Welcome to the #LongestTrainEU #CrossBorderRail record breaking thread!

[tml@mementomori.social]

@jon At least in the Helsinki end apparently a single person handles it all: Drives the remote controlled locomotive and performs the actual coupling. Must have required some long and tedious negotiations (in a sauna, haha?) with the unions for this to be acceptable…

[carstenraddatz@pixelfed.automat.click]

Safe travels!

[slothrop@chaos.social]

@jon Safe travels!

We’re all out here, rooting (routing?) for you.

[jon@gruene.social]

Hmmm 🤨

The live tracking thinks I have barely left Rovaniemi

But I most definitely have, and am two thirds of the way to Kemi

I simply cannot get any decent GPS signal here, even between carriages

[oskarimkeller@fnordon.de]

@jon

Have a good trip!

[stefanlindbohm@mastodon.social]

@jon Maybe next time you could use live data from operators retrieving your train numbers to more reliably update the pin across your ..checks notes.. 7 countries travelled

(Please don’t kill me I promise I won’t suggest this again.)

[thisislieven@c.im]

@jon I think you've derailed, Jon.

[jon@gruene.social]

Can some Finn please explain this road sign seen in Kemijärvi earlier?

Is it "you will only hit elk on the roads in half of Finland"? Is there some elk wall across the middle of the country?

EDIT: OK, it's a reindeer herding area

But I have questions!

The antlers on that sign are wrong.

And given I was a LONG way into the area, why do I need the map?

[jon@gruene.social]

@stefanlindbohm Ha. And how hard is it going to be to code that?

[jon@gruene.social]

@thisislieven See the later posts! Somehow GPS is just not working.

[krigsman@eliitin-some.fi]

@jon

Reindeer herding area.

Of course the wikipedia article is only in Finnish: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poronhoitoalue.

[davidjamesweir@mementomori.social]

@jon I think this marks the southern boundary of the area where reindeer flocks are tended: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poronhoitoalue

[sebwilken@mastodon.social]

@jon This is about reindeer. They roam freely in the marked area. Elk you find mostly in the south.

[stefanlindbohm@mastodon.social]

@jon I actually don’t think it’s currently possible

[tml@mementomori.social]

@jon It shows where reindeers are herded. I guess the regulations related to collision with a reindeer are different in that area or something? And maybe means ”we won’t bother putting up separate warning signs all over the place, you just have to be aware”

[thisislieven@c.im]

@jon Do you have access to Galileo? Maybe that works - and is our own European system to boot!

[ueberlauch@mastodon.social]

@krigsman @jon
But the text for the main picture is German.
"Die Grenze des finnischen Rentierzuchtgebiets beginnt an der Gemeindegrenze von Kuhmo und Suomussalmi."

reindeer herding area

[tml@mementomori.social]

@davidjamesweir @jon 36% of Finland’s territory! (Much less of its public roads, of course.)

[tml@mementomori.social]

@jon But you might have arrived with your car on the train, and not actually driven over the boundary.

[tml@mementomori.social]

@jon @tkalvas Yes, good point. Maybe to emphasise that it is the whole Northern third of the country.