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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Now that's a transit wayfinding symbol I hadn't seen before

Wayfinding sign in a ferry terminal, with icons for "Baggage Reclaim", "Cafe / Restaurant", "Taxis / Meeting Point", "Buses / Coach Transfers", and... "Horse Trams"

lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

eurasianet.org/azerbaijan-r... reports that the Georgia-Azerbaijan border reopens May 26! In combination with the occasional passenger-accepting Baku-Aktau freighters, this makes travel from Europe to East Asia without flying or crossing Russia or Iran possible for the first time since the pandemic.

eurasianet.org

Azerbaijan reopening land border, resuming rail connection with Georgia

Baku to keep other land border crossings closed.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

What places have you been with the most Coruscant/Trantor sorts of vibes (city on top of city on top of city, without a clearly visible ground level)?

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Reposted by lexande

Nolan Hicks @ndhapple.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Fun find this afternoon: In 1957, the Port Authority did the engineering work to link the downtown PATH to the Lexington Avenue subway local tracks.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Trying out the new GoVolta low-cost rail service from Berlin to Amsterdam. We found out two hours before departure that you're supposed to "check in" by four hours before, but got the website live chat to send us our boarding passes anyway.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Is this an April Fool's joke or just a data error?

Screenshot from bahn.de showing a Regional Express train scheduled to run nonstop between Bohusovice nad Ohri (Czechia) and Santarem (Portugal) in 11-13 hours, marked as operating April 1 only.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

It's weird how Berlin's Ringbahn is among its most important passenger rail lines while Paris just abandoned theirs. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemin_...

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

The Paris cable car is both a lot of fun and seems plausibly quite useful for people living in the area served. Daily ridership is apparently 12.5k, not huge but a good 3x the London cable car for example.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Updated for 2025: timeline maps of every metro system in the world transit-timelines.github.io

transit-timelines.github.io

Rapid Transit Timelines and Scale Comparison

Maps every 5 years, 1840-2025

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

@enf.bsky.social Do you still have the pdf that was once at trafficways.org/scans/1956-b...? Or any other information about the 1956 SF rapid transit proposal depicted in www.flickr.com/photos/walki...

flickr.com

San Francisco rapid transit plans (1956)

The San Francisco City Planning Department's response to the 1956 BART Regional Rapid Transit report. (The double-line routes are BART; the black lines are Muni.)

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Finally trying out electrified Caltrain

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Furthest I've been (on land): N: 71.171°N Nordkapp, 1989; as an adult 69.715°N Nordpissen, Tromsø, 2025 E: Likely 176.378°E near Waimangu on a Wellington-Auckland bus, 2013 S: 65.065°S Port Charcot, 2020 W: 159.782°W or so in Kauai, 1988; as an adult 150.022°W Point Woronzof, Anchorage, 2013

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

My favorite proposals (that I hadn't already seen elsewhere) from the "1 like = 1 passenger rail project" threads:

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

🦋 Is this public transportation?

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

1 like = 1 passenger rail project idea

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Reposted by lexande

kaptrice 🐦‍⬛ @kaptrice.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

Today we are familiar with the enormous Chinese high-speed-rail network, but decades ago, it took a tremendous amount of work to build out the conventional rail network from its state at the proclamation of the People's Republic - mostly sparse, in ruins, and incredibly regionally concentrated

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Travel threads I have posted: Antarctica-Boston without flying Nicosia-Lisbon without flying Boston-DC by local buses Berlin-Chisinau via Kyiv Austin-Quebec City without flying Berlin-Sicily by local/regional trains Berlin-Lagos without flying Berlin-Tromsø without flying

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Reposted by lexande

lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

At Eidsvoll you can transfer directly from a 200km/h electric train to the 169-year-old paddle steamboat Skibladner en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skiblad..., the world's oldest operating public transport vehicle.

GPS speedometer app reporting 201km/h on on the train between Oslo Airport station and Eidsvoll station

2012-built train visible at left, 1856-built steamship visible at right

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

This time I'm heading north, starting with the slow trains from Berlin to Hamburg (since they're free with Deutschlandticket and it turned out a hostel bed in Hamburg tonight was cheaper than an early fast train to Hamburg tomorrow morning).

RE8 Berlin Alexanderplatz - Schwerin Hbf

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

Apparently it's hotter than usual in Hell right now?

Screenshot of the SJ Nord website (sj.no) reporting "⚠️ The line between Hell - Storlien will be closed tonight due to high temperatures"

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

It's currently difficult to get very far from Europe in most directions without flying (especially with a US passport). But one path remains open, so today I'm heading southwest from Berlin towards Tangier, Dakar, and beyond.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

If you see this post, quote with a bridge from your gallery.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

What are the furthest points from Berlin/Europe currently reachable via publicly-available not-airplane-or-cruise-ship transport, and how would you go about reaching them?

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

What's the most underrated city in the EU?

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

⚠️ Achtung! Have a nice day.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 13/03/2024

What do STEM PhD dropouts do now that bigtech hiring is so much weaker than in the 2010s?

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Reposted by lexande

lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 11/10/2023

== Berlin to Pozzallo by local/regional trains == Vehicles: 32 trains, 1 ferry, 1 rail-replacement bus Distance: 2755km by train, 7km foot, 8km ferry, 100km bus In-vehicle time: ~40hr train, 20min ferry, 2hr bus Map: google.com/maps/d/edit?... Thread starts: staging.bsky.app/profile/lexa...

Vehicles used (excluding side trips and cases where I got off and back on the same line)

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 26/09/2023

Enabled by Deutschlandticket (€49/month unlimited local/regional transit in Germany) & the Italia In Tour ticket (€29/3days unlimited Trenitalia regional trains), I'm planning to spend the next few days traveling from Berlin to Southern Italy entirely on local & regional trains.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 13/08/2023

Berlin's Gärten der Welt has gardens in the style of places all over the world and... the USA garden has a parking lot with US cars. But nature is healing, wasps have infested the cars.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 13/05/2023

Labor productivity fell in 2023Q1 www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.…; 2022 was also negative for the year, lowest since at least the 80s. I think this is mostly lower-productivity workers rejoining the workforce but I wonder how much is attributable to the Adderall shortage?

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 28/04/2023

Which North American urban areas have multiple unconnected mainline rail termini/central stations? - NYC (Penn, GCT, Atlantic, Hoboken, LIC, St George) - Chicago (Union, Oglivie, Millennium, LaSalle) - Miami (Central, Airport, Amtrak) - Dallas (Union, Trinity Mills) - Philadelphia (30th, WRTC)

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 16/04/2023

Is this the worst light rail line in North America, or merely a mediocre commuter rail line?

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 14/04/2023

The original route of the Northeast Corridor (NJRR) ran alongside this canal until 1863.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 11/04/2023

It's surprising to me that (if I understand correctly) voluntarily unemployed people in Germany have to pay €210/month for mandatory health insurance, while healthcare for voluntarily unemployed people in most US states is free.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 10/04/2023

Considering travel plans for the next two months, do I know anybody who would like to meet up in any of Austin, Toronto, or Philadelphia?

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 19/01/2023

Today I learned that since 2021 Dakar has had an electrified suburban rail line with trains every 10 minutes all day. fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_express…

fr.wikipedia.org

Train express régional de Dakar — Wikipédia

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 17/01/2023

What's going on here? Penn Station didn't exist in 1908 and I'm pretty sure no part of it ever looked like this.

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 12/12/2022

Boston transit history question: when was the last time before today that an in-service train ran through from the Tremont Street (Green Line) Subway to Medford?

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 12/12/2022

So what's everybody's plan for getting to Medford at 4:30am?

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lexande @lexande.bsky.social · 02/12/2022

Is Park Street the only subway station in the world where you are allowed to walk across (one of) the tracks?

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