I love to see other people get excited about being on trains! Some guy on the Canada Line metro is saying the next station in sync with the automated announcements. Sometimes, more quietly so as not to bother passengers as much, I get the urge and do that myself...
@rail
Forgot to note, Via Rail is the national passenger rail operator for Canada.
Did you know Via Rail has a fleet of British Rail Gauge train cars?
They obtained them from a failed sleeper service through the Chunnel in the 90s. I rode with them on the Montréal to Halifax rail service called The Ocean. Part of a big rail journey I took this summer across eastern Canada and Europe.
@TechConnectify
To translate the timestamps...
0:00 Start (Intro)
0:46 Stairs, Bird cries, Kanto area
9:27 Stairs, Bird cries, Shinetsu and Touhoku areas
15:29 Stairs, chime
16:46 Fare gates, chime
18:26 Washroom, melodies, chimes
19:35 Other, chime (First one is signifying tactile maps and info boards)
@TechConnectify
If you love subtle audio cues, Japanese train stations are going to blow your mind.
Someone made a 20-minute audio compilation of assistive cue recordings, and 3/4 of them are various bird sounds to signal the way out from a train platform.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGDLy29quy0
Another one I know of is in the JR East area: the (perceived) gender of the speaker denotes whether a recorded announcement is for the even number platform or odd.
The Australian states of Victoria and Tasmania are trying out a fare-free transit period to reduce fuel consumption.
I'm interested to see future data how much this drives up regional bus and train usage during this oil shock. Will people who don't usually take transit try it out, then continue using it if they like it? We'll see, in any case, Canadian agencies should take note of the results.
How Canada should reach NATO's 5% target..
Online public consultation for Alto, Canada's High Speed Rail project is open until 24 April 2026.
Visit the links to answer the public survey, and leave your feedback here: https://en.consultation.altotrain.ca/shaping-the-canada-of-tomorrow-with-high-speed-rail
#HighSpeedRail #trains #Canada #Toronto #Ottawa #Montreal #Quebec
I had the pleasure of watching Cory Doctorow @pluralistic on Granville Island in #Vancouver! Thanks for visiting!
We had our share of shade thrown towards a #BritishColumbia -grown Harper cabinet member. But otherwise, we were a receptive audience to Cory's notion that #solidarity and #unions are the greatest source of our power to counteract enshittification. Plenty of allusions to the #Fediverse throughout.
The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/right-repair-law-washington-state
Above is a link to the article on the Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff blog, authored by Hayley Tsukayama @htsuka and Cory Doctorow @pluralistic
Fun little thing about riding the #AmtrakCascades south from #Vancouver #Canada:
US Pre-boarding and Canadian Arrival clearance and customs checks both occur here at Vancouver Pacific Central Station. That's why the #Amtrak platform is securely fenced off, unlike #ViaRail and Rocky Mountaineer Platforms.
My photos are from this February.
