Daniel Puddicombe

N Longyearbyen 🇳🇴
S Miami 🇺🇸
W Chicago 🇺🇸
E Bucharest, I’d guess 🇷🇴

S and W will change in a few weeks’ time…

A screenshot of a profile view from the Duolingo app for “drprevost” showing a two-day streak and a new Italian flag.

Breaking news: the pope finally got back to his Duolingo account on Sunday. He’s now learning Italian.

Who would have thought there would be flies in the height of summer and that soot comes out of the chimney of a steam locomotive, eh?

I took one of the most iconic steam train journeys in Wales but wouldn't again The two-hour round trip on the Llangollen Railway was a delightful experience for the train enthusiasts on board but, sadly, not for me.

This is one of the strangest pieces I've read for a while.

www.dailypost.co.uk/whats-on/lla...

Mockup drawing of a UK parliament petition where the petitioner has asked for "good thing please" with description "we think the UK needs this". Government responded: "No."

Every UK petition is like this

How Britain fell out of love with the caravan Our writer looks at the colourful history of the caravan and asks if it can it ever be cool again

Enjoyed this piece by my pal @lottiegross.bsky.social: www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comme...

As a child, my parents would book ferry crossings six weeks apart during the summer holidays, hook up the 'van & follow our noses: one year we ended up in Portugal, others we'd spend weeks in Italy. Great fun

Thrill of the night train: from Vienna to Rome on the next-gen moonlight express Austria’s upgraded sleeper proves an exciting way to travel between two absorbing, family-friendly cities for our writer and her young daughters

My kids and I travelled on the new-generation Nightjet from Vienna to Rome and it was one of the loveliest rides I’ve done to date. Plus the carbonara and gelato at the other end of course.
www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...

AI is useless, part ii:

Meta has seemingly renamed Clan Line to Royal Wessex II:

AI is useless, part i:

Google has seemingly confused the battery used in Class 230s with a commercially available with the same name. Only a few tonnes out!

‘Investing in destruction’: campaigners attack plans to fill Yorkshire tunnel with concrete Government decision to infill disused Queensbury railway line comes amid calls for it to be converted to subterranean cycle path

I've been thinking for a while how odd it is that National Highways is in charge of the historical railway estate rather than Network Rail. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

In the end, I couldn't buy a said via TicketOne because it refused to send a confirmation code to a non-Italian mobile number. Great job, lads. Thankfully Vivaticket (nope, me neither) came to the rescue.

I despise ticket-selling websites adding extra charges. Purchasing a ticket for a thing for in Italy and I have the option of paying €2.50 to download a PDF or paying nothing to download a PDF. Madness.

Correct.

Great picture!

I run a series (of which @crackedwindscreen.bsky.social is part of) on Friday nights, named Distinctly Average Racing League. Currently have about 30-odd regulars so we run two lobbies. All skill levels welcome, it is very much a 'race when you can, real life comes first' mantra.

Enjoyed reading this, Emma. A really nice piece to start off the week.

Half of Turn 10's employees have been laid off, future of current Forza Motorsport unsure.

[plug alert]

DARL will continue. All welcome to join.

[/plug alert]

Great fun seeing Amy Macdonald at the launch gig for Is This What You’ve Been Waiting For? last night in Kingston with a brief hello afterwards. Cannot wait to hear the new album in full now on Friday. 😊

As you will have seen (as you repost / like a lot of my posts!) I use LinkedIn to share pieces I write. Nothing unusual there, as I do that on here on Twitter as well, except I do tag in the folks that have helped because it is nice to be nice and also you're not restricted by a word count.

One other thing: it didn't make it into the piece, but the trip felt like any Steam Dreams tour from a few years back seeing as most of the stewards and staff (13 in total) used to work for Marcus and the late David Buck. A lot of the UK passengers were/are SD regulars, too.

I've never experienced passengers boo the end of a trip before, but then again who can blame them when there's a man playing a grand piano in the bar car and taking requests?

My steam train trip in Germany’s highlands, with a piano bar and vintage carriages A rail enthusiast finds much to enjoy on this sociable journey that includes stays at hotels, singalongs and stops in cobbled cities

Steam Dreams' founder Marcus Robertson has a new venture: Belle Trains, which runs steam-based holidays.

Last month, I went on the first trip - to the Harz Mountains, Nurnberg & Dresden - and have written about it for @theipaper.com.

inews.co.uk/inews-lifest...

Trenitalia also operates trains in Spain.

I'm a few days behind, but this is a wonderful piece, Jonn. I never met Agnes (and for that matter, I haven't met you in person either) but I enjoyed her tweets and it really shined a light on her personality outside of the internet.

You might have some views about my latest post relating to AI.

I have plenty of other examples of it offering incorrect information that didn’t make it into the piece. This one - when I asked if I could bring my pet tortoise onboard - is my favourite. GWR does not operate passenger trains between Pinhoe and Exeter St David’s.

Trainline’s new AI customer assistant veers off the rails Among other errors, bot insists an adult can travel with child’s ticket

Trainline launched an AI chatbot last week. I've uncovered flaws with it, among others, including:

- Saying adults can travel using child tickets
- Not knowing about railcard restrictions
- Not knowing about routing restrictions

By me for @theobserveruk.bsky.social:

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

1301 and it leaves +15. Even if we weren’t waiting for a new driver the service was *always* going to leave Bristol behind schedule - you cannot unload / load pax and detach a unit in half a minute! I’m not bothered about the delay, I’d just prefer realistic info at stations.

Even more wishful thinking when you see the next post.

At 1250 (five mins past departure time that according to the boards was “on time”, remember): the train manager comes on the tannoy saying we’re going to be delayed for an indefinite amount of time because we’re waiting for a driver to take it forwards.