Author | Lightnews

Tom Forth

Tom Forth

@tomforth.co.uk

7.2K followers 150 following 390 posts

Same as @thomasforth on X. Gone back to Twitter for now. Quality filter, locations in bios, and polls pls. Leeds, Yorkshire, UK.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 10h

Oh no. Disqus is not doing great recently. I had to start paying them to stop the porn ads, because I use it on some work sites. But generally has been getting worse. I'm not writing my own comment engine. Obviously. Too old for that.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 13h

"Evil or Irrelevant: pick one." > I wrote up why I'd usually prefer to have an 'evil' company succeeding in Leeds than a good one succeeding in London. (But really it's about Stoke-on-Trent). tomforth.co.uk/evilorirrele...

Evil or irrelevant: pick one.

Why I’d probably rather have an evil tech company in Leeds than a good one in London.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 6d

I am a loyal supporter of the Map Men, but not a collaborator so this is pure coincidence. It is a good province.

Reposted by Tom Forth

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 7d

Also includes a graph, for I am known for such things, on how Almere, the Netherlands' most successful new city has overtaken Lelystad, the Netherlands' most mocked new city in population since they were built on land reclaimed from the sea.

Reposted by Tom Forth

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 7d

Includes a map I drew (actually traced) by hand (well in Inkscape) and styled myself (actually got Luke to help me). But it's a good map. I tried to get ChatGPT to draw it for me, but it was rubbish. So I did it with humans.

Reposted by Tom Forth

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 7d

I've written about the worst city in the Netherlands. It's just 3000 words. A quick read. What Lelystad teaches us about new cities, why you probably shouldn't build them, what to do if you must,... and why you might need to. ps. Lelystad is actually good. tomforth.co.uk/newcities/

The worst city in the Netherlands.

Lessons on New Cities from Almere and Lelystad.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 7d

Also includes a graph, for I am known for such things, on how Almere, the Netherlands' most successful new city has overtaken Lelystad, the Netherlands' most mocked new city in population since they were built on land reclaimed from the sea.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 7d

Includes a map I drew (actually traced) by hand (well in Inkscape) and styled myself (actually got Luke to help me). But it's a good map. I tried to get ChatGPT to draw it for me, but it was rubbish. So I did it with humans.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 7d

I've written about the worst city in the Netherlands. It's just 3000 words. A quick read. What Lelystad teaches us about new cities, why you probably shouldn't build them, what to do if you must,... and why you might need to. ps. Lelystad is actually good. tomforth.co.uk/newcities/

The worst city in the Netherlands.

Lessons on New Cities from Almere and Lelystad.

Reposted by Tom Forth

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · Sep 13

You will learn more about the ongoing furore over asylum seekers in hotels from this incredible piece by @jenwilliamsft.bsky.social than from a hundred front page headlines.

The crumbling seaside palaces at the centre of Britain’s asylum crisis

How one hotelier built an empire from beloved community assets — and a government struggling to cope with a surge in migration

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Sep 8

Thanks for sharing Richard. 🙏

Reposted by Tom Forth

Thijs Niks @thijs.niks.nu · Sep 2

bsky.app/profile/jrur...

JRUrbaneNetwork @jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social · Sep 2

Continuing to have fun with this. This time it is Vietnam's proposed North–South Express Railway or Đường sắt cao tốc Bắc-Nam. Estimated to have 175-225 trains per day. Assumed 8 car CR400 trains running up to 350kph and Chinese fare rates.

Reposted by Tom Forth

Thijs Niks @thijs.niks.nu · Sep 2

bsky.app/profile/dawe...

Brendan Dawe @dawe.bsky.social · Aug 13

I put together an Egypt HSR system and I got 1.75 billion riders

(obviously the Egyptian public cannot afford first world HSR fares but hot damn)

Reposted by Tom Forth

Thijs Niks @thijs.niks.nu · Sep 2

By default, the tool includes a dozen example networks to give an idea of how it works.

Take a look at for example:

France railmapper.net/project/fran...
US northeast railmapper.net/project/nort...
Indonesia railmapper.net/project/indo...
India railmapper.net/project/indi...

Reposted by Tom Forth

Thijs Niks @thijs.niks.nu · Sep 2

I built a web tool so anyone can design and evaluate ridership and costs of high speed rail networks anywhere in the world:

railmapper.net

Design and analyze high speed rail networks

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Sep 2

But this morning, on the two carriage train from Burley Park to Leeds, at 08:55, it was fucking rammed.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Sep 2

I'm in Holland. 👍

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Sep 2

One of the reasons I'm cautiously positive about Reform's rise is that messages like this will reach different people and be believed by more people when Reform say it. And they have been saying it a lot, all over the UK, on many issues, since they gained power. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Kent County Council warns of deepening social care crisis

Kent County Council says it is being forced to scale back preventative services due to lacking funding.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Aug 29

Full fabric flag in good nick (new off Amazon) on a makeshift flag pole made of wood flying upright gaffa taped to one of the sponsorship banners.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Aug 29

Saw one very tastefully placed in the middle of a roundabout in Castleford yesterday. Looked good tbh.

Reposted by Tom Forth

Barney Stringer @barneystringer.bsky.social · Aug 20

So THIS is what central government was using all these years whenever Leeds called asking for a metro system

“Anti Tram” earplugs

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Aug 18

Yeah, I'm 100% keeping the "estimate" tag on my data.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Aug 18

Is that documented somewhere? (I had a quick look but the Rail Data Marketplace is awful, I'm currently locked out unsurprisingly, so I don't go back and check as much as I'd like).

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Aug 18

They have definitely done something odd given that the number of journeys from Leeds to Birmingham New Street is precisely the same as the number of journeys from Birmingham New Street to Leeds. That's consistent across all the data and it can't be the result of using only ticket sale data.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Aug 18

The sources of all three datasets, population, GVA, and rail passengers, are pretty uncertain data involving quite low power models to estimate the numbers in them.