A few updates and things!

Hi everyone, first up - the FSS clock video has been doing quite well, and certainly attracting a bit more of a general-public audience than usual, which is what I had hoped! The thing I like doing most on this channel is pointing out interesting things that are part of people's everyday lives which they don't normally notice, and the clocks are certainly that. There have been two people in the comments who have spotted themselves in the timelapses, and maybe three or four people have said they met their future life partner under the clocks. Two people said the music at the end made them tear up! The picture you see above is my paperwork for this video - you get to see this exclusive view of how chaotic and messy my handwriting and notes are! The one on the left was looking at how the labeling has changed over time (which I didn't pursue very far), the middle one is just random notes and the right hand one was working out the stuff for my 3:30 sample segment. First column is the clock number from left to right, then the line names, then the time outside, the time inside, whether it was consistent or not, and whether or not it matched the timetable - plus some extra marks and notes for odd cases.

Slightly off topic, but I've noticed there are a few bugs with Patreon when it comes to notifications - I've had a few cases of not realising I've been sent a message, or people not realising I've replied - hopefully they'll fix this soon, but in the meantime please note that I will ALWAYS reply to questions on this platform, so if you're expecting to hear back from me and don't get a notification, make sure to jump on and check, and I will do my best to keep an eye out.

What's coming next? Great question. I have a few videos with almost complete scripts - hopefully I might get to record a voiceover to two next weekend. Most complete is the updated Victorian signalling video. It's 4 years since I made the previous silent one, and this new version will not only feature narration, but be much more clearly laid out and cover a lot more topics. It's going to be pretty technical, probably the most so of any video I've made so far, but will hopefully break down this very complex topic into something that most people can understand. 

I've also got another video underway which will explain why the different lines in Melbourne are served by different types of trains. Even though I've talked a bit about this before, I quite often get asked 'why does line X have nicer trains than me!' And I plan on breaking down the reasoning for that, and also pointing out that newer trains aren't necessarily better for passengers by every measure. 

The next most complete video is one I've been sitting on for a while, it's looking at why bus replacements in Melbourne are so chaotic and badly organised. I don't want it to be too negative, so will have a bit of fun with it, but it's definitely a topic I feel needs covering.

At some point there will be some more slow paced first-person walking videos, I have a few ideas and am just waiting for the right conditions/opportunity to film them.

And of course there could be some surprise ones that pop up in-between those - as you will know from the last video, I often surprise myself with ideas at the last minute which can then overtake more long term projects!

As always thanks for your support!

~Martin