I love these maps. Here is one from Switzerland: https://maps.vasile.ch/transit-sbb/ , just a tad bit busier than the US
Netherlands: https://treinposities.nl/
Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada
301–310 of 316 posts
Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada
#302Wow, 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.
The passenger rail coverage [edit: service] in most of North America is basically pathetic, for systemic reasons.
specifically, that freight has right of way at all times. they basically get what they want and tell amtrack to stuff it.
Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is though. On a trip earlier this year I clocked at it almost 150mph via GPS. That's HSR by any definition.
Acela is indeed fast for a short stretch. But the average speed is terrible, so it's only "HSR" on a technicality. It could be serious HSR if they had control and/or ownership of the entire route and made it as good as that short section where they can hit that peak speed. Acela is like a Formula 1 car that gets to do one quick lap on a nice racetrack, then has to take another course through bumper-to-bumper traffic…
You’re overstating it. The rest of the route is, except for a couple of areas around stations, a 125 limit, which is still basically double what Amtrak averages anywhere else.
Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Fair" depends on what you're using it for. Parking at airports can be expensive, but parking at Tokyo or Kyoto station is more so. The stations themselves are more confusing and less well-signposted than an airport. And if you want to take oversize luggage (e.g. a surfboard) that's a moderately priced upgrade on a plane but completely impossible on the Tokaido Shinkansen. No comparison is perfect. The best you can d…
>but parking at Tokyo or Kyoto station is more so That's just dumb. No one actually drives to these stations; that's what public transit is for. At worst, people might take a taxi.
Parking at an airport is equally dumb but it was in the post I was replying to, shrug.
Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
>but parking at Tokyo or Kyoto station is more so That's just dumb. No one actually drives to these stations; that's what public transit is for. At worst, people might take a taxi.
Parking at an airport is equally dumb but it was in the post I was replying to, shrug.
You're comparing apples and oranges. In America, parking at the airport is absolutely normal, because it's a car-based culture and there's generally no public transit to the airport. There's enormous parking lots for cars at all airports there. The alternative is usually a very expensive cab ride, or trying to get a friend to drive you.
In Japan, parking at the train station isn't normal in the least; I don't think they even have a place to park there. The normal way is to take public transit there. Same goes for the airports (at least in Tokyo); it's not normal to drive, it's normal to take the train, though some people take taxis because they have a lot of luggage and carrying heavy suitcases on the train is a pain.
Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
>less local/more federal legal zoning and land use power, more federal level direction to get things done, Nitpick: this part isn't correct. There's no federal legal zoning or direction or anything federal at all. Japan doesn't have a federal government; like most countries, it has a unitary government. The US is unusual this way, along with Germany and Russia. But otherwise, you're right. It's much easier to build s…
Ah, thanks. My comment was based on this link which I share often on Japanese Zoning. http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_land_law Looking it up, I see you're right. They have national zoning laws but even there, things do seem to be getting more complicated.
That's a great blog post. As I understand it, the national law is just as described, with only 12 zones, but the localities have some latitude in how to apply the law and make some blanket restrictions about things like building height. For instance, Kyoto famously has very strict limits on building height, though this is biting them in the ass because it keeps them from creating enough density to get more tax money, and too much land is occupied by religious sites that don't pay any taxes at all, so the city is going bankrupt.
Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada
#307Here is THE MAP for France ! 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 Do not hesitate to leave us some feedback :)
Interesting. Are there open APIs that you use for train-scanner or do you have to reverse engineer some apps?
Routes and timetables are increasingly becoming openly available.
However, obtaining fares data is challenging.
Do you have a specific use case for such data?
Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada
#308Here is THE MAP for France ! 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 Do not hesitate to leave us some feedback :)
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, to…
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 !
Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada
#309Super 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 wi…
this bugged me too. I tried to keep the colours respective to the company logos. Any other recommendations for a metra colour?
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!
Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 i…
Looks like 73% of freight is moved by truck in the US vs 77% in the EU. Not a big enough difference to really matter I think. https://www.trucking.org/economics-and-industry-data https://www.statista.com/statistics/1068592/eu-road-freight-...
Intermodal (hauling shipping containers for trucks to take last-kilometer) is by far America’s biggest freight type. Something like 80% or more of consumer goods go through intermodal or road on their way to distribution centers that load it onto trucks that deliver it to the store (or your home).
For rail alone it looks like 50/50. 50% is resources and dry goods, oil and gas, and the rest is consumer goods, boxcar, flatcar, intermodal. [1]