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Class15

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I’m sure they’re more than welcome to, but for anyone spotting passenger trains they’re still likely going to have to use RTT too, since relatively few of those have allocations and where they do detail isn’t given on splits and joins.
People spotting passenger trains? Most people are more interested in freights!

A lot of people I know want to see freights that are worked by locos other than 66s (59s, 70s, 88s etc.) and would like to know the allocations. RTT doesn’t offer people the chance to help the community by putting allocations out there. Well, I’m gonna give up on this as the devs are clearly set in their ways and not willing to change anything.
 
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TT-ONR-NRN

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If he decides he doesn’t want people to use this website (a lot of people I know feel the same about this) then sure, but a good few people will be coughing up the £4 a month for Railcam instead.
Respectfully, you sound quite silly and arrogant here.
Threatening to boycott an already very well used and successful site because the owner won’t implement a rather silly idea isn’t going to have much merit. It’s like, on a smaller scale, one of many fans of a celebrity threatening to unfollow them on Instagram. I’m sure they’ll live without your patronage ;) It’s not even a paid for service!

I’m personally glad RTT is powered by data and not by trusting random people in the same way that gives Wikipedia its reputation for being unreliable. If you prefer Railcam, as you said, you can pay the small subscription fee and use that instead! :)
 

87electric

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If he decides he doesn’t want people to use this website (a lot of people I know feel the same about this) then sure, but a good few people will be coughing up the £4 a month for Railcam instead.
I think Tom can live with that. I sure can. RTT for me all the way.
 

ainsworth74

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If he decides he doesn’t want people to use this website (a lot of people I know feel the same about this) then sure, but a good few people will be coughing up the £4 a month for Railcam instead.

I await the imminent collapse of RTT as a result of this boycott! :lol:

I think perhaps you might be taking this issue a little more seriously than it might warrant ;)
 

pokemonsuper9

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People spotting passenger trains? Most people are more interested in freights!
I like passenger trains, as interesting as freight trains are there's a lot more passenger trains for me to tick off, on a journey I might see 20 LNWR trains, I'd see 4 freight trains, and I'd very much like the Class 350 numbers :)
 

zwk500

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People spotting passenger trains? Most people are more interested in freights!
Most people you speak to, which is not the same thing.
A lot of people I know want to see freights that are worked by locos other than 66s (59s, 70s, 88s etc.) and would like to know the allocations. RTT doesn’t offer people the chance to help the community by putting allocations out there. Well, I’m gonna give up on this as the devs are clearly set in their ways and not willing to change anything.
From my experience, there's an awful lot of gen that turns out to be complete duff for a large number of reasons. I'd rather RTT stood it's ground and persuaded FOCs to get involved in showing allocations than let wrong numbers get into the system and then lots of people complaining about trekking out to spot something interesting that turned out to be a Shed they'd seen 4 times already that week. And I don't even spot!
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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Most people you speak to, which is not the same thing.

From my experience, there's an awful lot of gen that turns out to be complete duff for a large number of reasons. I'd rather RTT stood it's ground and persuaded FOCs to get involved in showing allocations than let wrong numbers get into the system and then lots of people complaining about trekking out to spot something interesting that turned out to be a Shed they'd seen 4 times already that week. And I don't even spot!
At the end of the day, I don’t see why the rest of the TOCs haven’t contributed. What do they have to lose, other than annoying tweets from enthusiasts asking for gen - which I’m sure they’d be only too delighted to lose?
 

zwk500

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At the end of the day, I don’t see why the rest of the TOCs haven’t contributed. What do they have to lose, other than annoying tweets from enthusiasts asking for gen - which I’m sure they’d be only too delighted to lose?
I assume there's some level of cost in it. Given that some TOCs are using pretty old planning systems I wouldn't be surprised if they were prioritising IT upgrades over sharing gen.
 

Class15

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At the end of the day, I don’t see why the rest of the TOCs haven’t contributed. What do they have to lose, other than annoying tweets from enthusiasts asking for gen - which I’m sure they’d be only too delighted to lose?
Yes. If all operators gave their allocations I would give up all my arguments! But given as lots of operators don’t, I just feel that user allocations for operators that don’t have allocations would be better than nothing.
Respectfully, you sound quite silly and arrogant here.
Threatening to boycott an already very well used and successful site because the owner won’t implement a rather silly idea isn’t going to have much merit. It’s like, on a smaller scale, one of many fans of a celebrity threatening to unfollow them on Instagram. I’m sure they’ll live without your patronage ;) It’s not even a paid for service!

I’m personally glad RTT is powered by data and not by trusting random people in the same way that gives Wikipedia its reputation for being unreliable. If you prefer Railcam, as you said, you can pay the small subscription fee and use that instead! :)
I already do! I am asking this question on behalf of friends who don’t use railcam.
I think Tom can live with that. I sure can. RTT for me all the way.

I await the imminent collapse of RTT as a result of this boycott! :lol:

I think perhaps you might be taking this issue a little more seriously than it might warrant ;)
I think RTT is excellent for many features. Before I knew Railcam existed, I used it to check where the freights were out and how far away they were. Until I saw 5 66s on “pathed as electric” workings 1 day and decided I needed a better resource. It’s still very useful for checking which platform your train goes on and many other stuff like passenger allocations. I think this simple addition would improve the website but I don’t know best and I accept that untrue allocations would be a problem. It works fine on Railcam and user-added allocations are 99% accurate but maybe on RTT it would be different. I don’t know. I have better ways to spend my time than on this thread frankly with this war being waged against me.
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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I must admit I get nervous when people criticise the platform. Being entirely honest I wasn’t particularly impressed to see what looked a bit like emotional blackmail at some point last year, when people complained about the adverts and the response was something along the lines of “I might close the website entirely then as thinking about it, it’s quite expensive.”

Sort of like a threat used to suppress negative feedback :s That’s how it seemed, anyway. I’ve said this before.
 

Tom

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A perhaps scatterbrain reply as just putting thoughts to screen but...

A lot of people I know want to see freights that are worked by locos other than 66s (59s, 70s, 88s etc.) and would like to know the allocations. RTT doesn’t offer people the chance to help the community by putting allocations out there. Well, I’m gonna give up on this as the devs are clearly set in their ways and not willing to change anything.
In a perhaps not parallel universe, RTT could be continuing to persue the "powered by actual data" approach and working on getting another major FOC to transmit their data into it. Freight has and isn't very high up the priority list because passenger operators are my preference - we have now performed actual studies where we do have some incremental improvements in dwell times at major stations where we know RTT is well used and KYT is implemented. But we are working on a FOC.

Other things to consider:
  • RTT currently has no user management system, so that would need development (although one is under way for our ad free platform)
  • We currently have three staff and one volunteer. The three staff are me and a developer who work full time (albeit primarily on other projects at present for the industry), and a part time support manager who is in charge of the support system. The volunteer helps manage the underpinning reporting data.
  • We ergo have no capacity to moderate and handle a (frequently vocal) user base - this is based on our experience from RM etc. but that is a paid product so we build that into the operating cost.
  • I get (to my personal email) normally a few moans and grumbles a day about an incorrect allocation - given how the normal user profile of a lot of public systems work I imagine that would only increase with user sourced data. I have a good friend who works for Wikimedia Foundation, the people behind Wikipedia, and even they get complaints about inaccuracies in articles and the entire thing about Wikipedia is being able to be edited by anyone!!!

I'm really not bothered about losing a few users because I don't crowd source freight allocations - some other sites may well suit them better. I quote this from some time ago in this very thread:
If you choose not to use the site, that's fine. I live and die by the sword of the users.

One other thing to remark upon...
I assume there's some level of cost in it. Given that some TOCs are using pretty old planning systems I wouldn't be surprised if they were prioritising IT upgrades over sharing gen.
The way we actually have it implemented now for the vast majority of operators means that it incurs no cost to them, while it does cost RTT money - the amount depends on the integration. It fits quite nicely into the normal data streams that each operator must make use of as part of the network code. Each new operator costs us a few hundred quid to implement.
 

ainsworth74

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I must admit I get nervous when people criticise the platform. Being entirely honest I wasn’t particularly impressed to see what looked a bit like emotional blackmail at some point last year, when people complained about the adverts and the response was something along the lines of “I might close the website entirely then as thinking about it, it’s quite expensive.”

Sort of like a threat used to suppress negative feedback :s That’s how it seemed, anyway. I’ve said this before.
But then Tom isn't running this operation out of the goodness of his heart! If it's costing money and you're getting aggro why would you continue to run a service? This Forum, thankfully, covers it running costs through ad revenue but if it didn't I doubt I'd be willing to chip in to keep it running with the amount of moaning we get directed at us ;)
 

zwk500

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The way we actually have it implemented now for the vast majority of operators means that it incurs no cost to them, while it does cost RTT money - the amount depends on the integration. It fits quite nicely into the normal data streams that each operator must make use of as part of the network code. Each new operator costs us a few hundred quid to implement.
Interesting, thanks!
 

Class15

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A perhaps scatterbrain reply as just putting thoughts to screen but...


In a perhaps not parallel universe, RTT could be continuing to persue the "powered by actual data" approach and working on getting another major FOC to transmit their data into it. Freight has and isn't very high up the priority list because passenger operators are my preference - we have now performed actual studies where we do have some incremental improvements in dwell times at major stations where we know RTT is well used and KYT is implemented. But we are working on a FOC.
Which FOC is that? If it’s Freightliner I’ll drop my complaints immediately.
Other things to consider:
  • RTT currently has no user management system, so that would need development (although one is under way for our ad free platform)
  • We currently have three staff and one volunteer. The three staff are me and a developer who work full time (albeit primarily on other projects at present for the industry), and a part time support manager who is in charge of the support system. The volunteer helps manage the underpinning reporting data.
  • We ergo have no capacity to moderate and handle a (frequently vocal) user base - this is based on our experience from RM etc. but that is a paid product so we build that into the operating cost.
  • I get (to my personal email) normally a few moans and grumbles a day about an incorrect allocation - given how the normal user profile of a lot of public systems work I imagine that would only increase with user sourced data. I have a good friend who works for Wikimedia Foundation, the people behind Wikipedia, and even they get complaints about inaccuracies in articles and the entire thing about Wikipedia is being able to be edited by anyone!!!

I'm really not bothered about losing a few users because I don't crowd source freight allocations - some other sites may well suit them better. I quote this from some time ago in this very thread:


One other thing to remark upon...

The way we actually have it implemented now for the vast majority of operators means that it incurs no cost to them, while it does cost RTT money - the amount depends on the integration. It fits quite nicely into the normal data streams that each operator must make use of as part of the network code. Each new operator costs us a few hundred quid to implement.
Thanks very much for your replies on this, I hope one day RTT will have all the TOCs and FOCs allocations. Sorry if I was overly harsh earlier. It’s an excellent resource.
 

43096

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Until I saw 5 66s on “pathed as electric” workings 1 day and decided I needed a better resource.
That’s you not understanding the data rather than anything else.
Which FOC is that? If it’s Freightliner I’ll drop my complaints immediately.
Freightliner’s new UK & Europe CEO (who takes up the post later this year) is definitely enthusiast-friendly. So perhaps a chance of getting Freightliner allocations added.
 

Tom

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As I'm sure most people are aware by now, I don't say what operators are on the way in case it falls through. :)
 

Class15

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As I'm sure most people are aware by now, I don't say what operators are on the way in case it falls through. :)
Sure.

That’s you not understanding the data rather than anything else.
I knew that they might not be 90s but thought that maybe a resource with allocations might be better.
Freightliner’s new UK & Europe CEO (who takes up the post later this year) is definitely enthusiast-friendly. So perhaps a chance of getting Freightliner allocations added.
Thanks for the info, I hope so. Even Railcam lacks allocations for many services so a GBRf style system for Freightliner would be wonderful. My Freightliner 90 tracking would be much easier!
 
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xotGD

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I like passenger trains, as interesting as freight trains are there's a lot more passenger trains for me to tick off, on a journey I might see 20 LNWR trains, I'd see 4 freight trains, and I'd very much like the Class 350 numbers :)
You mean you want to fudge the numbers of units you haven't been able to identify for yourself! ;)
 

pokemonsuper9

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You mean you want to fudge the numbers of units you haven't been able to identify for yourself! ;)
Indeed, you can see my unsuccessful (Except the freight train) attempt at that one time in the Non Urgent TOPS requests thread.
Now I just sit in a window seat and know when we'll be passing one, still rarely able to get the number.
I have a massive block here because WMT haven't joined RTT know your train (and c2c)

1F54 1134 Birmingham New Street to Liverpool Lime Street
2G50 1259 Crewe to Birmingham New Street
2O34 1309 Lichfield Trent Valley to Bromsgrove
1U33 1146 London Euston to Crewe
1U30 1213 Crewe to London Euston
4M94 0750 Felixstowe North F.L.T. to Lawley Street F.L.T.
1U35 1246 London Euston to Crewe
1Y37 1256 London Euston to Birmingham New Street
1Y38 1206 Birmingham New Street to London Euston
1Y39 1323 London Euston to Birmingham New Street
2K31 1309 London Euston to Milton Keynes Central
2T38 1345 Tring to London Euston
1U37 1346 London Euston to Crewe2D81 1330 London Euston to Watford Junction
1Y41 1356 London Euston to Birmingham New Street
2D51 1342 Southend Central to London Fenchurch Street
2B05 1357 Shoeburyness to London Fenchurch Street
5B64 1420 Shoeburyness C.S.D. to London Fenchurch Street2B07 1427 Shoeburyness to London Fenchurch Street
And the 357 attached to 357008 and 010

Even if you can only do a few (idk how difficult the system is to use) anything to add to my logs helps!
 

Tim_UK

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It works fine on Railcam and user-added allocations are 99% accurate but maybe on RTT it would be different. I don’t know. I have better ways to spend my time than on this thread frankly with this war being waged against me.

The reason why there are zillions of websites in the world is because all their owners have different ideas about what put on them and what they want them to do. And all these people need to feed themselves too.

More so, eco systems of similar but different website kind of help each other. Different ideas, budgets, data feeds and priorities. And different user stories. Traksy, opentraintimes, realtimetrains, railcam ….


You could always build your own website that works the way you want it. Or go big and buy one of the existing websites and then you can have it your way.

My guess is that paying for railcam for life will come in way easier and cheaper.
 

Horizon22

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At the end of the day, I don’t see why the rest of the TOCs haven’t contributed. What do they have to lose, other than annoying tweets from enthusiasts asking for gen - which I’m sure they’d be only too delighted to lose?

Ultimately this relies on data being accurate from control systems. Sometimes, fleet is not always correct. Multiple operators do rearrange units on almost hourly basis depending on requirements, disruption, convenience etc. and they don't always get this input straight away due to time constraints on controllers. Adding this might be additional pressure and hassle the operator doesn't want to place on their staff.

It works fine on Railcam and user-added allocations are 99% accurate but maybe on RTT it would be different. I don’t know. I have better ways to spend my time than on this thread frankly with this war being waged against me.

Hardly "a war". People disagree with you and have explained why. At least you have understood where the RTT team is coming from later.
 

bearhugger

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Just to add my two pence to the discussion between RTT & Railcam (I am a subscriber to Railcam & and have suscribed to Railmiles several times), I think that they serve slightly different functions - the clues are in the names. RTT is primarily poviding train running info & Railcam is primarily to watch trains.
For the Railcam user info there are a couple of things I want to comment on.
1: There are occasions that users either delibrately or mistakenly add false gen anf some end up getting a temporary ban. @Tom is quite right in wanting to keep this side of moderation to a minimum in my view.
2: The user allocations bit has a link to a disclaimer Realtime Trains Links that states
Realtime Trains Links
Why have a link to a competitor website?
Seems strange doesn't it ? !

RTT has some information to which we don't have access. Of course, we would rather have that information too so that we could present it to our members, but we recognise that our users find the link useful, so continue to offer it, despite these reservations.

I wonder why Railcam don't try (maybe they have & not got anywhere) to get access to the same allocation feeds the RTT uses? Perhaps they would rather spend their money on new cameras?
 

zwk500

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I wonder why Railcam don't try (maybe they have & not got anywhere) to get access to the same allocation feeds the RTT uses? Perhaps they would rather spend their money on new cameras?
Given the different purposes of the two sites, I think it's fair enough for Railcam to prioritise new camera sites, better cameras at existing sites, or the logistics of hosting the streams over getting the data feed that RTT uses.
 

bearhugger

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Given the different purposes of the two sites, I think it's fair enough for Railcam to prioritise new camera sites, better cameras at existing sites, or the logistics of hosting the streams over getting the data feed that RTT uses.
I agree, as I said the two sites do have slightly different functions. I would rather Railcam have more cams. RTT has slowly covered my area (the North-East) with all the operators I'm bothered about locally and just had to be patient.
 

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I wonder why Railcam don't try (maybe they have & not got anywhere) to get access to the same allocation feeds the RTT uses? Perhaps they would rather spend their money on new cameras?
I wonder if it’s also to do with them not being allowed to supply the info behind a paywall?
 

Tom

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The contractual position to get access to allocation feeds is somewhat awkward and require essentially contractual arrangements between three or four parties. There's somewhat of a bizarre arrangement where one of the contracts is "we have the data and we can technically give it to you, but you're not allowed to use it unless you get permission from all of these other parties". It is not an easy process and also requires feeds setting up that aren't typically widely available - RTT got access by chance.

There are broader movements through the industry to release it which I'm pushing on - but the approach of some of the TOCs (whose data it actually is) are very much along the lines of you can't restrict access to it.
 

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@Tom

I would like to say RTT is superb. Well done. Don't let the wibblers get you down. The product is brilliant. I will be honest and say I didn't "get" RTT when first suggested but now I tell everyone to use it and try to convert as many people as I can. By that I mean normal people using the train.

It is worth noting that, I suspect, the RTT team is one or two blokes who have designed a tool that is a useful for all rail users by relying on solid data. It is having solid, reliable and trustworthy data that builds a reputation and it is one worth hanging on to. Personally, I don't want wibblers adding random and often incorrect data to a useful tool and thus, while helping their own narrow needs, ruin a great resource for all rail users who don't care if a class 66 or class 90 is hauling a Felixstowe > Crewe box train!

keep up the good work!
 

zwk500

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@Tom

I would like to say RTT is superb. Well done. Don't let the wibblers get you down. The product is brilliant. I will be honest and say I didn't "get" RTT when first suggested but now I tell everyone to use it and try to convert as many people as I can. By that I mean normal people using the train.

It is worth noting that, I suspect, the RTT team is one or two blokes who have designed a tool that is a useful for all rail users by relying on solid data. It is having solid, reliable and trustworthy data that builds a reputation and it is one worth hanging on to. Personally, I don't want wibblers adding random and often incorrect data to a useful tool and thus, while helping their own narrow needs, ruin a great resource for all rail users who don't care if a class 66 or class 90 is hauling a Felixstowe > Crewe box train!

keep up the good work!
Seconded!
 

XAM2175

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@Tom

I would like to say RTT is superb. Well done. Don't let the wibblers get you down. The product is brilliant. I will be honest and say I didn't "get" RTT when first suggested but now I tell everyone to use it and try to convert as many people as I can. By that I mean normal people using the train.

It is worth noting that, I suspect, the RTT team is one or two blokes who have designed a tool that is a useful for all rail users by relying on solid data. It is having solid, reliable and trustworthy data that builds a reputation and it is one worth hanging on to. Personally, I don't want wibblers adding random and often incorrect data to a useful tool and thus, while helping their own narrow needs, ruin a great resource for all rail users who don't care if a class 66 or class 90 is hauling a Felixstowe > Crewe box train!

keep up the good work!
Hear hear.
 

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