#Railway ticket offices

[insidecroydon]

Ticket office decision was 'Halloween nightmare' for Tories

Hailing yesterday’s decision to reject Department for Transport plans to close railway station ticket offices, one local campaigner has described the outcome as a “Halloween nightmare for the Government”. Strong opposition: 600 passengers who use Sanderstead station signed a petition opposing ticket office closures In July, nine train companies announced plans to close 269 station ticket offices…

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#Charlie King #Conservative #Coulsdon #Croydon #Department for Transport #East Croydon station #East Surrey Transport Committee #Govia Thameslink #GTR #London TravelWatch #Norwood Junction #Purley #Railway ticket offices #South Norwood #Thornton Heath #Tory

[gingertomcat]

If you live in the UK right now I seriously urge you to fill out this consultation.

The government and the rail operating companies intend to close nearly 1000 train station ticket offices because they deem them "a waste of money". This is not true. Ticket offices are important, not only to people that are unable to buy their tickets online but most importantly to disabled people. Ticket staff and station attendants are the ones responsible for providing accessible literature and information about travel and helping people board and leave trains safely and securely. Furthermore, they deal with station security, should an accident happen at the station, the ticket staff are first to attend. The government and the train operating companies want to shut these vital services down which will not only make thousands of people redundant but also make the railways a much less safe place to travel.

If you're not from the uk please boost this.

#UK #uk politics #uk #trains #railways #ticket offices #ableism #disabled #disability #gwr #great western railway #fuck the tories #fuck tories #glass door display fridges

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Today in Penzance (at the end of the line) there were protests against ticket office closures in support of RMT industrial action.

#uk politics #Penzance #Cornwall #rmt #railway #save ticket offices

[julianvaughanblogs]

Ticket Office Closures Q&As

Due to the threat of legal action by disability activists and a number of metro mayors, the 21-day consultation window on the Rail Delivery Group’s (RDG) proposals to close almost 1,000 ticket offices across the rail network has been extended to 1st September. As of around a week ago, some 170,000 responses to the consultation had already been received and it is clear that the public are…

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#accessibility #Politics #public transport #railways #ticket office closures #ticket offices #Transport #UK politics #uk railways

[streetsofdublin]

GOOGLE BARD INCORRECTLY CLAIMED THAT THERE IS A PUBLIC TOILET AND A TICKET OFFICE AT THE CABRA LUAS STOP

Today I had a most annoying session when I requested Google's Bard AI for information relating to the Cabra Tram Stop.

28 JULY 2023 Today I had a most annoying session when I requested Google’s Bard AI for information relating to the Cabra Tram Stop. I was advised that there was a toilet and a ticket office. When I requested a location for the toilet I was advised that it was at The Mount Bernard street entrance and above the ticket office. After about thirty minutes Bard admitted that there was no such street…

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#2023 #BARD #Broadstone railway cutting #Cabra Tram Stop #CONNAUGHT STREET #Dublin #Fotonique #Infomatique #Ireland #july #Liam Whelan Bridge #mount bernard park #No Mount Bernard Street #No Ticket Office #No Toilet #William Murphy

[colgreen31]

Todmorden Railway Station, former ticket office pictured in 2013.

Former Ticket office at Todmorden Railway Station, pictured in 2013.

http://www.clickasnap.com/.../01GREGQ0P4TC1WMKER12ZNXQ5T Check it out on ClickASnap

#Todmorden #Railway #Station #Transport #Travel #Ticket Office #Architecture #Photographer #Photography #Calderdale #Yorkshire #Clickasnap

[fandom]

How 'bout that Riverdale finale, y'all?

After seven bizarre seasons, Riverdale finally ended in the most Riverdale-possible way. The cast of What We Do In The Shadows sat down with us before the SAG strike and answered a ton of your questions, which you can see here. It's August in the year 2023, so of course the Destiel confession made news again and trended, like, super hard. The first two episodes of Ahsoka have fans clamoring for more. We got our first look at the second season of Our Flag Means Death and if the photos and cast are any indication, it's gonna be incredible. Astarion is reigning supreme as the new Baldur's Gate 3 blorbo. Best of luck to all of the UK given the railway ticket offices closures. Oh also there was a debate in the US between the Republican presidential candidates and Donald Trump did not participate. This is Tumblr's Week in Review.

Riverdale

Donald Trump

Good Omens

What We Do In The Shadows

Destiel

Artists on Tumblr

Our Flag Means Death

Ahsoka

Genshin Impact

Crowley | Good Omens

Aziraphale | Good Omens

Ineffable Husbands | Crowley & Aziraphale, Good Omens

Baldur's Gate 3

The QSMP Minecraft server

Astarion | Baldur's Gate 3

UK Politics

2023 F1 Dutch Grand Prix

Star Wars

Hozier

Neuvillette | Genshin Impact

We'll be taking a break next week! Fandometrics will return on September 11, 2023.

#week in review #08/28/2023 #riverdale

[octuscle]

hey mate, just got back to Stansted from Majorca and fuck i don’t wanna go back to uni. i wish i didn’t have to leave this chav body and go back to studying i just enjoy this way too much. And being able to just not worry about work or being clean or anything has been amazing! would be a real shame if i couldn’t turn back 😏

Mate, I'm heartbroken. But your last persona has already been pre-booked. I can't return that one to you. But go to the baggage claim, I'll see what I can do.

After waiting for half an hour, you start laughing. Fuck, where are your thoughts! Apart from your hand luggage, you didn't have anything with you. You grab your bag, leave the security area and look for a place where you can smoke a cigarette. Holy crap, vacation is a cool thing. But why are you not allowed to smoke on planes anymore? Drinking is okay, too. Hehehehe! You briefly check the connections on your cell phone. There's a bus leaving from the Aiport Coach Station in 20 minutes. You can do that. You can even manage a second smoke. When you ask the bus driver for a ticket, he waves you off. Are you new? Employees don't need a ticket. You have no idea what he's talking about. But hey, you don't force him to take your money. Fortunately, the bus is pretty empty. Amazing, actually… "Next stop Marks Tey Railway Station". What the hell? Where the hell is that? You go up to the driver and ask him if this isn't the bus to Liverpool Street in London. The driver grins. And asks you what you want in London. If you don't want to go home, as usual. Of course, right. Or how? Why do you live in Marks Tey? And where the hell is that? "Bruv, must have been a tough day for ya," says the driver. "get some rest, i'll make sure ya don't miss yor stop." You say thank you, take your seat again, and soon fall asleep.

"Connor, we're here!" the driver calls. "Thank you, mate," you reply, grabbing the bag of sneakers you bought today in the duty free area and walking to the platform. The bus was late, you only have five minutes left. Okay. It's 20 minutes. The train is also late. There's even enough time to get a can of Dr. Pepper and a pack of cigarettes and smoke another fag.

It's only eight minutes to Colchester Station. Just enough time to take a quick look at a newspaper that has been left lying around. The job at the airport is tough, but well paid. And you have a lot of fun with your colleagues. You can't imagine having an office job. You need the smell of kerosene on the tarmac in front of the terminal. Only the way in the morning and in the evening sucks. But the apartment is cheap. And your boyfriend is still studying at the University of Essex. But if things go well, you can soon persuade him to finally give up his studies and take the job as a tanker driver at the airport. Then you would have three hours more a day to fuck! You've got a boner again. You can't wait until your college boy puts on your hiviz gear. If he's going to give you a blowjob, he should at least look and smell like a real man. Just like you do…

Nice pic found @legrand89

#male tf #reality change #chronivac #male transformation #hiviz tf #chav tf

[rathologic]

Bachelor ARG is real, it seems

(link to the ARG discussion thread on Reddit)

A physical train ticket for Bachelor Dankovsky, received among Kickstarter rewards and machine translated by u/DerpForceAlpha (who is to credit for everything discussed in this post!).

The Morse code shown on the ticket leads to the Reddit account u/FyodorVitin, who currently has a single post titled "The Beginning" - it's a picture of a handwritten letter:

The letter's text, transcribed/machine translated by DerpForceAlpha and very slightly edited by me:

I received a letter from a certain Isidor Burakh, who, they say, is personally acquainted with an unnaturally long-lived man. This man is the ruler of an unknown provincial town that stands at the very end of the North-Eastern Railway. If what he says is at least half true, then this long-liver will become the missing proof. We will finally wipe the nose of the damned Telman, and when that bastard is silent - we will be able to convince the Authorities to spare the "Thanatica". If I don't find anything there, well…science from the corral will go straight to the slaughterhouse. P.S. It is not calm in the steppe regions now, so I am taking the prototype of the Plaguefinder with me. I leave the current work on you all the records in my office. I will contact you as soon as I can. I hope they at least have a telegraph there. Daniil

It looks possible that this letter might be addressed to someone whose name starts with A. I don't think there's transcription of the other text in the image yet, but the top document is attributed to one I. I. Mechnikov. The pocket watch in the lower left appears to show the time 1:30.

No idea how this connects to the mysterious letters that backers have been receiving yet :-)

#pathologic #p2bach #arg #BLOWS THE HELL UP AND EXPLODES FOREVER. I thought the top document might be the KRI plague certificate from 2005 but it isn't- the font and #text do not match... hoping so bad they at least reference thanaticalabs

[scavengedluxury]

Budapest Keleti railway station ticket office, 1884. From the Budapest municipal photography company archive.

#budapest #hungary #railways #architecture #1880s

[insidecroydon]

Transport watchdogs reject plan to close railway ticket offices

Delayed service: the ticket office at East Croydon, which the rail operators claimed is barely used and was under threat of closure 99% of consultation responses opposed the proposals, with East Croydon and Sanderstead among the stations to attract the largest number of objections It is probably the first cancellation on the railways to be greeted with widespread public acclaim. Plans by the…

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#Conservative #Coulsdon #Croydon #Department for Transport #East Croydon station #Govia Thameslink #GTR #London TravelWatch #Norwood Junction #Purley #Railway ticket offices #South Norwood #Thornton Heath #Tory

[weirdowithaquill]

Traintober 2023: Day 22 - Top Hat

The Railway is Prospering:

The railway was prospering. That was perhaps the first thing that the figure noticed. The books had been kind to the railway, in that they had drummed up hundreds, thousands of tourists who flocked to the island to ride behind the famous engines who worked there. The harbour extension at the end of Thomas’ branchline had made loading the stone from the quarry ever smoother, as they didn’t need to drag it all the way to Tidmouth.

And best of all, the engines were all still running.

Sir Topham Hatt wandered up to the ticket office at Wellsworth, spotting Edward collecting passengers for his afternoon train up to the Big Station. Even without a ticket, it was a little too easy to sneak aboard, finding an empty compartment and flopping down on the seats – only, they seemed to pass right through him.

Ah… right.

Instead, the figure of Sir Topham Hatt floated with his head out of the window, taking in the world around him in awe. There was Henry, speeding along with a fast freight train. His rebuild had truly done him wonders – thank goodness Sir William agreed to it, or Henry would… maybe not even be here. And over there was Gordon! He thundered by with the Express, whistling happily at Edward as the big blue engine drew alongside the old engine. They exchanged a fond greeting, and then Gordon was gone again, rocketing along.

James passed by next, grumbling dreadfully with a long train of tankers behind him. So… he’d not done so well with James – but he was still not only really useful, but reliable as well! And in spite of his grumbling, he was still pulling the trucks. As much as Sir Topham Hatt wanted to shout at the red engine to stop whining and get a move on, he recognised just how well the engine was doing.

Then, they passed through the Junction to Thomas’ branchline, and Sir Topham Hatt managed to spy all three of his former tank engines – Thomas, Duck and Percy – all shunting trucks together. It seemed like Duck needed a large order of stone, and the two other tank engines had brought it down for him. Furthermore, Toby stood nearby with Henrietta. All four looked healthy, happy and well-rested, a far cry from those dark days when the big engines refused to work. Then, Thomas, Percy and Edward had been forced to work day and night – nonstop – just to keep the railway open.

But now, they had time to slow down and chat, as well as spend time bantering. Sir Topham wondered just why Percy was talking about ghosts. He’d move closer to listen – but he didn’t want to lose Edward and his train.

Oh, Edward.

The blue engine looked so much happier now. He was running well; nary a clank in his motion. He smiled more too, happier than ever and so much brighter even though the day was cloudy. Sir Topham smiled wryly.

As much as he wanted to say his legacy was the greatness his engines felt now, he couldn’t honestly say it and be right. He’d done some admirable things for his engines, and he’d always been willing to stand up for Edward, or Thomas, or Percy – but at the same time… at the same time, it was clear he’d been far stricter than his son.

Maybe that was a good thing – the railway wouldn’t have survived the Great Depression without a firm hand to guide it. The entire railway had teetered on the edge of bankruptcy for so long, and he’d become so afraid of losing it all. He’d held on tight, almost strangling everyone as he nitpicked his way through every issue. He’d been harsh – harsher than he should have been.

Henry looked so much happier without him around.

But he’d done it for the railway! Being firm, strict and a little controlling was what the railway needed to see in each new year. He’d never scrapped one of his engines (the board, however…), even when they were unable to be really useful. Again, Henry was a testament to how much he hated to see potential wasted.

He’d fought against the LMS for years over the right to keep the railway open… but the LMS fell, and still the NWR remained. It… felt good to know he’d been so successful… even if most of the engines didn’t remember him so favourably.

With one last breath, he slipped away from Edward’s train, taking a moment to wander into his son’s office. He spotted a very familiar top hat resting on the coatrack. “That’s… my hat…” murmured Sir Topham, feeling just a little better.

Everything was going to be just fine.

With that, the almost ethereal figure standing in the Fat Controller’s office faded away.

Back to Master Post

#fanfiction writer #railway series #weirdowithaquill #thomas the tank engine #railways #traintober 2023 #traintober #ttte sir topham hatt #sir topham hatt i #ttte #ghost #ttte edward

[salmontheking]

Secret police vs regular police

An officer of the Information Security Agency thought she could drive without the papers.

Axis has no shortage of special police agencies, with at least one per every Capital Secreteriate, one per armed force, one for the President personally and then some outliers like the postal service and railway authority. In fact every third prison inmate is there because of them, not to mention all the, so to speak, special prisons. One of the very few advantages of this arrangement is that all the psychopaths, reactionaries, careerists, thugs, narcs and maniacal patriots funnel into them, leaving the ranks of ordinary cops relatively clean. They mostly dispense tickets, give directions and reprimand noisy neighbors rather than shooting dogs and teenagers.

Infosec is especially infamous. Membership notably makes it much easier to get a high-end motor vehicle, a cause of much envy among the general public, so traffic cops miss no opportunity to spite the spooks. They are the only people who can get away with it.

#Megaton Heart #worldbuilding art #worldbuilding #concept art #illustration #artists on tumblr #artwork #digital art #retrofuturism #retrofuture #retro scifi #sci fi art #scifiart #scifi #science fiction #cops

[phoebenavarro]

into the woods and out of the woods (a w.bg ficlet)

Mike said he doesn't like Into the Woods and I just knew I had to write something with Mikey and Edgar arguing about musicals, so have a ficlet

woe.begone, mikey/edgar, fluff, 668 words

crossposted to ao3 here

Mikey knocks on the door to Edgar’s office in Base and pokes his head in. 

“Hey babe, you working?” 

Edgar looks up from his monitor. “No, actually, you caught me on a break. Hey, come in for a second. What do you think about taking a trip to New York?” 

Mikey comes into the office and closes the door behind him. “New York? Like, City? Uh, not super crazy about being stuck in the crowds.” 

Edgar knows his Mikey’s idea of a great vacation is more along the lines of staying in a cabin in the middle of nowhere and cuddle in bed, but that’s basically every night they spend together in one of their cabins at OVER. He beckons Mikey to come back around the desk and look at his screen. 

“Me neither, really, but… There’s a revival of Into the Woods on Broadway right now. We could take a calculator and have a nice weekend together, away from Base.” 

“Babe,” Mikey whines, leaning down next to Edgar to see the website for the production. “You know I don’t like Into the Woods.” 

“Not this again,” Edgar says, smiling fondly.

“It’s not my fault you have bad taste in musicals,” Mikey grumbles. 

“Come on, Mikey Bear, you yourself have said it’s not a bad musical. You just don’t like it, and that is perfectly okay with me.” He turns to Mikey, and since Mikey’s face is level with his, he pecks him on the cheek. 

Mikey screws up his face in consideration, color rushing to his cheeks. “I mean, I think it would be sacrilegious against the musical theatre gods or whatever to call any Sondheim musical bad.” 

“Yeah, you’d probably get struck by lightning,” Edgar jokes. “Or you’d get attacked by an angry theatre kid, and I’m not sure which is worse.” 

Mikey laughs. “I’ll take the lightning.” 

Edgar grins. That’s his Bear. “You have to admit, it is objectively one of the best musicals of all time.” 

“Please,” Mikey rolls his eyes. “It’s not even one of Sondheim’s best musicals. Not even top three.” 

Edgar raises an eyebrow. “Oh? And tell me, Bear, what is Sondheim’s best work, in your estimation?” 

“Gladly,” Mikey says, puffing up his chest. “Obviously, it’s Assassins.” 

Edgar has now raised both eyebrows. “Interesting choice.” 

“The way the music captures the musical era of each assassin is really incredible, and it’s a concept show that actually works.” He smirks to himself. “Take notes, Andrew Lloyd Webber.” 

“While I do think that Cats has it’s charms, I won’t argue with you there.” 

“If by ‘charms', you mean ‘Skimbleshanks the Railway cat,’ then yes, I agree completely.” 

Edgar rolls his eyes lovingly. “That was the one good scene in that equally boring and horrifying adaptation. C’mon, it’s not like I’m asking you to go see that again. And you have said that my affection for Into the Woods makes you like it more…” 

“That doesn’t mean I want to spend a hundred dollars per ticket to see it on Broadway,” Mikey says, but Edgar can tell his resistance is crumbling. 

“Not even for me? For my birthday, maybe?” Edgar bats his eyelashes at him. 

Mikey fixes an indignant scowl on his face. “You’re a menace.” 

“Maybe we can have the best of both worlds, Bear. We’ll go to New York, see Into the Woods, and then we’ll see if we can find a professional production of Assassins in this time period. I mean, there has to be, I’ll do some research.” 

Mikey sighs. Edgar knows he’d do anything for him, including sitting through Into the Woods. The things he does for love. “Fine, that sounds reasonable.” 

“Wonderful! And did I mention, Sara Bareilles is in it?” 

“Uh, no, you absolutely should have lead with that, Panther!” 

Edgar laughs. “Sorry, babe.” 

“We could have skipped the whole persuading thing, it really would have been much more efficient.” 

“But now I know you’re doing it because you love me, so I think that’s a win.” 

#woe.begone #w.bg #wbg #mike walters #edgar woe.begone #mine #my writing

[littlebluebarista]

I'd love to ask about your OCs but I have zero context sooo

Tell me what your WIP and OCs are about

*So for honesty's sake I have to say this does take place in the same universe as an old 1998 point-and-click adventure game. However you don't need any knowledge of it whatsoever to understand the story. The plot and characters and even some settings are written entirely by me but this is in fact a Grim Fandango Tale.*

Everyone is dead. When people die they are reduced to bone and wrapped up in a husk, patiently awaiting whatever reaper is assigned to them to venture back to the Land of the Living and cut them free. But that's only the beginning, as once they are brought to the Land of the Dead they are faced with a treacherous and perilous land filled with dangers and disasters and monsters and jazz and art deco and so much walking!

See, each grim reaper has two jobs. Not only do they go and reap souls into the Land of the Dead, but they also double as travel agents to aid in the Four-Year Journey of the Soul from the Land of the Dead to the 9th Underworld, otherwise refered to as the Land of Eternal Rest. Depending on how virtuous a life you lead (and how much money you were buried with), you could qualify for better travel experiences besides walking the whole way on-foot; from sports cars, to ocean liners, or even a ticket on an express train that takes you across the Land of the Dead in 4 minutes instead of 4 years!

Enter Béla Balogh!

Petulant, terrible at sales, and most assuredly not named Bella, Béla trudges through his everyday life (death?) with a commonly mispronounced name, a misunderstood passion for painting flowers, and a misplaced hatred for a job he knows he never should have taken. He was offered the robe and scythe as a means to redeem himself, slowly working his way out of the Department of Death and into the 9th Underworld via railway, but it's kind of difficult for reapers to make commission when none of their clients ever seem to qualify for anything good. And as the days turned to weeks, and eventually years, with no end in sight, Béla began to wonder whether or not the clients he was receiving really were as sinful as their files made them out to be. After all, there had been whisperings around the office about a certain level of corruption beginning to take root in the Department of Death. But why was it somehow only Béla who ended up assigned to the ones who only ever qualified for walking sticks and hiking boots? He had many times considered abandoning the office and striking out to take on the Land of the Dead himself. But even among reapers, it was widely understood that an entire 4-year journey across the Land of the Dead on-foot was akin to a second death wish, especially if ventured alone. And so Béla stayed, disgruntled and yearning for a chance to one day finally break out of his prison of pencils and paperclips. Until along came Loca.

Enter Loca Servantes!

Soft-spoken, freshly dead, and scared out of her skin (literally), this poor woman assumed she would finally find the peace that came with the sweet release of death and instead was reaped by Béla to a cold, cruel, unfamiliar land that supposedly wanted to kill her again. It was bad enough that she was matched with a travel agent indifferent to his clients' well-being, but when her file somehow reported her to be a mob hitman in her previous life, she was left with no choice but to be turned away and face the Land of the Dead alone.

But could this little woman be the very thing Béla needs to finally get out? Would they each take the risk of seeking Heaven through a violent and unforgiving world in the company of a complete stranger?

Secrets will be unveiled, flowers will bloom, bones will shatter, and hearts will mend

-in-

[ REDACTED*]: A Grim Fandango Tale!

~Coming at some point in the distant future to a dashboard near you!~

*comic still undergoing a proper title search

#grim fandango #the skeletons are in development

[stephensmithuk]

The Reigate Squire

This has three different titles - "The Adventure of the Reigate Squire", "The Adventure of the Reigate Squires" and "The Adventure of the Reigate Puzzle". The first is from The Strand, the second is the book title and the third is the American title from Harper's Weekly.

This is from the second "volume" released in book form - The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and the fourth one in the LFW series from there.

Telegrams were the rather expensive text messages of the 19th century. Holmes likely asked someone at the hotel to send one to Watson and the postman would drop it at 221b Baker Street.

Watson could get to Lyons (or Lyon) in France in under 24 hours via train-ferry-train-train (Charing Cross-Dover-Calais-Paris-Lyon) for the price of £4 2s 6d second class and £5 9s 9d first class, not counting any supplements for a sleeping car berth. The South Eastern Railway sold through return tickets. Adjusted for inflation, he's looking at around £410 in the former and £550 in the latter. You might pay around the same today at short notice, but for much faster journey.

Railways also employed interpreters at major stations to aid travellers.

Hotel advertisements from this period are great fun. The RL Lyon hotels in the 1887 Bradshaw's on Timetable World include noteworthy things like a garden, a piano, a lift and the provision of foreign newspapers.

Reigate is a town about an hour by train from London Victoria in 1887. Today, you could do the entire journey from Baker Street in under an hour.

Reigate itself is an affluent commuter town in Surrey located just outside the modern M25 motorway and has been around long enough to be recorded in the Domesday Book, William the Conqueror's census/tax assessment of England in 1086. Much of it was still rural at the time.

Cunningham senior is a magistrate. He's not the first dodgy magistrate we've encountered - see "Gloria Scott" and we need a counter for that.

"Help! Help! Murder!" is the kind of thing you often see in Victorian literature - and crime reports from that period.

British police officers were not routinely armed with handguns at this point and still are not - the truncheon would prove sufficient for most situations.

A carafe is a glass container with a flared lip for serving liquids. It is not a decanter, which has a stopper.

Holmes' use of powder burn evidence for busting the Cunningham's story is a very early use of a forensic technique now taken for granted in crime stories.

Both Cunninghams will likely hang for this murder. It's pre-mediated and the fact the former is a magistrate is an aggravating factor if anything.

#letters from watson #the reigate puzzle #sherlock holmes