iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 25/07/2026

It's Trans Pride, and Pride is a protest - so here's my protest

Poster for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, with me raising my middle finger to it

Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 03/05/2026

I have a friend who is very fond of this mindmelting example of wayfinding at West Ham station. To the extent that she takes family and friends there to take selfies. So come on the internet, what other examples of mad signage are there out there?

A station sign with a white arrow on a blue background, oriented to point to the right. Inexplicably, it is accompanied by white text on a blue background which says "keep left"

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 21/03/2026

Too many Henry vacuum cleaner live in cramped, appalling conditions. Good to see this guy taking his for a walk #freeTheHenries

A man walking down the street pulling a Henry vacuum cleaner by the end of the hose

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 07/03/2026

More #OLEBook updates as I fly through the Lune Valley...

A first class table on a class 390. A tablet with keyboard is on the table, with latex text showing. Out of the window lie hills and a river valley

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 03/03/2026

For the love of god will the current crop of web designers please learn that not everyone has their font size set to "medium", fgs test your websites in ways that people actually use them. I would estimate that 1 I'm 6 sites render like this on my phone

A website. The text is extending beyond the viewport on the right hand side, rendering the words unreadable

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 03/03/2026

RAILWAY KLAXON 📢 NEW CUTE DEPARTMENTAL VEHICLE JUST DROPPED #IrishRail

A very short bogie inspection car in yellow, with raked ends

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 03/03/2026

Shades of Hot Fuzz at Bray this morning, the line is fowled #swan #cockit

A platform information screen showing "trains may be delayed due to a swan on the line"

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 21/02/2026

Another day out by rail, so having yet another go at getting the new Discontinuous Electrification (DE) and battery trains section of the #OLEBook right. I think I'm on the home stretch now! #thiswritinglife

A table on a train with a tablet and keyboard. The tablet has a latex script on it, and there is a paper copy on the table with redlining on it

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 30/12/2025

Having a day out meandering down to Cornwall - a good opportunity to get stuck in to the next version of the #OLEbook and a big new section on discontinuous electrification and battery trains. #ThisWritingLife

Interior view of a train carriage table with biscuits, water and an android tablet with text related to batter trains. Out of the window a blue and pink sunrise is happening

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 18/12/2025

Looks like GWR have reformed their nine car class 800s overnight, with four carriages of first class instead of two, in the middle instead of the end

A station departure indicator showing a nine carriage train with first class in the middle. The train was in fact 2x5 cars

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 08/12/2025

Train arrives in plenty of time, due to depart at 1900, gets the right away from signaller at 1900, leaves at... 1904. This is the sort of casual tardiness that the industry needs to clamp down on, it is endemic

Signal diagram showing 2C89 with clearance to depart the platform

Real time trains website showing 2C89 departing 3 3/4 mins late

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 08/12/2025

Super strong lede from this month's edition of Modern Railways. Bravo! 👏

According to the boffins at CERN, much of the universe is made of dark matter, which outweighs visible matter roughly six to one and accounts for around 27% of it. A whopping 68% is postulated to be formed of dark energy, which is distributed evenly across the universe and exerts a global effect on it as a whole. Neither can presently be detected and their nature is unknown, yet the most popular and credible scientific theories depend on the existence of something undiscovered to make them work.

Something similar could be said of the Railways Bill, published...

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 04/12/2025

I can't express how disappointed I am to find out that this man did not, in fact, put a pair of trousers on a hedgehog statue

BBC news headline "Man sought over trousering of hedgehog statue"

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 27/11/2025

My mum has dug out my old school reports. Found this... definitely a high water mark for my life skills 😆

A certificate for a life skills exam. Score 85%

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 22/11/2025

It's official: I'm Back on my Bullshit, drafting the isolation section for the next version of the #OLEbook while on a day out on the train.

View of a table in the first class carriage of a GWR train. An android tablet is on the table with Latex code on the screen.

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2025

Day 1 of the third annual PWI Electrification Challenge: 26 people with no prior experience learning hands-on how OLE construction works. There's nothing else like this course!

A group of people in hi Viz constructing a cantilever on track

A group of people in hi Viz constructing a cantilever on track with me mugging in front of them

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 25/07/2025

Also: I'd love to see the workings behind this claim, and I'm particular the time period that the electrification capex is spread over. I suspect an unrealistically short period!

A claim that electric train totex is over £5 per mile, while battery electric is £1.39 per mile

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 25/07/2025

Catching up with the latest issue of Modern Railways. Great article on GWR's plans for battery trains, but sorry - this claim has to be challenged. GW Electrification was authorised in 2010, and completed in 2020. No significant work took place before then; indeed […] [Original post on mas.to]

Excerpt from magazine article: "But it's not realistic to deliver that level of infrastructure in the time available to support the fleet. The operator highlighted that the Great Western Electrification Programme took two decades from conception to completion"

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 02/07/2025

Had a great time today speaking and listening at the PWI electrification conference in Cardiff. Lots of energetic discussion on discontinuous electrification, heritage considerations, upgrade of existing electrification and the role of machine learning and automation (don't call it AI!)

A middle aged white man (me) on a stage presenting with a slide on a screen behind me titled "(I don't) mind the gap: discontinuous electrification as a railway system"

Two middle aged white men (I'm one of them) sat in chairs on a stage taking questions as a woman of colour (Chrisma Jain, current PWI president) looks on, as does the audience

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 27/05/2025

Hey @Jon do you have the Eiffel Tower at Velika Gorica?

A shiny new miniature Eiffel tower in a car park

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 25/05/2025

After a long, fantastic boozy Parisian lunch, train #6 is another InOui double deck TGV on the 1553 Paris Gare de l'Est to Stuttgart.

A double deck TGV carriage in a platform

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 25/05/2025

Train #5 is the 1205 Lille to Paris Gare du Nord InOui double decker TGV. Lovely ambience on first class upper deck

A TGV in black and grey entering the platform while people wait to board

First class upper deck interior with grey striped seats and red massacars

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 25/05/2025

In France even the bins are stylish

A pair of bins, arranged in a V-shaped metal framework

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 25/05/2025

Train #4 and the trip gets started in anger... 0901 St Pancras International to Bruxelles ( I'll be getting off at Lille)... my first time bagging Seat 61!

A class 374 Eurostar driving vehicle in the platform at St Pancras

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 25/05/2025

Trains #2 and #3 are tube to get me to St Pancras.

A Victoria line tube train in the platform, with people getting on and off

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 25/05/2025

So... it's that time of year again, I'm off on a Moderately Sized Adventure™. Train no.1 is from East Croydon to London Bridge. I travelled here last night as a positioning move.

A class 700 EMU pulls into the platform as people wait to board.

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 08/03/2025

I was in IKEA and got me a Blåhaj. If you know, you know...

A blue and white toy shark sitting on top of an IKEA Kallax unit with a pot plant

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 22/02/2025

Just catching up on back editions of the PWI journal... good to see a balanced economic view of battery-electric vehicles. This is quite rare in my experience - a railway is an economic system as much as an engineering system and running costs *must* be a key consideration

It is however possible to use vehicles with battery based onboard energy storage systems (OESS) to overcome stray current and OLE challenges. Mott MacDonald led the development of the first modern section of OLE free tramway in Birmingham city centre in 2019 with additional sections added since, (Figure 8). South Wales Metro and Coventry VLR are also planning on using OESS. The capital expenditure benefits have to be balanced by the operational expenditure of
carrying a battery pack on the vehicle increasing track loadings and wear, along with the requirements to replace the battery during the
design life of the vehicle and any charging infrastructure required.
The operational restrictions created by OESS also need to be fully
understood particularly when managing perturbations or incidents on the network which may leave vehicles in a catenary free section.

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Garry Keenor @25kv.mas.to.ap.brid.gy · 12/02/2025

I'm in my element today, teaching in electrification systems on the University of Birmingham Railway Systems MSc course. Great to have really engaged students with loads of questions!