Unrelatedly, I’m currently reading Last Call at Hotel Imperial, and I’ve just reached the point where Dorothy Thompson is kicked out of Nazi Germany for having written unflattering things about Hitler www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Dear friend simon

Any support or donation you give us during these difficult times will help us overcome this ordeal, give us hope and strength, and save our lives♥️🙏

We have that here. The 750V DC OLE on the Sheffield Tram Train route to Rotherham over the national network is able to be converted to 25kV AC. The point is converting 3rd rail to OLE is a very different prospect.

Yes but the French are starting to struggle for funding. And GB rail is also being starved of funding. In that landscape the idea of these mass infrastructure works is just not likely. I highly doubt there’ll be any conversions on the Southern in my lifetime.

Absolutely no chance. Converting 3rd rail to OLE is a completely different prospect to converting 1 OLE system to another. Also the French are now struggling with how to fund what to do with the remaining outdated 1.5kV DC system. Some smaller lines are being converted to hydrogen (or diesel)

There’d be an issue anyway as EU gauge stock has different platform heights. But that’s a future future problem, just like the Crossrail platform height problem when they need to replace the Class 345s.

This will never happen. If we’re lucky we’ll get W12 clearance via Maidstone East although more likely is W9a. There is no chance of DC-AC conversion.

Nope.

It has its uses but in terms of relief, it only relieves capacity on the GWML & WCMLs.

Let’s be real, if we really wanted a proper height for HS2 platforms it would be as close to the GB 915mm standard as possible so that we could have level boarding on & off HS2 infrastructure. Given the basic impossibility of an HS1 connection, that would be the better option.

Greetings Simon, I am Sahar from Gaza. I ask for your support, even if it is a little🙏🫶

Simon
lost my home, my family, and my dreams — but not my hope.
I’m fighting to rebuild my life and create a future worth living.

to London Gateway, we can’t use the cross country route from there (only from Felixstowe). With more freight traffic now using the NLL the idea of such a closure is even more fanciful.

Finally, whilst the freight sector would balk at losing the NLL for a considerable period of time, I’m sure TfL would also balk at the prospect of shutting the Mildmay Line for extended periods whilst making their platforms worse. Also, we also can’t lose the NLL because since the switch of volume ⬇️

raise bridges &/or lower track through bridges/tunnels & likely have to rebuild Camden Road & Kilburn High Road bridges as well. The idea of using the NLL is a flight a fancy. The cost & disruption of doing this would be very high where you might as well build a new set of tunnels under Camden.

IIRC HS2 platform heights will provide level boarding. HS2 stock will have 1115mm high floors so completely non-standard. The NLL is a W10 railway so is 500mm too narrow & ~1500mm too low to accommodate a GC gauge train. You’d have to rebuild every platform against the 915mm standard, ⬇️

According to the City of Paris, in the last 10 years 150K trees have been planted & 45ha of parks created in the already hot city, all intended to not only improve quality-of-life today, but also help the city adapt to & manage summer heatwaves of 50℃ (122F) by 2050.

Just the start.

Common sense.

From Christian Concern and Sex Matters to the LGB Alliance, UK anti-Trans+ groups share ideological and strategic links with US organisations like ADF and the Heritage Foundation

What’s unfolding is a coordinated global effort to erode individual freedom, crush liberation, and control our bodies

For every €1 provided through a Basic Income For Artists pilot program in Ireland, the government got €1.46 back. So it’s being made permanent.

Over and over we see it. It saves public money to provide public housing. And it makes public money to provide basic income.

We can’t afford to NOT do it.

@simonzev.bsky.social
Our lives are written now not in notebooks but in rubble, in hunger, in exile. We were children who dreamed of professions, of futures. Today we are only survivors of a war that never ends, praying not to be forgotten. please help me save my family from this war 🙏🏻💔

An apt metaphor for the #Flotilla

Israel have used piracy to defend their #GazaGenocide

It’s unacceptable, it must be called out & they must release those they’ve kidnapped. Their treatment of them is abhorrent and an affront to international law

#Gaza #Palestine 🇵🇸

My friend, the activist Ewa Jasiewicz was onboard the Gaza Peace Flotilla and is now in Israeli detention, we're asking the UK government to use its influence to guarantee her safe return.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/m...

A constituent's son, part of the flotilla, has been detained by the Israeli navy.

I have written to the Foreign Secretary to ask how the Govt is supporting those detained, who bravely risked everything to oppose the collective punishment of Gazans and this illegal blockade.