Ph.D. (Cambridge). Ferroequinologist. 親日. Interested in and follower of modern history. Retweet ≠ agreement.
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Joined June 2010
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Shanghai Hongqiao railway station is massive. It has 16 platforms and 30 tracks for arrival and departure of high speed trains. There are 60 boarding gates.
A line-up of high speed trains at Shanghai Hongqiao. There is a train departing to Hangzhou from here almost every ten minutes.
"Widespread distrust in a society... imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity, a tax that high-trust societies do not have to pay." — Francis Fukuyama
No stress. Just peace of mind.
During May Day holiday in Wuhan, tourists were spotted leaving their luggage freely at metro stations while they explored the city.
For many travelers in China, that sense of safety and trust is simply part of everyday life. #ChinaTravel #ChinaSafety #Metro
Somali Deputy PM responds to Trump's negative comments about Somalia at Davos. He answers by speaking in fluent Urdu. Impressive!
Khari Boli is the foundation for modern Standard Hindi and Urdu. It's known as the vernacular base for Hindi cinema, television, and daily speech.
Somalian Deputy PM Salah Ahmed Jama slams Donald Trump's remarks, praises India-Somalia ties
#IndiaTodayAtDavos #Davos2026 | @sardesairajdeep
“Food at your seat” model. Prashanti Express stops for 2 min at Anantapur and the delivery worker from Swiggy has to find the coach and the passenger after pushing through boarding passengers. This is what life-threatening risk looks like. Thankfully, he got off minor scratches.
⚠️Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh: a Swiggy delivery guy fell while getting down from a moving train due to a 1–2 minute halt.
Passenger was in 1st AC; train started before the handover was completed.
He could have lost his life.
18464 (Prashanti Express) xitter.gq/6ppri/status/200961459…
The model in China is different. The train staff collects the food from the delivery workers, and delivers to the passengers. A much safer option. This of course requires logistics and infrastructure to be in place in which China excels.
xitter.gq/chenweihua/status/1961…
Right after the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed train stopped at Ji’nan, the cabin staff started to deliver the food that passengers ordered from stores in the city. Warm food just cooked. You won’t see such scenes anywhere else in the world. This is China today and I have yet to try next time. Maybe Nanjing salty duck at next stop, haha.
Bernina Express crossing Ospizio Bernina, highest point on iits route, with Lago Bianco on the left. Lago Bianco is a glacier during winter but in summer it becomes a lake. A wall separates the Lago Bianco in two parts (seen towards the end of the video).
The Hamburg to Zürich HB NightJet service has new set of coaches (starting from 38 sec mark). They include at the end a cab to drive the train in push mode with loco in the back. These new coaches are made by Siemens. cc. @seatsixtyone
The 12-digit UIC vehicle number of the coach with the cab is A-ÖBB 73 81 80-91 706-9 Bfmpz. It identifies itself as a second class coach.
If you think Chinese high speed rail is another level stuff, check out their cars as well.
(I have been to China many times and always marvelled at their EV cars for good design and features)
I lived with a Chinese EV for a few weeks to see if the hype is real. The car costs $42K, and turns out it feels like $75K+ EASILY
One of the most impressive things I've ever reviewed: youtu.be/Mb6H7trzMfI
- A+ software and features. Feels like what would happen if Apple made a car
- Build quality is excellent all the way around. And materials (leathers, metals, etc) are all premium
- It crushes all the fundamentals to make it livable: 320 miles range, super comfortable seats, excellent air suspension, active noise cancellation, great displays and cameras, bright clear HUD, Self driving
- It has a MODULAR interior design (detailed in the video)
- Performance is sneaky great. This is just the "SU7 Max" spec, but 660 horsepower 0-60 in 2.8 seconds? Sheesh
Killwangen-Spreitenbach station is an ideal place to watch trains. Trains from Zürich HB to Lausanne / Geneva / Bern / Basel / Paris among others pass through this station every 2 minutes or so. Here SBB Astoro making an appearance at decent speeds.
“Never believe anything until it is officially denied.”
"I want to make one thing very clear, BBC News is not institutionally biased"
Outgoing BBC News CEO Deborah Turness was questioned by journalists on her way into Broadcasting House on Monday morning
Live updates: trib.al/81gLX0r
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Hamburg to Zürich HB NightJet service hauled by three SBB Re 460 locomotives with their pantographs up, totaling ~25,000 hp. A rare sight. Usually one of those locos does the job.
Close enough where the below photo was taken?
This is Tokyo station and the platform is for Shinkansen trains bound to Tohoku region.
#JR東日本
M. S. M. Saifullah retweeted
This might not seem like much but it's hard to overstate how sophisticated your country's logistics and infrastructure needs to be for this to even be possible.
It's actually insane when you think about it: when you take the fast-speed train in China, you can order takeaway from restaurants in the city of the train's next stop and it'll be brought to you to your seat.
So much can go wrong with this that you need every single piece - from the rail network to the corner noodle shop to the 5G tower to the delivery scooter - operating with the precision of an orchestra where no one can miss a single beat.
Really illustrative of the insane level of systemic sophistication that China has achieved. For one thing, most countries can't even manage to have trains run on time.
Right after the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed train stopped at Ji’nan, the cabin staff started to deliver the food that passengers ordered from stores in the city. Warm food just cooked. You won’t see such scenes anywhere else in the world. This is China today and I have yet to try next time. Maybe Nanjing salty duck at next stop, haha.