoroughly confused on what it costs. The airport
               | supposedly adds a surcharge as they own the last bit of
               | track, but I can't find an official website saying what
               | this surcharge is. More than the tube, but significantly
               | less than the Heathrow Express, anyway.
               | 
               | (Before the Elizabeth Line there were also non-"Express"
               | trains running on the same tracks, but the service was
               | less frequent. Not many people knew about it.)
        
         | mfbx9da4 wrote:
         | What if I'm from the UK and I am still wondering what to click?
        
       | buro9 wrote:
       | the explanation of this is in the main repo
       | https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/tree/main
       | 
       | it's the passenger journey data overlaid on the map of tracks,
       | where the thickness is number of journeys.
       | 
       | so drilling into a station like EXD (Exeter St David's) shows
       | lines going to Aberdeen... there is no route between Exeter and
       | Aberdeen, this is just a journey involving multiple changes.
       | 
       | so what you're seeing for a station is where people travel to,
       | and the volume of journeys on those segments of line, given the
       | station as a starting point.
       | 
       | I couldn't trivially determine whether it reflects all through
       | journeys for a station (start point, destination point, stop on
       | an through journey), it may well do so.
        
         | VBprogrammer wrote:
         | Unfortunately, for a quiet station I think the weighing is hard
         | to interpret. From a station near me, say Addlestone, I would
         | bet that > 95% of passengers were heading into one of the
         | London stations. However, because the relative number of
         | passengers is still low there isn't a great difference between
         | that and Addlestone to Glasgow.
        
         | jayelbe wrote:
         | There's one direct train between Exeter St Davids - Aberdeen
         | every day Mon-Sat, in each direction.
         | 
         | It takes something like 101/2hrs. If you join the train at
         | Plymouth (the start of the journey) it's 111/2hrs, and the
         | longest possible train journey you can make in the UK without
         | changing.
        
           | buro9 wrote:
           | wow, TIL (thank you)
        
           | lmm wrote:
           | > It takes something like 101/2hrs. If you join the train at
           | Plymouth (the start of the journey) it's 111/2hrs, and the
           | longest possible train journey you can make in the UK without
           | changing.
           | 
           | You're probably thinking of the direct train from Aberdeen to
           | Penzance (not just Plymouth), which does stop in Exeter.
           | However that one only runs in that direction, not the
           | reverse.
        
             | zeristor wrote:
             | Surviving 131/2 Hours on a CrossCountry Train. What's This
             | Journey from Aberdeen-Penzance REALLY Like?
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOmZ6xBToDM
             | 
             | Although the video is only 24 minutes.
        
             | jayelbe wrote:
             | Oh wow, I completely forgot, yes! From Aberdeen it
             | continues all the way to Penzance (but in the opposite
             | direction it starts from Plymouth). So the longest journey
             | is Aberdeen - Penzance; my mistake. Thank you!
             | 
             | Another mistake: it doesn't run on Saturdays.
        
       | stby wrote:
       | The complicated part (visualising the number of passengers on the
       | correct paths) was done well, but I'm really missing the simple
       | part: Placing a little marker where the initial station is
       | located.
        
       | hencoappel wrote:
       | Waterloo is rendered quite hilariously
       | https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/W/...
        
         | darajava wrote:
         | the shape must come from Waterloo to Bank, which is very close
         | to Waterloo and has its own line.
        
           | walthamstow wrote:
           | The tube isn't included, only railways
        
             | Symbiote wrote:
             | Though someone who lived in London a long time ago could
             | make this mistake, as until 1994 the Waterloo and City line
             | was owned and run by British Rail.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo_%26_City_line
             | 
             | The thick line is Waterloo to Clapham Junction.
        
         | NoboruWataya wrote:
         | WAT, indeed.
        
       | walthamstow wrote:
       | The most interesting part for me was seeing that the London to
       | Brighton flow is just as thick as that of the East Coast and West
       | Coast main lines. Presumably due to Thameslink and the sheer
       | frequency of Victoria/Croydon to Brighton trains on Southern.
        
       | adulion wrote:
       | Its not UK- its Great Britain- Doesnt include northern ireland
       | data
        
       | chris-orgmenta wrote:
       | https://www.railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php is also an invaluable
       | resource.
       | 
       | Also, The National Library of Scotland has old OS maps in a
       | pretty nice interface, in case useful: https://maps.nls.uk/os/
        
       | xnorswap wrote:
       | My favourite:
       | https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/R/...
       | 
       | What's perhaps odd (if it's based on sales as some have
       | suggested) is that Shanklin also doesn't show any traffic beyond
       | the Island Line despite it being possible to buy a ticket from
       | the mainland which includes the ferry crossing.
        
         | Symbiote wrote:
         | Perhaps a fault with the rendering, as the source data includes
         | these journeys (see my other comment).
         | 
         | Ryde and Shanklin stations have thousands of journeys to London
         | and elsewhere.
        
       | bloopernova wrote:
       | These make GB look like the blood vessels in an eye scan, or the
       | surface of the brain.
       | 
       | Who looked for their childhood stations? Basingstoke, and Wood
       | Street are shown, either end of the journey to visit my Nan. It
       | feels like I could retrace the trip blindfolded. (Oldish person,
       | please forgive the reminiscing)
        
       | Symbiote wrote:
       | I think the source data is here, under an Open Government
       | licence, but annoyingly it's necessary to register with a name
       | and address etc. to download it:
       | https://raildata.org.uk/dataProduct/P-a9faf6fd-b31f-491c-935...
       | 
       | Though someone is redistributing it (which is allowed) here:
       | https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/orr-origin-destination-...
       | 
       | I found an alternative (and interactive) viewer here:
       | https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/richard.rowson/viz/Ra...
        
       | politelemon wrote:
       | This seems to behave oddly in Firefox desktop (but fine on
       | mobile). The Content Security Policy is blocking the image from
       | loading.
       | 
       | Console complains about:
       | 
       | Content-Security-Policy: The page's settings blocked the loading
       | of a resource at
       | https://media.githubusercontent.com.x.e4303b4d0615604a6b08d9...
       | ("img-src").
       | 
       | The image doesn't load and network tab complains about
       | `NS_ERROR_DOM_BAD_URI`.
       | 
       | But the URI looks OK, example:
       | https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/anisotropi4/kingfi...
        
         | matsemann wrote:
         | I can't get the images to work in neither Firefox or Chrome.
         | Worked a few hours ago, though.
        
       | once_inc wrote:
       | I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that the Flow image
       | for King's Cross
       | (https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/K/...)
       | does not, in fact, reveal the location of Hogwarts School for
       | Witchcraft and Wizardry.
        
         | zeristor wrote:
         | Wouldn't that plot be invisible?
        
           | krallja wrote:
           | Only if you're a Muggle.
        
       | zeristor wrote:
       | Any stats for London St Pancras to Paris, Bruges, Amsterdam, or
       | Lille?
        
       | zeristor wrote:
       | At least on TfL there are constant apologies for delays caused by
       | a Shortage of Trains.
       | 
       | Might I suggest that the collective nouns be a Shortage?
       | 
       | Along with a Plight of Commuters.
        
       | zeristor wrote:
       | Curriehill close to Heriot-Watt University but seemingly ignored.
       | I am guessing the backroad to the University doesn't really have
       | the capacity to take committing students, but it always struck me
       | as a missed opportunity.
       | 
       | That and being kept awake at night by express trains going
       | through, it is like there's rail blindness, at least when I was
       | there a decade or so ago.
        
       | michalskop wrote:
       | Can anyone explain how to see the images?
       | 
       | All I can see is text, something like: ``` version https://git-
       | lfs.github.com/spec/v1 oid sha256:c113251a7c1a67eff152777018926de
       | 038c3a78723ec16b611a45a030b8b4d8b size 294284 ```
       | https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/A/...
        
         | Carioca wrote:
         | I'm pretty sure Github disabled image downloads for that repo
         | in the last few minutes.
        
           | aranw wrote:
           | Even when you download the repo the images don't render
        
             | Carioca wrote:
             | As agoose77 said on another comment, Github probably
             | disabled the whole LFS (Large File Storage) for that repo
        
               | thih9 wrote:
               | Is the LFS enabled for the forked repositories?
               | 
               | I can't log in and I don't have a way to view the list of
               | forks.
        
               | stedaniels wrote:
               | It wasn't when I tried it earlier.
        
         | agoose77 wrote:
         | I suspect that their LFS bandwidth has been exhausted, so now
         | one only sees the LFS metadata.
        
           | Daviey wrote:
           | Indeed, `git lfs fetch` is giving:
           | 
           | `This repository is over its data quota. Account responsible
           | for LFS bandwidth should purchase more data packs to restore
           | access.`
           | 
           | TIL that there is the ability to upgrade LFS access on
           | github.com
        
             | usr1106 wrote:
             | Buying bandwidth from github for LFS blobs seems the wrong
             | approach to me, assuming this is some hobby project.
             | 
             | Is there an implementation to seed LFS blobs as BitTorrent?
        
               | remus wrote:
               | I assume it's just getting a lot of traffic from HN and
               | github have some limits in place to stop it being abused
               | for content hosting. I imagine it'll start working again
               | once the traffic goes back to normal.
        
         | zeristor wrote:
         | I take it this is the code to generate the images, mention was
         | made of a data file, but it doesn't appear to be in the repo,
         | from a brief check I didn't see any reference to a data file.
         | 
         | I am guessing the actual data file itself would be smaller than
         | all of the images. HN readers should have a high chance of
         | being able to run the code.
        
       | mfbx9da4 wrote:
       | Unless I'm being really dumb I don't see an image, all I see is
       | this https://pasteboard.co/hxSXWlzyFepX.png
        
         | iso1631 wrote:
         | github have stopped the repo, was working earlier
        
       | iso1631 wrote:
       | Does github frequently break repositories like this?
        
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