Rolling north on a CrossCountry DMU from Bristol to Edinburgh for tonight's Geomob—always a highlight for map nerds like me. Today's train is a nine-car set: a Class 220 Voyager coupled with a Class 221 SuperVoyager, working well together.

Early start (06:36 from Bristol), but worth it for £16 first class upgrade and a window seat. Train Wi-Fi was hopeless, so I switched to 5G. It was raining when I cycled to the station, but now the sun’s out and skies are blue.

Looking forward to talks about maps this evening—my third Geomob Edinburgh! Staying just one night, then a Wikimedia meetup tomorrow before heading home.

In today's #GeoMob in Lisbon my introduction to Discrete Global Grid Systems was elected as best presentation.

I am grateful to the organisers and the participants. But this wouldnt have happened without the work from those that for over thirty years have been pushing #DGGS ever closer to the end user. I stand on the shoulders of giants.

The prize was a fine copy of this historical map, "Portugal laying down", in which West is up.

@geomob

#geomobLX is tomorrow! Join us for an evening of lightning talks about anything geo + informal conversations at the bar #geobeers #meetup #geospatial #geomob @geomob

We still have room for one last speaker at #geomobLX If you are in Lisbon on March 19, and would not mind sharing some cool geo project with a bunch of geo enthusiasts, just ping me! You could end up winning an old map of Portugal https://thegeomob.com/post/march-19th-2025-geomoblx-details #geomob #meetup #geobeers

#Berlin geo folks See you on Wednesday the 12th of February at #Geomob?

https://thegeomob.com/post/feb-12th-2025-geomobber-details

Yesterday, I attended Geomob London for an evening of fascinating talks about maps. As always, the talks were excellent. The event was hosted at Geovation in Clerkenwell, where, rather unexpectedly, they had cavolo nero and bok choy growing in the reception.

Tomorrow night it's #geomob !
Also we've just set up the next OpenStreetMap social pub meet-up. Join us next Tuesday. 7pm in the Monkey Puzzle, Paddington:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/London#Upcoming_Events

All aboard for an obscure rail adventure!

Today, I’m embarking on a rather unusual train journey from Bristol to Brussels for FOSDEM 2025 (1st-2nd Feb, Brussels)—the legendary free software conference. But instead of the usual Bristol > London > Brussels route, I’m taking the scenic (and slightly eccentric) path via Cambridge and London. Why? Because trains.

Here’s the fun bit: there’s a single daily train that runs directly from Bristol Temple Meads to Cambridge, and I’ve been itching to try it for years. It's a three-car Class 170 Turbostar that departs Bristol at 06:25 and rolls into Cambridge at 11:08. No changes, no Tube dashes between London terminals—just a rare, direct cross-country route. It’s the kind of obscure rail journey that makes my inner transport geek very happy.

The catch? It’s not exactly the quickest way to Cambridge (most people would change in London), and there’s no return service. But who cares when you’re ticking off a long-awaited rail oddity? To make it even better, I snagged a bargain by splitting my ticket at Worcestershire Parkway—because why not make it a little more complicated?

After two nights in Cambridge, I’ll head to London for Geomob London on Thursday evening—always a brilliant night for geo-nerds. Then, it's onwards to Brussels on Friday, ready for FOSDEM.

Speaking of FOSDEM, I’ll be running the Geospatial devroom on Saturday morning, featuring nine talks all about maps. If you’re into geospatial tech, open source, or just love maps, come along—it's going to be a great session.

So, here's to obscure train routes, split tickets, and the joy of combining travel quirks with tech conferences.

Heads-up to all speakers at #geomobLON on 30 January. The venue at Geovation Hub doesn't have banked seating, which means visibility can be limited. To ensure everyone in your audience can see your slides clearly, best to place key content in the top half of your slides. I'm looking forward to some great talks!

FOSDEM is just ten days away, taking place on Saturday, 1 February in Brussels. Don't miss out on the Geospatial devroom, featuring some amazing talks. You can join us in person, follow the livestream, or catch up with the recordings later.

Check out the schedule here: https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/track/geospatial/

As part of my "Biscuits" Project I've been working on ways to summarise small Regions (see https://geo.houseofmoran.io/posts/2025-01-07/ and also https://youtu.be/fJnQ5bxlLN0).

(may be of interest to #geomob / #geo folks)

A misty start to the day. I'm on my way to Utrecht for the first #geomobNL. I'll be speaking about adding links between #OSM and #Wikidata.

Big spinning globe in the Helsinki church. #geomob

#geomob proper props! A Globe.

#geomob is on again

Today I'm taking a train from Bristol to Edinburgh so I can attend #Geomob this evening.

I cycled to Bristol Temple Meads and arrived at 08:08, locking up my bike with time to spare. It was a pleasant surprise to use the peak time entrance, which is usually closed when I'm here.