RailMiles - Mileage Engine is back!

[Tom]

I currently have no plans in the near future to have CRS codes in the search on the mileage engine - other priorities.

 

[fishquinn]

Do you have plans to re-introduce the London Underground and the Nottingham trams?

Cheers!

 

[Tom]

Yes. These will give output in kms though.

 

[fishquinn]

Great news! Thanks.

 

[mbreckers]

any update on RailMiles?

 

[motherwell334]

I have given up..that's almost 2 years that I have been emailing tom trying to get access to renew my railmiles account with no success.

 

[mbreckers]

I have given up..that's almost 2 years that I have been emailing tom trying to get access to renew my railmiles account with no success.

Unfortunately I have to agree with you on this. I never got to use RailMiles and have always wanted to

 

[Techniquest]

I'm due to renew my RM membership now, it having expired yesterday, but I'm certainly concerned that may take a while!

Might get a reply back via Twitter, I need up to date subscription fees gen! Either that or download it all into some sort of file and give up myself!

 

[capital12]

I'm due to renew my RM membership now, it having expired yesterday, but I'm certainly concerned that may take a while!

Might get a reply back via Twitter, I need up to date subscription fees gen! Either that or download it all into some sort of file and give up myself!

Renewals seem to work ok! I did mine a few weeks ago no problem.

Although I am a bit concerned that one day it'll simply not work and all the data will be lost! I might start to back it all up just in case!

 

[causton]

I'm due to renew my RM membership now, it having expired yesterday, but I'm certainly concerned that may take a while!

Might get a reply back via Twitter, I need up to date subscription fees gen! Either that or download it all into some sort of file and give up myself!

No need to ask, or do anything, or worry. That is all handled automatically via PayPal. Easy as going to http://cp.railmiles.org/renewals/ and clicking the relevant option!

 

[gswindale]

Unless you've waited until after it expired at which point your account is automatically locked.

 

[Techniquest]

In that case I wish I'd gone it before June!

 

[mbreckers]

Any update on RailMiles, It's now nearly the end of July

 

[HA25322]

Nearly the end of August now and still no update. I doubt there will be an update before 2017 at this rate? Not holding my breath anyway. Just wish it was possible to download the services I already have on there onto excel or something. I have over 98 pages worth at least and don't want to lose them.

 

[Techniquest]

Nearly the end of August now and still no update. I doubt there will be an update before 2017 at this rate? Not holding my breath anyway. Just wish it was possible to download the services I already have on there onto excel or something. I have over 98 pages worth at least and don't want to lose them.

I had over 6,000 journeys logged on there at my last check, which as you can imagine is quite the amount to sort out again.

I'm going to fire Tom an email again shortly, but if there is no response by the middle of next week I'm going to simply give up with RailMiles and begin the incredibly huge task of tracking down all my notes over a period of time stretching to almost 12 years!

It seems like yesterday since I first did the 0330 Swansea to Paddington in autumn 2003, just to go and try out the 180s...

 

[HA25322]

Not trying to one up you but I have 9750 journeys logged and I would hate to have to type them up individually. That is why I would like to be able to export them to excel or something.

 

[Minilad]

I am so glad that I have always kept back up spreadsheets just under 6000 journeys logged since 2012 all safely in excel too. Bit more work each day when logging but definitely worth it

 

[crispy1978]

I'd always have backups for something like this - even if it's a periodic download of the RM log saved as a CSV file or something which I could convert in to something if I ever needed to.

It only takes a site to go down (which to be fair RM seems to have been for a while) for this to be a totally pertinent point.

 

[fishquinn]

I have never wanted to use RM and I have just stuck with Excel.

 

[Techniquest]

I managed to get an email back from Tom, going to see about paying the sub fees next week, then ensure everything is downloaded and also work on a spreadsheet as a backup.

 

[Kristofferson]

If you save the pages out from RM as HTML and copy the tables to clipboard, maybe they will paste straight into Excel. Haven't tried it but worth a go?

If this turns out to be wrong, I'll probably have to eat my "web developer" hat...

 

[bb21]

If this turns out to be wrong, I'll probably have to eat my "web developer" hat...

You are safe from having to do that.

 

[Techniquest]

Interesting, when I have more than a few minutes to spare next Monday I'll have to experiment!

 

[capital12]

So we're now into October and still no news/sign of the new RailMiles.

Having said on this thread it would be ready in a few days (around May this year) and news on the control panel for the current RailMiles still leads with it being ready in September 2013, I feel Tom would be better off not saying anything in terms of release rather than building people's hopes up and then failing to deliver.

For example when Apple released the date for the sale of iPhone6s, they are set up for that to happen. Imagine if on the date they said "oh, it'll be a few more days" then that turned into months, years... Their business would lose all trust in much the same way as is happening here.

If Apple treated its customers like that you'd not wait and would go to another manufacturer - unfortunately there is no alternative to go to in this case and if you like the simplicity of RailMiles (as I do) and the way you can search for data you're kind of stuck.

However this leads me to ask anyone who is a bit more clued up than me what are the alternatives to producing data in a similar quality to RailMiles? Does anyone know if RM is based on a off the shelf program such as Microsoft Access?

Or if anybody has the skills to set up a rival online based collation system?! It seems there are many people wishing to subscribe who are unable to and I for one would definitely switch for a better managed platform.

 

[mbreckers]

So we're now into October and still no news/sign of the new RailMiles.

Having said on this thread it would be ready in a few days (around May this year) and news on the control panel for the current RailMiles still leads with it being ready in September 2013, I feel Tom would be better off not saying anything in terms of release rather than building people's hopes up and then failing to deliver.

For example when Apple released the date for the sale of iPhone6s, they are set up for that to happen. Imagine if on the date they said "oh, it'll be a few more days" then that turned into months, years... Their business would lose all trust in much the same way as is happening here.

If Apple treated its customers like that you'd not wait and would go to another manufacturer - unfortunately there is no alternative to go to in this case and if you like the simplicity of RailMiles (as I do) and the way you can search for data you're kind of stuck.

However this leads me to ask anyone who is a bit more clued up than me what are the alternatives to producing data in a similar quality to RailMiles? Does anyone know if RM is based on a off the shelf program such as Microsoft Access?

Or if anybody has the skills to set up a rival online based collation system?! It seems there are many people wishing to subscribe who are unable to and I for one would definitely switch for a better managed platform.

Although I have no connection with Tom or the Rail Miles website, I can say with a lot of confidence that it will all be code that Tom has written himself. No part of it (apart from MySQL and PHP, which is needed to run the platform) will be "off the shelf"

And I wish I had the skill to setup a rival to RailMiles cause I really want to get access to RailMiles

 

[Techniquest]

I saw a screenshot of what Tom called RM5 on Facebook last week, which looked good and was due very soon.

I wish I had the skills to form a rival service, anyone who can should certainly step forward and we'll see how things go!

 

[Minilad]

I saw a screenshot of what Tom called RM5 on Facebook last week, which looked good and was due very soon.

I wish I had the skills to form a rival service, anyone who can should certainly step forward and we'll see how things go!

I don't think anyone is suggesting the website isn't good the problem for most people seems to be things are promised "soon" and don't materialise. When you log in to railmiles currently you get a message dated 7th June 2013 saying railmiles 4 is coming. Coupled with the problems many have of getting requests to join or requests for info unanswered you can see why people get frustrated

 

[Techniquest]

Oh I know what you mean there, I've started ignoring that news page when I log in now.

I can't see why Tom isn't answering people's queries. Ever since RTT launched RM has gone downhill...

 

[Tom]

Having said on this thread it would be ready in a few days (around May this year) and news on the control panel for the current RailMiles still leads with it being ready in September 2013, I feel Tom would be better off not saying anything in terms of release rather than building people's hopes up and then failing to deliver.

I don't disagree. That's why I don't say much about it now. However, there's no point hiding away from the fact that, back when that appeared in the control panel, I genuinely did think it was going to be available very shortly after the release of what was RTT v2. In the end, that didn't happen as the release of RTT v2 slipped by a week or two which put me right in the middle of the start of the university year...

However this leads me to ask anyone who is a bit more clued up than me what are the alternatives to producing data in a similar quality to RailMiles? Does anyone know if RM is based on a off the shelf program such as Microsoft Access?

Logging should be easy enough in Microsoft Access or similar. As for RM, as mbreckers has said, there's virtually no 'off the shelf' in there. The next version of RM, which enters testing with a group of about 10 people this week, does have a bit more than the previous one - but that is purely to make it easier to maintain.

The problem really is that I have very little time nowadays to manage RM, RTT, etc, and I don't deny that in the slightest, and to counter that the new system is a lot more automated and hands off. When the current version of RM was written, I was in my A2 year at college with a lot less on my plate - that is now 6 years ago! To counter the problem, there will be 3 or 4 people behind the 'screen' on the support side who will triage the support and, if necessary, I'll deal with the more complicated problems. Takes a lot of my shoulders and should make things run a lot more smoothly.

 

[mbreckers]

Any update on RailMiles Tom?

Hoping to start the new year being able to log journeys