I spend way too long on this website routinely. It's a lot of fun following remote lines in Canada/ Russia or looking at the many now-defunct tracks all over the US.
I would pay to have a live view of trains that would integrate with google maps to choose my route to work so I can avoid a 20min wait while the cargo train does its thing.
In the Netherlands we can see the location of every passenger train since the train company just has a public api. Here is a map: https://spoorkaart.mwnn.nl/
This data exists in many cities. It's what powers the "Next train/bus in xx minutes" signs. But somehow it doesn't make its way into live view applications. At least not in any of the cities in which I've lived.
I'm sure it's complicated for the map companies because America is a big place and can't be covered by one simple rail or bus company. There are hundreds of public and private transit companies in America. But it would be nice if it would start appearing in some cities.
I wonder if they are afraid of hijacking’s if they make the cargo train info public. The passenger trains don’t bother me much because they are short and quick, it’s the cargo ones that go through in rush hour
Unfortunately, this is very much the exception. In general railway operators are extremely hostile to sharing any of the (usually very accurate) internal data they have about train movements, and perfer to stick with simple "Your train will arrive in x minutes" predictions. This sometimes gets a bit absurd:
In Germany the unions are officially against any open data sharing, for some reason(I think it's to do with making it easier for passengers to get cheaper tickets).
In Britain the freight train companies argue that information about their trains should stay secret because there is no public interest in it, and it is a competitive disadvantage if their competitors know where trains they run go.
This is a timely mention since Google Earth lost its railroad layer recently (though per [0] (a) Google is offering a workaround and (b) https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ is mentioned in the comments).
I was doing a 2 week train trip through Germany last year and used official high speed net maps of German railways to plan a time-efficient route. This is basically very similar on the max-speed layer, I could imagine using that to plan a similar European trip.
Someone posted the infrastructure OSM map, and there are also hiking and bicycling maps based on OSM. I wonder whether it would make sense to consolidate such projects eventually, to be able to combine layers and to have somewhat centralized, equal rendering power.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 46.3 ms ] threadThis data exists in many cities. It's what powers the "Next train/bus in xx minutes" signs. But somehow it doesn't make its way into live view applications. At least not in any of the cities in which I've lived.
I'm sure it's complicated for the map companies because America is a big place and can't be covered by one simple rail or bus company. There are hundreds of public and private transit companies in America. But it would be nice if it would start appearing in some cities.
Heck, even Amtrak would be nice to see on Apple Maps, instead of having to use Amtrak's own live train viewer: https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html
Are there any transit agencies with live train/bus views integrated into Apple or Google maps, and I've just lived in the wrong cities?
Unfortunately, this is very much the exception. In general railway operators are extremely hostile to sharing any of the (usually very accurate) internal data they have about train movements, and perfer to stick with simple "Your train will arrive in x minutes" predictions. This sometimes gets a bit absurd:
In Germany the unions are officially against any open data sharing, for some reason(I think it's to do with making it easier for passengers to get cheaper tickets).
In Britain the freight train companies argue that information about their trains should stay secret because there is no public interest in it, and it is a competitive disadvantage if their competitors know where trains they run go.
It's taking 5-10 minutes to load US state wide views fully, with parts not loading in at all.
I have a good connection on my end and was just wondering if I should check back later or if this is more a slow mapping service.
[0] https://support.google.com/earth/thread/139934632/rail-lines...
I was doing a 2 week train trip through Germany last year and used official high speed net maps of German railways to plan a time-efficient route. This is basically very similar on the max-speed layer, I could imagine using that to plan a similar European trip.
Someone posted the infrastructure OSM map, and there are also hiking and bicycling maps based on OSM. I wonder whether it would make sense to consolidate such projects eventually, to be able to combine layers and to have somewhat centralized, equal rendering power.