Arturs Dobrecovs

@arturs.co.uk

672 Followers 139 Following

Queer 22y/o working in a railway control room, and occasionally the voice of announcements. Views expressed here are entirely my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🇺🇦 he/they

Partial screenshot of cis.arturs.co.uk showing an SBB-style departure board at London Paddington. The different Elizabeth line routes are labelled S10/S11/S12 depending on their route, and Heathrow Express has a bright red italic "HEX" label, although the acronym is repeated twice for some reason. Some of the station names are also translated into German-ish
Partial screenshot of cis.arturs.co.uk showing an SBB-style departure board for Leeds, showing various trains. On the left they have Swiss-style train categories labelled, such as R for local trains, IR for inter-regional trains, and IC for inter-city trains. Some of the destinations have also been given some German-style names, such as York Hauptbahnhof
Screenshot of cis.arturs.co.uk showing the DB ICE simulator, with information for East Midlands Railway service 1F16, and part of its calling pattern.
Photo of my departure board monitor, showing departures from Ledbury at 10:06. It is a dark blue screen with an info notice at the top, then a light grey title row, then a list of trains. The info notice says "A free shuttle bus is being provided between Ledbury station and EMF during the event, with buses scheduled to coincide with rail services. For more info, please see emfcamp.org/about/travel". The trains themselves have a rectangular bar with the operators logo, then the scheduled departure time, then the destination (and intermediate "via" stops, if they fit), then the platform number, then any notes about delays/cancellations to that train.
Photo of the departure board monitor on display inside the welcome tent at Electromagnetic Field festival. It is modelled after SNCF's departure boards with blue background lines of alternating darkness, and the word "depárts" written vertically on the right-hand side.
Photo of a computer monitor up on a stand inside a white tent. On the monitor is a departure board in the style of Dutch NS. Next 5 trains from Ledbury are shown in rows of alternating white and light blue backgrounds. At the bottom is a bright yellow section with a "Trains at Ledbury" title, and a warning about train running between Reading/Didcot Parkway and Oxford being delayed by up to 20 minutes or revised.
Deliveroo promotional image showing a phone with a screenshot of the Deliveroo app, showing the progress of a delivery order. Next to the estimated arrival time is a small photo of Cher on a bicycle
Screenshot of an email from Google Maps, saying that my updated location has had 10,000 total views, about the Greenford Nando's that I corrected on the 13th of March. A map shows 2 pins on the Greenford West Way shopping centre, with 1 where the pin was originally (the middle of the car park) and where I moved it to (the actual Nando's). A subtitle at the bottom says "Your update is helping in a big way"
Photo of an Enoden 1000-series train approaching the terminal station Fujisawa on the elevated single-track line that bends and curves around other buildings. The roof of the station building forms an arch over the track and casts a shadow on the platform, so the train and the buildings and trees around it really pop.
Close-up photo of the side of one of the Shōnan Monorail carriages in a platform. Stickered onto the side is an illustration of both a Shōnan Monorail car and a Wuppertal Schwebebahn car, anthropomorphised and shown to be smiling and holding hands.
Photo of Shōnan Monorail unit 5602 pulling into the terminal station Shōnan-Enoshima. The train is suspended above a background of green trees and shrubbery, with some of the platform visible at the bottom, which consists of a passenger platform on either side of a lowered gap where the train hovers. To either side is a dispatch mirror, and on one side the departing signal, currently showing a red aspect. The train itself is silver, with black trim around the tall windows, and some pinkish-red highlights under and above the windows.
Photo from inside one of JR Hokkaido's trains, looking over some seats and out of the windows, where the bright orange sun can be seen setting over the Uchiura Bay. The sky is a beautiful blend of pink and orange, with the reflected light shimmering on the surface of the water as far as the eye can see. In the far distance on both sides you can see the silhouettes of some mountainous landmasses, one of which is the volcano 'Hokkaido Koma-ga-take'. In the bottom left is a scandalous naked elbow of another passenger that happened to get into my shot, while they were taking the same photo.
Photo of the end of the Hello Kitty-liveried 500-series Shinkansen on track 12 at Hakata station. Very pointy train with a round black cab window sticking out from the top, some pink and gold shapes as highlights on the livery, and a "Hello Kitty Shinkansen" wordmark on the side. Next to the wordmark is Hello Kitty herself sat on a pink bow in the shape of the number 500.
Photo of JR Kyushu's class N700S Shinkansen wrapped in a colourful Super Mario livery, in a platform at Takeo-Onsen preparing to take me to Nagasaki. The livery is mostly red with a thick blue stripe across the bottom, with lots of large Mario stickers of him in different poses.
Photo of the Lotte World Tower in Seoul, poking out through trees both above and below. Behind the tower is a perfectly clear light blue sky.
Photo of an information board in the outdoor tram area of Korea's Railroad Museum. The infographic is all in Korean, but prominently features photos of 4 trams in various European cities, with the top right being a red tram in Croydon, labelled in Korean simply as "UK". Also pictured are trams from Italy (top left), Germany (bottom left), and France (bottom right).
Photo of a VY FLIRT train 75555 pulling into platform 1 at Movatn station. In the background you can see the wooden platform 2, and behind that a frozen lake surrounded by a forest.
Photo inside a VY FLIRT train carriage, looking at the top of a door between carriages. At the very top is a stack of 55 single-use hot drink cups, jammed horizontally between the 2 doors to force them to stay open.
Photo of a Trenitalia E.464 class electric locomotive stood on track 12 at Roma Termini station, with passengers on the platform walking towards the InterCity Notte carriages in the distance. The platform departure board advertises this as the InterCity 37069 train to Palermo Centrale, scheduled to depart at 23:25, expected to be 5 minutes late.
Selfie of myself and Simon in front of an e320 Eurostar train on the platforms at London St Pancras, with a still very dark sky in the background.
Photo of Oresundslinjen's "Hamlet" ferry docked in Helsingør, taken through a window of the pedestrian boarding bridge.
Photo taken from the platform at Havneholmen metro station looking up towards the mezzanine concourse and the ticket hall. On the walls and ceilings are various clocks, departure boards, wayfinding signs, bins, benches, and smartcard validators hanging sideways or upside down. The departure boards actually show real arrival information, mimicking the screens on the platforms themselves. The clocks are all spinning quickly showing different random times.
Photo of a track trolley in the Danish Railway Museum. This particular one looks a bit like a bicycle, with two wheels, pedals, a seat and handlebars all above the right-hand rail, and a bar extending off to the left for one wheel on the left-hand rail. A dressed up mannequin sits on top of the trolley. In the background is an old train carriage with the letters DSB on the side.
Photo of my hand holding a leaflet from the Danish Railway Museum. In the background is a replica of the first railway locomotive in Denmark, with the original having been scrapped centuries ago.
Photo taken out of a train window of a platform with a sign post showing the station's name: "Middelfart"
Screenshot of the Google Earth app, showing the Lindaunis bridge over the Schlei in north Germany. The land juts out with piers from the north and south, with a bridge connecting the two. The bridge has a visible gap in it for ships to pass when open.
Photo of the Stena Hollandica ferry, as seen through a slightly dirty window of the Harwich International port waiting area. There is a pedestrian walkway bridge partially obscuring the ferry.
More detailed stats on my top operator - Eurostar. Distance travelled is 12,445km, spending about 75 hours across 29 total trips.
Image of some of my travel statistics. At the top is a screenshot of a map showing all of my journeys around Europe. Below is a list of my top travelled countries (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and Netherlands) and my top operators (Eurostar, Elizabeth line, Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, and Renfe). Below that are a few more stats: distance travelled is 96,047km; hours spent travelling is 1,283; countries visited is 26; and border crossings is approx 123.
Photo of a decorated Christmas tree in the reception of Romford ROC. Stood next to the tree is a cute little gnome, with another smaller gnome on top of the tree.
Screenshot of Spotify Wrapped, saying that "my listening age is 21, since I was into music from the early 2020s"
Photo of an entrance path to a forest with a big wooden sign, showing 2 posters about a hiking path. There's a small fence on either side, a thick layer of snow on the ground and atop the trees, and a pretty well-trodden path in the snow.
Selfie of me on the bottom right, stood on a very snowy platform in Kolari, with the sleeper train behind me on the right. In the background is the grey station building with a few cars parked out front, and in the far background is a cloudy orange and light grey sky. I am wearing an orange hat and a dark blue windbreaker jacket
Photo of a green VR locomotive at the country-end of track 8 at Helsinki station. Attached to the rear of it but mostly out of view is an old white and blue VR sleeper carriage.
Screenshot of the Oxford departure board, but in the style of Dutch NS screens. The 20:56 service to Banbury is labelled with the text "Rijdt niet door een defecte trein", which translates to "Cancelled due to a broken down train". The yellow banner at the bottom contains the National Rail Enquiries notice about trains through Banbury being cancelled or delayed up to 60 minutes - this message is also translated into Dutch.
Photo of my hand holding my phone sideways, showing my digital SNCF-style departure board for a UK station (London Paddington, in this case). In the blurry background is the concourse of Lille Europe station, featuring an official SNCF departure board in the same style but for actual French trains.
Screenshot of the bottom of my SNCF-style arrival board. Across the bottom is a yellow information bar with scrolling text about disruption at Liverpool Central station. This text was automatically translated into French.
Screenshot of a rail departure board on a rotated Android device. The train information displayed is for trains in England (specifically Elizabeth line, London Overground, and Greater Anglia trains), but looks like an SNCF departure board from France. Some of the station names have been partially translated - "London" replaced with "Londres", and "Airport" replaced with "Aéroport".
Photo of an old ex-DLR train pulling into an Essen U-bahn Platform underground.
Selfie of me in the dark at night. I'm wearing a white T-shirt, lanyard, and black hoodie. Behind me is a birch tree and some bushes, and behind that is the Romford ROC building.
A screenshot from Oliver Twist, showing Oliver holding an empty bowl and begging eyes, with the caption "Please sir, may I have some more light?" in a fancy cursive font underneath. In the top left, bottom left, and bottom right corners are some poorly-edited-in photos of table lamps. The entire image has been dimmed down to make it darker.
Photo of me holding an EU-type power brick onboard a train, in front of the UK-type power socket
Photo of my hand holding a DB Bordrestaurant menu sat at a table onboard the train.
Photo of the front of an ÖBB CityJet train in platform 3 at St Margrethen station, pointing towards Austria.
Photo of Newcastle's new class 555 Metro trains stored alongside St Margrethen station.
Photo of another OBB train pulling into the platform at Schaan-Vaduz.
Photo of an OBB multiple unit train in platform 1 at Feldkirch station.
Photo of an OBB class 1116 locomotive in a platform at Graz Hbf. In the background on other tracks is a shunt locomotive and a multiple-unit.
Close-up photo of a bank card slot of my hotel's self check-in machine. Pretty deep inside the slot is my bank card, with only about a 2cm x 0.5cm surface area that I couldn't grab with my nails
Photo out of the end door window of a train carriage, showing the connected locomotive. The photo is taken with the wide-angle lens, so the train is distorted and looks like it's very up close and personal with you - like when a child is trying to ask to play with your phone.
Photo taken from the window of a train. Immediately out of the window you can see another pair of tracks next to us, and then support columns for a road bridge directly above the railway. Through the columns there are the tops of some very tall trees, followed by a flat field low below, with really big mountains in the far distance.
Photo of temporary platforms 91 and 92 at Villach Hauptbahnhof. The platform support structure at the bottom is made of wood, and so is the temporary roof, poster boards, and the shelter around the stairs. The signage is all yellow instead of the usual dark blue.
Screenshot of a map showing a blue line for the route that I took on this day. Line starts in the top right in Wien with a green pin, going southwest to a number 1 pin in Villach, then northwest to a number 2 pin in Bischofshofen, then east to a red pin at Graz.
Photo of the main entrance to Wien Hauptbahnhof station.
Photo of a grocery store shelf with different soft drink bottles, focusing on bottles of Spezi.
Photo of a grocery store shelf, with lots of 500ml bottles of Mezzo Mix.
Photo of me holding a mojito cocktail with lots of crushed ice inside and a straw poking out. In the blurred background are lots of tables with people sat around them watching someone singing karaoke on the stage at the front.
Video starts in my hostel room looking at the bed, then pans over to the window and zooms in to some trams passing by outside. Then pans over to the door, zooms out, and heads out of the room. The video now speeds up to x4 speed as I walk over to the lift, wait for it to arrive, then head down 2 floors. The doors open right inside the IKEA store in the kitchen department, and the video slows back down to normal speed. I walk over to the restaurant, and the video ends when I reach it.
Photo of a poster on a concrete wall showing the areas served by each level of some lifts. The highlighted floor is 4, with the Swedish restaurant among other areas. Level 5 is labelled "JO&JOE Hostel" as well as their reception, bar, and restaurant.
Photo of the exterior of the IKEA store next to Wien Westbahnhof station. It is a modern structure with a grid pattern on the outside, with some windows indented to create balconies, and a roof terrace at the top.