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Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada

• Readerium 3y ago
  India http://railradar.railyatri.in/ http://railradar.railyatri.in/ You will be baffled by the amount of trains.
• Fiahil 3y ago
  I don't think it's working properly. Most (if not all?) trains are going at around 40-20 km/h. Why would they all stop in the middle of nowhere like this ?
  • plowjockey 3y ago
    Slow orders abound on US freight roads. This time of year maintenance of way crews are being cut off to protect budgets and only the bare minimum of maintenance is being done until after the first of the year when the crews will be brought back.
• Lammy 3y ago
  Very cool. Please add SMART! https://sonomamarintrain.org/ https://sonomamarintrain.org/
  • ryry 3y ago
    added to the list - thanks!
    • mfb 3y ago
      ACE (Altamont Corridor Express) appears to be missing as well?
• gpvos 3y ago
  Netherlands: https://treinposities.nl/ https://treinposities.nl/ , and for buses https://busposities.nl/kaart https://busposities.nl/kaart (zoom in).
  • deleted 3y ago
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• firebaze 3y ago
  Kind of underwhelming. Superb work, but the average distance between trains is, like, at least 500 miles? This is what the opposite of public transportation looks like, unfortunately. What would that map look like if even 5% of the annual military budget of the US would be invested in trains?
• s9g 3y ago
  Looks like the Alaska Railroad doesn't have any publicly available location data on their site - https://www.alaskarailroad.com/ https://www.alaskarailroad.com/ Which is a shame, because I actually worked on a live train map internally when I was an intern there a decade ago.
• pcdsl 3y ago
  Here's a cool one for Tokyo in 3D: https://minitokyo3d.com/ https://minitokyo3d.com/
• howenterprisey 3y ago
  How very convenient! I'm on this map. My train is in the right position, but I don't think the name is quite right: I'm on the Silver Star but it's labelled as the Northeast Regional. Excellent project, though, thanks for posting.
• loxias 3y ago
  Cool! Super cool! Would love to see where the data's coming from -- with enough detail that I can spin up my own instance and shove the geo data in a database. (Unless you plan on making money from this, that is. The fact that you're aggregating a dozen random feeds with their own format into one schema is 100% "all the work") I wanted to do this for ADSB data, but couldn't figure out how to get any quantity of data without paying money.
• ionwake 3y ago
  Are there missing trains on this map or are there really states with no active trains ?
• albert180 3y ago
  Does it show all 5 daily trains at once ?
• jmspring 3y ago
  Nice project. It looks like there are a couple of map layers? Because if you look at Truckee, California (near Reno), it looks like you have two text blocks trying to both show Truckee.
• matthewbauer 3y ago
  Really cool idea. Would be neat to also be able to click railways as well. I think openrailwaymap provides some cool details like owner, max speed, electrification. I also noticed the map makes it look like the trains are travelling slightly south of the track. It seems to converge once you zoom in though, so I think the data is probably accurate, but somehow the map is distorting things.
• _whiteCaps_ 3y ago
  It would be neat if you could include the West Coast Express trains in Vancouver that are part of Translink. They're weekday commuter rail trains.
• flockonus 3y ago
  Is there something like this project but for cargo trains?
• NelsonMinar 3y ago
  Very nice! A companion to Rachel Binx' Amtrak Explorer, which shows routes. https://amtrakexplorer.com/ https://amtrakexplorer.com/
• vzaliva 3y ago
  It shows the sad state of the public train system in the US. For comparison, here is a similar map for the UK: https://www.map.signalbox.io/ https://www.map.signalbox.io/
  • dfc 3y ago
    When I look at the map for UK I see far fewer trains than the map for the US. Am I missing something? I thought maybe it was because you posted earlier in the day, but your comment was posted around 0100 UTC--not that long ago. I do not think we have the best public rail system in the US but if all o had to go on was how many trains there were on each map I might think differently.
    • vzaliva 3y ago
      That's surprising. I see maybe under 30 trains shown in whole California. Anyway, according to [1,2]: US: Ridership 549,631,632 UK: Ridership 1.738 billion [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transportation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transportation_in_the_Uni... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Great_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Great_Britai...
    • midasuni 3y ago
      Very few overnight trains in the U.K. there used to be more in the days when trains ran at average speeds of 50mph but not now
• FalconSensei 3y ago
  Whoa, Canada is so sad and empty
  • bpye 3y ago
    It does look like this is missing the West Coast Express in the Lower Mainland - but that’s strictly a commuter service with a number of trains into Vancouver in the morning, and out of Vancouver in the evening.
  • teunispeters 3y ago
    All the passengers routes I was on as a child are gone, replaced by industrial transport. Used to be able to get to a lot of places - at least on the West Coast (ie Vancouver to Prince George, Vancouver to Calgary etc). I know the Royal Hudson (BC coast, Vancouver to Whistler (at least) retired years ago and is a museum just in Squamish. I rode that one as a child, too...
• jmac01 3y ago
  This is so cool! It'd be nice to get some more info on the info windows. Like a photo of the train would be awesome (similar to the plane trackers)!
• dhosek 3y ago
  I’d kind of like real-time tracking of freight trains. There’s a BNSF grade crossing between my home and my parents’ and it would be nice to know whether I should take the 1 mile detour to get to the tunnel beneath the rail yard if there’s a train going to be blocking (I suppose it would also help to have info on the length of the trains so I’d know if the train in front of me is almost clear or if there’s another mile of train behind it).
  • tonymet 3y ago
    Also hazardous chemicals
  • eskibars 3y ago
    It'd be great. My understanding is that there's basically no live data for freight trains unfortunately
    • plowjockey 3y ago
      Since the implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) there is live data but the RRs don't make it publicly available. Real time GPS data is transmitted to the Computer Aided Dispatching (CAD) system and combined with consist data they can determine where any one car is located at any time. By the time I left the company several years ago that data was being restricted to only certain employees. As noted below, hasmat is likely the reason this kind of data is not publicly accessible. It is shared in a limited fashion with shippers, etc.
      • dhosek 3y ago
        Speaking of consists, I was impressed a few months ago when I saw a mid-train locomotive for the first time, then last week I saw a BNSF train that was a mile long¹ with a single locomotive at the front and a second at the back which I’ve never seen before. ⸻ 1. Assuming average car length of 40'
    • mc32 3y ago
      There has to be data because often passenger rail shares railway with freight rail and have to schedule things to avoid accidents.
• benwerd 3y ago
  I was honestly ready for this to be one sad train icon chugging its way across the United States. I'm really pleased to see it's more than that. But not much more, and it makes me so sad that we undervalue real public transportation here. I wish we could do better. Still! This is something! And this website is cool!
• deleted 3y ago
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• mkj 3y ago
  Nice work. A small thing, are the marker icons aligned to their top left corner? Seems like they'd be better aligned to the middle of the icon.
• sneed_chucker 3y ago
  I guess this is only Amtrak? Because it doesn't seem to show the active passenger light rail systems in several cities and metro areas.
• eskibars 3y ago
  I love it! I made a mashup of video feeds and live train locations to show you video feeds from trains that are about to show up: https://train.api.connelly.casa/ https://train.api.connelly.casa/ This gives me lots of ideas of additional agencies to include! Maybe we should join forces :)
• divbzero 3y ago
  This is very cool. For US inter-city rail there is also Amtrak’s official Track Your Train: https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html
• jokteur 3y ago
  I love these maps. Here is one from Switzerland: https://maps.vasile.ch/transit-sbb/ https://maps.vasile.ch/transit-sbb/, just a tad bit busier than the US
  • thriftwy 3y ago
    https://rasp.yandex.ru/map/trains/#center=37.63999999999997%2C55.75999999999371,zoom=5 https://rasp.yandex.ru/map/trains/#center=37.63999999999997%... Yandex has it for (mostly Russian) trains that it has on schedule.
    • retendo 3y ago
      I love that the map doesn't show any borders
      • lcedp 3y ago
        In many Russian policies, the concept of a border is definitely lacking.
        • thriftwy 3y ago
          We've got too many of these in 1991 and think we can spare a few now.
  • caf 3y ago
    Australia and New Zealand: https://anytrip.com.au/ https://anytrip.com.au/ (although it also includes some buses and ferries, and you can only look at one region at a time)
  • orangewindies 3y ago
    Sweden: https://1409.se/ https://1409.se/ UK (not a map, similar view to what the signallers see): https://traksy.uk/live/M+58+STIRLNG https://traksy.uk/live/M+58+STIRLNG
  • markus92 3y ago
• deleted 3y ago
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• niemenmaa 3y ago
  Congrats on the launch! Very nice project. Do you have any estimation of what percentage of passenger train traffic is currently displayed vs. still to be implemented? As others have mentioned, I also was little bit surprised of the (small?) amount of trains on the map. Similar map for Finnish trains: https://www.vr.fi/en/live-train-tracker-map https://www.vr.fi/en/live-train-tracker-map
  • PeterStuer 3y ago
    This was my first reaction as well. 'This can't be all, right? Must be just a tiny fraction of the trains on that continent'. Here's the map for Belgium btw https://trainmap.belgiantrain.be/ https://trainmap.belgiantrain.be/
• gadcam 3y ago
  Here is THE MAP for France ! https://carto.graou.info/46.90174/1.83822/5.4455/0/0 https://carto.graou.info/46.90174/1.83822/5.4455/0/0 Shameless plug : we are developping Trainscanner to travel accross Europe https://www.train-scanner.com/?u=hn-c-38434574 https://www.train-scanner.com/?u=hn-c-38434574 Do not hesitate to leave us some feedback :)
  • mritzmann 3y ago
    Interesting. Are there open APIs that you use for train-scanner or do you have to reverse engineer some apps?
    • gadcam 3y ago
      Routes and timetables are increasingly becoming openly available. However, obtaining fares data is challenging. Do you have a specific use case for such data?
  • sofixa 3y ago
    Nice map for France! But it seems to include only SNCF and subsidiaries, so no RATP suburban services (RER A and RER most of B) nor partnerships operated by other companies (RENFE SNCF or DB operated by RENFE or DB). As for Trainscanner, it looks promising, but it's a bit weird having buses show up on Trainscanner, and as the first and only option on most of the first trips in the default search (trips from Paris, today). A UX like Trainline's where it shows trains and buses in different tabs would be nicer, IMO.
    • gadcam 3y ago
      For GRAOU, RATP services are currently visible. (You may need to toggle a switch on the top right.) However, it's important to note that the data source for this website is SNCF, so you won't see any competitor trains (: Thank you so much for the feedback! I agree it would make sense to highlight the train a bit more !
• yason 3y ago
  In Finland I've been using a similar tool for years now when picking up family members from railways stations and when getting out from the station and out to the platform to board a train: https://www.vr.fi/en/live-train-tracker-map https://www.vr.fi/en/live-train-tracker-map It's incredibly more helpful than timetables (printed or online) or late train announcements and trying to find the right train names and numbers. Instead of identifying the right train, then checking the latest changes for that train on the schedule board and wondering if "3 minutes late" really means "3 minutes" you just look at the map and see, oh there's my train half way here from the previous town, I'll go have a cuppa.
• com1 3y ago
  There is also TRAVIC (https://travic.app https://travic.app) by the University of Freiburg, Germany which visualizes transit data worldwide, both live and interpolated from timetables.
• miki_tyler 3y ago
  This is so cool! I just happen to post my own project about train maps in HN like an hour ago! Coincidence...??? I think not!
  • sea-gold 3y ago
    Because I was curious (and others may be as well): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38434010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38434010
• svarlamov 3y ago
  Love this project! Can you tell us a bit about what stack you used to build this? Were there easy-to-use APIs to get this data in realtime?
  • klinquist 3y ago
    I can comment on Caltrain only, the location is available via the 511.org API. I built a project that predicts how late trains are based on their current location vs historical averages and posts the data to Mastodon. https://caltrain.live https://caltrain.live.
  • ryry 3y ago
    thanks! I did a quick write up about it here: https://rydercalmdown.com/projects/trains-fyi/ https://rydercalmdown.com/projects/trains-fyi/ The hardest part was learning about GTFS-RT, which was a data format I wasn't familiar with until now.
    • zhivota 3y ago
      Very nice, thanks for the write up :). I was thinking about how you could get route maps, without actually having to source shape files. Given you are tracking trains every minute, you could probably build up your own route maps by dropping a point every time you get one, and connecting them with straight lines. Over time the route would become closer and closer to reality.
• thomasahle 3y ago
  I didn't know there was a trans-Canadian railroad. Did anyone try it?
  • alisonatwork 3y ago
    I took Via east to west a while back. It takes a few days, but just like Amtrak the regular seats are more spacious and comfortable than airplane seats so it's not too bad. No internet most of the way, so you better have some books or something to entertain yourself. The food is terrible because of course it is. Bring snacks. The train also stops for a couple hours in Winnipeg which has lots of places to get a good feed. The scenery is pretty great, especially through northern Ontario where it feels like you are traveling through an alien planet where the only thing that exists are rocks, trees and eerie, pitch-black pools of liquid that you could imagine isn't water. You fall asleep at night then wake up the next morning and the view out the window is exactly the same. It's wild. Crossing the Rockies isn't really worth it if you're only going for the views, imo. Lots of tourists get on the train at Jasper, but I imagine they'll be disappointed because the epic vistas are fleeting and most of the time your line of sight is blocked by trees, cliffs or tunnels. Unlike the route out of Denver on Amtrak, you don't get an awesome desert on the other side either. Either way, the main point is that it's pretty much the only way to get from one side of Canada to the other if you don't want to use a plane or zig-zag through the US. Greyhound is gone, STC is gone, stringing together a bus route with a hodge podge of local operators is tough and in some places just leads you back up to Via anyway. If you're lucky enough to live along the CN line then Via is all there is, and it's better than nothing at all, which is the situation for a huge chunk of rural Canada.
  • dewert 3y ago
    I haven't tried it, because it's outrageously expensive to get a cabin with a bed, and I don't want to sit in a chair for a week. But it's pretty famous - we even have a song about it! [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Railroad_Trilogy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Railroad_Trilogy
    • morkalork 3y ago
      Taking the dome car through the rockies and a bit of the prairies would be awesome but flying out there just for that is hard to justify.
• deleted 3y ago
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• h1fra 3y ago
  Looking at the speed of the trains is a bit depressing. USA had so much potential to built the best high-speed railway network...
  • thallium205 3y ago
    That’s what I noticed! An Amtrak train in the middle of nowhere Montana is going 49MPH…
  • oldpersonintx 3y ago
    it already has something much more sophisticated - a high-speed air network think your train is efficient? a plane can fly in a straight line between any two points in the US! beat that! ever see a train cross one of the great lakes? no challenge for a plane! rerouting a rail line can cost billions...but only a tiny bit of fuel to reroute a plane...not to mention I can go coast to coast in five hours on a plane but the world's fastest train would take much longer...
    • rangestransform 3y ago
      in the northeast I still prefer to take acela over being dehumanized by the TSA
      • chroma 3y ago
        TSA can screen people the same for rail, they just tend not to. Ideally we’d go back to pre-9/11 screening for everything.
    • rsynnott 3y ago
      High speed rail is most competitive with short and medium range air. Say you want to go from SF to LA. That’s a 90 minute flight. Plus a few hours of getting to and from the airports plus faffing around within the airports. Or it’s a 6 hour drive. Or, with a top-quality high-speed line it’d be a little under two hours on the train, handily beating any current option. High speed rail wouldn’t be all that competitive for going coast to coast in the US, definitely.
• seedless-sensat 3y ago
  I am looking at this while sitting on Amtrak. It is about 14mi behind my current position, but still very cool!
  • ryry 3y ago
    Yeah, I'm going to add a disclaimer about this. I've been watching the GO trains from my window this morning and they lag about a minute behind. My site grabs data on a minute interval, and I know some of the API's say they purposefully add GPS lag.
    • shuntress 3y ago
      I've made something similar in the past and my experience with the specific API was that it was surprisingly well considered but the actual data it returned was unreliable at best. Not just "slightly obfuscated for paranoid physical security reasons" but actually missing trains and reporting incorrect names.
  • hardcopy 3y ago
    For Amtrak only you can use the official source https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html too (it shows route and also delay)
• hexane360 3y ago
  Any plans to support Denver's commuter trains (RTD)?
  • ryry 3y ago
    I rode it a few weeks ago and completely forgot about it! I'll add it to the list. thanks!
• phyphy 3y ago
  Here in India we have an app named "Where is my train?". Local people use this app a lot when traveling by train. It's not government owned either and has no ads. Just throwing in here for some inspiration since I don't know the inner workings of that app. Edit: It uses nearby cell towers to estimate the location of train
  • Dharmaaa 3y ago
    and In 2018 , Google has acquired Sigmoid Labs Pvt. Ltd, the team behind the “Where is my train”.
    • rathish_g 3y ago
      and integrated to Google Maps
• alienreborn 3y ago
  No NJ Transit trains?
  • ryry 3y ago
    I'm currently on the wait-list for the API. Took me 2 days to even figure out how to register.
    • mastercheif 3y ago
      NJ Transit’s data operation is sub-par. The developers of the “Transit” app have been sparring with them to get live bus data restored https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/transportation/2023/10/27/nj-transit-riders-travel-app-bus-data-flawed/71326896007/ https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/transportation/2023/1...
      • ciabattabread 3y ago
        The NJ Transit website/app looks ramshackle compared to the MTA.
        • jrockway 3y ago
          The MTA also has a really neat railroad tracking tool: https://radar.mta.info/ https://radar.mta.info/ This feels like an internal app that somehow got a public URL. It has neat features like being able to make the same departure board they have in their stations, and it has a departure view that shows how many people are on the train: https://radar.mta.info/countdown/GCT https://radar.mta.info/countdown/GCT
    • ecshafer 3y ago
      That is a very unsurprising experience for NJ Transit.
• anjel 3y ago
  Very cool. Why are NJ Transit trains unreported?
  • GauntletWizard 3y ago
    It appears to be primarily pulling from Amtrak data feeds
• kylecazar 3y ago
  Wow, I don't know why I thought there would be... Way, way more trains active at a given time. I suppose I overestimated passenger rail popularity in this country.. I knew it wasn't relatively huge, but there's several hundred miles in some cases between trains.
  • Reason077 3y ago
    It would be interesting to see a version of this for the UK, where there are approximately 24,000 train services operating every weekday. How well would it scale? The data is available and open!
    • hengistbury 3y ago
      This is a similar site for the UK: https://www.map.signalbox.io/ https://www.map.signalbox.io/
      • Reason077 3y ago
        Very cool! I think it just needs a stats page to answer questions like "how many trains are running on the network right now?", etc.
  • gnulinux 3y ago
    I regularly take Amtrak between Boston - NYC but this website is missing this. Just a single datapoint.
  • ska 3y ago
    The passenger rail coverage [edit: service] in most of North America is basically pathetic, for systemic reasons.
    • gosub100 3y ago
      > systemic you misspelled "union"
• Tiktaalik 3y ago
  In contrast have a look at a snapshot of air travel the other day. https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1729195110888620057?s=20 https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1729195110888620057?s=20 If we're looking for some low hanging fruit around how to possibly lower CO2 emissions, well folks here it is. The solutions to our climate problem have been staring us in the face since the 1900s.
  • kouru225 3y ago
    If we just made train travel an economic and logistical alternative to air travel, it’d make such a difference.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • gruez 3y ago
    >If we're looking for some low hanging fruit around how to possibly lower CO2 emissions, well folks here it is. I'm not really sure how you can call it "low hanging fruit" when its overall contribution to global emissions is only 2%, and how hard it is to build HSR projects in the US. [1] https://www.iea.org/energy-system/transport/aviation https://www.iea.org/energy-system/transport/aviation >In 2022 aviation accounted for 2% of global energy-related CO2 emissions
    • Tiktaalik 3y ago
      It's low hanging fruit in that everything involved is well understood with very seasoned technology and a deep amount of suppliers and engineering knowledge. As I said, we were doing this stuff in the 19th century, and have kept doing it (in some countries, just not NA). This sort of solution doesn't require any sort of technological breakthroughs, or technologies that do not exist. Trying to solve climate change based on working on new technologies that don't currently exist and may not ever exist seems harder to me, and yet remarkably we see people pointing to this approach instead of well understood solutions we already have. Accordingly I'd call implementing proven technology relatively easy. One could get started on it tomorrow.
• reactordev 3y ago
  I believe there was a quote from a railroad exec that Passenger rail traffic accounts for only 3% of the overall rail traffic in North America. If true, the map would be covered with Locomotives if freight was included (GP-40's are my favorite).
  • noirbot 3y ago
    That would be a curious comparison point. I feel like every discussion of rail in the US always turns into pointing and laughing at how bad the US is at rail because it's viewed through a passenger lens, completely ignoring how much rail is used for freight. My impression is that a lot of the rest of the world has much better passenger rail, but uses freight rail quite a bit less. I wonder if part of it is due to the inverse reason to the US. Amtrak often complains that it gets sidelined (literally) because of freight usage of the same track. Is freight rail usage in, say, Germany, lower than the US because of the dominance of passenger rail?
    • ascar 3y ago
      I assume it would be less about the dominance of passanger displacing freight and more about scale/distance. Germany is smaller than Texas (half the area). How often is it economical to put stuff on trains before loading them on trucks again for distances sub 1000km?
      • Symbiote 3y ago
        It's that, but there are also many lorries driving over several countries in Europe. Europe does have more favourable rivers, so some bulk goods (grain, coal, fuel, chemicals) are transported by barge. Other freight can go by sea.
      • noirbot 3y ago
        Oh sure, but the "haha the US isn't even a third world country with its train system" people already are ignoring scale/density when they're laughing at the US rail systems. I'm past even bothering dealing with that bad faith take. My curiosity is if the US has just traded off having better passenger rail for better freight rail, and if that's maybe a somewhat environmentally justified choice. How much more freight is going by truck in Europe because of the bias towards rail for passengers, and how does that compare to US people traveling by car when train would be better?
• nittanymount 3y ago
  this map seems only show a portion of all running passenger trains ? I just drove by a train station, one train passed by, not on this map, haha
  • naberhausj 3y ago
    Was it an in-service passenger train? A freight train or out-of-service passenger train wouldn't show up. Sadly, there's very little data available for most trains on US rails. For example, there's no way (AFAIK) to see what freight trains are active on the network. It's a little frustrating in comparison with how rich our air traffic sources are. If anyone on HN knows of any richer sources for train network data, please let me know. I'm highly interested!
    • nittanymount 3y ago
      yes, it is a passenger train. which started operation within one year, that might be why.
• elhospitaler 3y ago
  Meanwhile, Europe: https://mobility.portal.geops.io/world.geops.transit?layers=paerke,strassennamen,haltekanten,haltestellen,pois,world.geops.traviclive&x=663559.8&y=6305063.57&z=6&baselayer=world.geops.travic https://mobility.portal.geops.io/world.geops.transit?layers=...
  • deleted 3y ago
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• Galacta7 3y ago
  This is pretty cool. I hope you'll add MARC and Brightline trains as well, as your app evolves.
  • ryry 3y ago
    looks like it's at least possible! https://www.mta.maryland.gov/marc-tracker https://www.mta.maryland.gov/marc-tracker https://www.transit.land/feeds/f-brightline~trails~rt https://www.transit.land/feeds/f-brightline~trails~rt I'll add them to the list and investigate; thanks!
    • Galacta7 3y ago
      Thank you!
• Symbiote 3y ago
  Similar for Great Britain: https://www.map.signalbox.io/ https://www.map.signalbox.io/
  • TheArcane 3y ago
    Looks like there are more non-metro trains currently running in London, than in all of Canada & US
    • bpye 3y ago
      That seems believable - the UK saw 390 million passenger rail journeys in the last quarter [0]. Amtrak saw just under 23 million in all of FY22 [1]. That’s before accounting for the UK having a population around 1/5 that of the US. [0] - https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/usage/passenger-rail-usage/ https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/usage/passenger-rai... [1] - https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/corporate/nationalfactsheets/Amtrak-Company-Profile-FY2022-020823.pdf https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
• quartz 3y ago
  It would be cool to see an equivalent map for freight rail. These threads always focus on the lack of passenger rail service in the US but ignore that the US also has one of the largest, safest, and most efficient freight rail systems in the world[1]. I'd love to see it live! https://railroads.dot.gov/rail-network-development/freight-rail-overview https://railroads.dot.gov/rail-network-development/freight-r...
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • carbotaniuman 3y ago
    It's quite hard to see those sadly due to how freight operators handle traffic - you often have to use word-of-mouth and FB groups to track them. I know there's a lot of railfans that have this data, but I'm not sure it's in a format one can actually use.
  • toomuchtodo 3y ago
    http://tracker.geops.ch/ http://tracker.geops.ch/ https://atcsmon.software.informer.com/ https://atcsmon.software.informer.com/ https://www.rail.watch/rwmon.html https://www.rail.watch/rwmon.html
  • ryry 3y ago
    I did a bit of a deep dive on this over the weekend and left feeling more confused than when I started. From what I can gather, outside of CN's holiday freight train, most of the tracking is done by community members with SDR antennas and Raspberry Pis. They report to centralized servers (which I've yet to find), and the data indicates where trains are in signalling blocks. I'm the least knowledgeable person on trains, so I don't know if this is all accurate, but that's my best understanding. I'd love to build some sort of service that takes this data, references a DB of signaling blocks, and establishes an estimated lat/lng - but that's a huge project of its own.
    • bonestamp2 3y ago
      Ya, looks like it goes to a privately run server and the client that accesses the data requires membership. Seems like there should be something like Open ADSB (aircraft) but for trains. I might be interested in working on something like that too.
• monlockandkey 3y ago
  Busses would be soo much better if there was real time location of busses and trains that you could view on a map. Probably the lowest hanging fruit to pick for public transport improvement.
  • jrockway 3y ago
    The MTA has this: https://bustime.mta.info/#B63 https://bustime.mta.info/#B63 The CTA has this: https://www.ctabustracker.com/bustime/wireless/html/eta.jsp?route=4&direction=Northbound&id=1584&showAllBusses=on https://www.ctabustracker.com/bustime/wireless/html/eta.jsp?... Those are the only two cities I've lived in, but the ability to track buses seems widespread to me.
  • achileas 3y ago
    The MBTA in Boston has this as part of their API [0]. [0] https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api/streaming https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api/streaming
• aFrenchy 3y ago
  There is a very nice french version which has been running for years: https://carto.graou.info/ https://carto.graou.info/
• hnthrowaway0315 3y ago
  Nice! Is there a way to track every freight train as well?
• MBCook 3y ago
  Neat. Is there anything like this that shows freight?
• ecshafer 3y ago
  This is cool, but you are missing NJ Transit which has passenger trains separate from LIRR and Metro North. You are also missing Septa and MTA internal city light rail and subway lines, which are technically passenger trains.
  • saltminer 3y ago
    If the NYC subway gets added, don't forget PATH trains!
  • CryptoBanker 3y ago
    Which MTA light rail lines are you referring to? Last I heard construction hasn’t yet started on the first one.
• s-xyz 3y ago
  Are you sure this is complete? There are really few trains and most are driving at a very low speed.
  • arrowleaf 3y ago
    There's also lots of track included that hasn't seen passenger trains in 30-50 years. The only passenger rail in Idaho is in the panhandle. I'm not sure if Helena has any passenger traffic either.
• kingsloi 3y ago
  Here's one more for your list: https://southshore.etaspot.net https://southshore.etaspot.net Southshore Line - connecting Chicago, IL (Millennium Station) to South Bend, IN, via East Chicago, Gary, Chesterton, etc
  • ryry 3y ago
    Added to the list - thanks! This is different from metra yeah?
    • Kon-Peki 3y ago
      Yes, it is the Northern Indiana Commuter Train District. Inside Chicago, they run on Metra track. To avoid competition with Metra, they do not allow boarding on "inbound" trains inside of Illinois (except the Hegewisch station that is on the Illinois/Indiana border), and do not allow people to get off "outbound" trains until the Hegewisch station [1] Funny thing, is that Chicago has direct rail access from downtown to 4 airports in 3 states - Chicago O'Hare and Chicago Midway via the CTA, Milwaukee Mitchell (via Amtrak), and South Bend Regional (via the South Shore). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Shore_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Shore_Line
• bonestamp2 3y ago
  This is really cool and I've already found a couple of lines that went further than I realized. This is going to make me use trains more! On that note, one feature that would be really helpful is if I selected a particular train, that it would show me where the stations are on that line. Maybe the train company would even give you a commission if I clicked through and bought a ticket.
• Kon-Peki 3y ago
  If you want to add the Chicago transit train location data, the API documentation and API key request form are available here: https://www.transitchicago.com/developers/traintracker/ https://www.transitchicago.com/developers/traintracker/
• afhammad 3y ago
  Similar but for the London Undergroound: https://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/ https://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/ https://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/schematic/ https://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/schematic/
  • deleted 3y ago
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• mourner 3y ago
  A lovely map — thanks for using Leaflet and keeping that little Ukrainian flag in the corner! Probably needs an attribution for the map added too (looks like it's Carto with an OpenStreetMap-derived basemap).
  • ryry 3y ago
    thanks - done!
• chandlerswift 3y ago
  Would you please add an OpenStreetMap attribution[0]? It looks like you're using OSM data via OpenRailwayMap (which also requires its own attribution[1]) and Carto basemaps (which I'm not terribly familiar with, but at first glance appear to be based on OSM data[2])---each of which detail their respective attribution requirements. Leaflet makes this incredibly simple; just add the suggested text to the attribution field when you initialize the layers: L.tileLayer('https://{s}.basemaps.cartocdn.com/light_all/{z}/{x}/{y}{r}.png', { maxZoom: 19, attribution: '' // here! }).addTo(map); var railwayOverlay = L.tileLayer('https://{s}.tiles.openrailwaymap.org/standard/{z}/{x}/{y}.png', { attribution: '', // and here! }).addTo(map); [0]: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright [1]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenRailwayMap/API https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenRailwayMap/API [2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P7bhSE-N9iegI398QYDjKeVhnbS7-Ilk/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P7bhSE-N9iegI398QYDjKeVhnbS... via https://carto.com/legal https://carto.com/legal
  • deleted 3y ago
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• sz4kerto 3y ago
  We have something similar in Hungary: http://vonatinfo.mav-start.hu/ http://vonatinfo.mav-start.hu/ Pretty cool, it's a shame that the actual (state-owned) trainlines are in shambles.
• the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
  For Austria you can see them all here: https://anachb.vor.at/ https://anachb.vor.at/ ("Kartenoptionen" -> "Livemap" -> "Alle einblenden"). Even covers buses, subways, trams and local trains as well as public transport ships.
  • deleted 3y ago
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• cattown 3y ago
  Super cool! I love this. Makes me yearn for a day when this map is way more full of activity. Just a little feedback: the color for Amtrak and for Chicago's Metra trains are so similar it's hard to see at a glance where the Amtrak runs are amongst the many Metras that are out at a given time. Would be awesome to differentiate those marker colors a bit more. Very cool! Didn't know this was even technically possible with the available data feeds. Great work!
  • ryry 3y ago
    this bugged me too. I tried to keep the colours respective to the company logos. Any other recommendations for a metra colour?
    • cattown 3y ago
      Good point. Meta's brand identity is pretty much the blue you picked. I see your marker color is exactly the hex value for blue that's on most of their website. I think you could go a little lighter, pretty sure the actual trains have a lighter more saturated blue on them. Something closer to the blue you're using for the Mass Bay Trans Authority would be fine, and there's no overlap in service areas to make that confusing. Or maybe different marker size/shape for regional vs national trains. Also saw the South Shore Line is there now. Nice!
• eclo 3y ago
  love the UI! So easy to understand
• nilsbunger 3y ago
  It's sad that even great potential routes like SF->LA aren't accessible by train, and we don't seem to have the state capacity to build HSR there. I was just in Japan, and took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto, which is a similar distance as SF to LA. That train: - runs every 10 minutes -- if you miss one, just take the next one! - takes 2.5 hours travel time - starts and ends in city centers on both ends. - has better legroom and wider seats than economy - free, fast Wifi on board, your cell signal still works, and you can use your computer the whole trip. - has no security or boarding hassle. You can show up 5 minutes before departure and just get on. - has no luggage limitations AFAICT It's faster and far less stressful than flying SF to LA, with the security and boarding hassles, Ubers on both ends, and cramped onboard conditions.
  • resolutebat 3y ago
    Small correction: every 6 minutes, not 10! And each train has 16 (sixteen) carriages and can seat over 1,300 people.
  • lmm 3y ago
    I like the Shinkansen but it's also very expensive - that journey is ¥14,170 one way, and the discounts for return tickets or advance booking are vanishingly small. Even with the incredibly weak yen I can see same-day SF-LA flights cheaper than that.
    • metadat 3y ago
      (¥14,170 is approximately $95USD)
    • eldaisfish 3y ago
      Do your flight costs include parking, the costs of getting to and from the airports, the value of your time, the mental hassle of airport security theatre, the costs of additional luggage and so on? If not, it’s not a fair comparison.
      • lmm 3y ago
• achileas 3y ago
  What was behind the decision to include just commuter rail and long-distance passenger rail, but not local rapid transit? Is it a resource issue drawing that many vehicles? I love this map, but I'd love to see it with more modes of transport.
  • ryry 3y ago
    mostly just because this was a weekend project and I needed to draw the line somewhere. I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but I reckon it'll take a good amount more time.
• geniium 3y ago
  The most shocking for me is ... the small amount of trains on that map