RealTimeTrains website

[trainmania100]

I'm not sure I've ever seen an off booked route update in the feed. It's possible they've dropped out of use now that there are multiple other reporting systems in place.

The next report stanox / timestamp is in the 0003 messages I think, and if it's empty it suggests the train is off route. At least that's how I think it is. According to the open data wiki there's also a offroute_ind in the reports

Wouldn't look too good in a timetable like this but I guess it depends how you do it

0900 Gatwick airport booked
0904 Three bridges booked
???? Crawley off route 0907
???? Faygate off route 0910
0906 balcombe tunnel junction booked

 

[Class15]

Yes, Railcam does off route stuff. It’s very useful, and it would be good to see other websites deploy the same approach. See this.

Image shows Railcam data of a diverted service, showing ‘off route’ at a location it was not booked to pass and no reports at locations it was diverted away from.

 

[takno]

The next report stanox / timestamp is in the 0003 messages I think, and if it's empty it suggests the train is off route. At least that's how I think it is. According to the open data wiki there's also a offroute_ind in the reports

Wouldn't look too good in a timetable like this but I guess it depends how you do it

0900 Gatwick airport booked
0904 Three bridges booked
???? Crawley off route 0907
???? Faygate off route 0910
0906 balcombe tunnel junction booked

The ability is there to represent them, I'm just suggesting that I've never seen it populated. To be fair I do need to rewrite Traksy's consumer at some point - it throws away quite a lot of data which would potentially be quite useful, and it wouldn't 100% surprise me if one of those things was off-route messages.

 

[Tom]

As I think I’ve indicated before in this thread, we have plans on how to handle off route messages. We are now a lot less busy than we have been for a while, so have more capacity for this. We are planning a major update to RTT in about 6-8 weeks which will start the ground work for this to be released.

 

[Tony2]

The search box facility for a particular vehicle has been a godsend to enthusiasts, but I’m wondering if it would be possible to show the entire diagram a vehicle works for the particular day? ie display or list every allocation for that particular vehicle?

Apologies if that’s been mentioned previously.

 

[Class15]

The search box facility for a particular vehicle has been a godsend to enthusiasts, but I’m wondering if it would be possible to show the entire diagram a vehicle works for the particular day? ie display or list every allocation for that particular vehicle?

Apologies if that’s been mentioned previously.

Now that is a fantastic idea! Seconded.

 

[MerlinRail 804]

The search box facility for a particular vehicle has been a godsend to enthusiasts, but I’m wondering if it would be possible to show the entire diagram a vehicle works for the particular day? ie display or list every allocation for that particular vehicle?

Apologies if that’s been mentioned previously.

That would amazing. I’ll third that one!
Mayme could also be able to scroll through the previous 7 days to see that vehicle’s past workings too?

 

[Melancholia]

I don't know if it's RTT's side, or the data it receives, but some London Paddington to Swansea trains show as "London Paddington to London Paddington", as seen here:

Realtime Trains | 1B15 0828 London Paddington to London Paddington | 27/04/2025

Real-time train running information for 1B15 0828 departure from London Paddington to London Paddington on 27/04/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

What it looks like is if part of that train splits at Swansea, and stays on the platform to attach to a London bound service, it shows as one through service.

 

[Class15]

That would amazing. I’ll third that one!
Mayme could also be able to scroll through the previous 7 days to see that vehicle’s past workings too?

Indeed! I like that idea!

 

[pokemonsuper9]

I don't know if it's RTT's side, or the data it receives, but some London Paddington to Swansea trains show as "London Paddington to London Paddington", as seen here:

Realtime Trains | 1B15 0828 London Paddington to London Paddington | 27/04/2025

Real-time train running information for 1B15 0828 departure from London Paddington to London Paddington on 27/04/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

What it looks like is if part of that train splits at Swansea, and stays on the platform to attach to a London bound service, it shows as one through service.

I think that's a consequence of the data, since RTT connects trains that join into single lists (on simple mode)

 

[Tom]

The search box facility for a particular vehicle has been a godsend to enthusiasts, but I’m wondering if it would be possible to show the entire diagram a vehicle works for the particular day? ie display or list every allocation for that particular vehicle?

Apologies if that’s been mentioned previously.

It is a deliberate choice not to.

I don't know if it's RTT's side, or the data it receives, but some London Paddington to Swansea trains show as "London Paddington to London Paddington", as seen here:

Realtime Trains | 1B15 0828 London Paddington to London Paddington | 27/04/2025

Real-time train running information for 1B15 0828 departure from London Paddington to London Paddington on 27/04/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

What it looks like is if part of that train splits at Swansea, and stays on the platform to attach to a London bound service, it shows as one through service.

This is dodgy portion working data - the join at Swansea on that service is marked as public incorrectly. RTT has some level of protection against it but it can’t fix everything.

 

[Tony2]

It is a deliberate choice not to.

No worries, keep up the great work!

 

[sqwizz]

Just in case this comes in handy for anyone else, I created a bookmarklet to list only the TOCs on the current page, to make it easier for myself to use the TOC search filter dropdown.

javascript:(function(){const e=document.getElementsByClassName("toc");var a=[];for(let i=1;i<e.length;i++)a.push(e[i].textContent);let u=[...new Set(a)];alert(u);})();

To use, just make a bookmark (Firefox, Chrome, etc), give it any name you like and paste the above code into the URL field. When you click the bookmark an alert box will pop up with the TOCs separated by comma. Yes it's quick and ugly, sorry about that.

 

[takno]

Just in case this comes in handy for anyone else, I created a bookmarklet to list only the TOCs on the current page, to make it easier for myself to use the TOC search filter dropdown.

To use, just make a bookmark (Firefox, Chrome, etc), give it any name you like and paste the above code into the URL field. When you click the bookmark an alert box will pop up with the TOCs separated by comma. Yes it's quick and ugly, sorry about that.

Not a massive fan of bookmarklets, but I'd suggest this modification:

javascript: (function(){const e=Array.from(document.getElementsByClassName("toc")).map(e=>e.textContent);document.querySelectorAll("select#toc option").forEach(o=>{if (o.value!="All" && !e.includes(o.value)) o.remove()})})();

Which, when run, removes TOCs which aren't on the current page from the select altogether

 

[sqwizz]

Which, when run, removes TOCs which aren't on the current page from the select altogether

Thanks! Yes instead of the bookmarklet it would be better in an extension, I thought of adding checkboxes in the top left so I could hide/show multiple at once, but I'm too lazy and getting the extension signed etc.. bleaugh. Thanks again for the much better version.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

It is a deliberate choice not to.

Any chance you could elaborate on that?

 

[Chiltern006]

I suspect it can cause an issue when disruption occurs and set-swaps happen. Just hazarding a guess though.

 

[Andy Pacer]

May have missed this but just noticed London Northwestern Railway (and of course West Midlands Trains) now showing allocations, very useful!

 

[1D54]

Hi.

Does RTT show the movements of steam locos on the mainline network? One was seen in the Leicester area an hour ago and i can find no information on it.

Thanks.

 

[ainsworth74]

Railtours and similar will apppear, was it this:

Realtime Trains | 5Z30 0902 Cardiff Brickyard Siding to Leicester L.I.P. | 02/05/2025

Real-time train running information for 5Z30 0902 departure from Cardiff Brickyard Siding to Leicester L.I.P. on 02/05/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[LA50041]

Hi.

Does RTT show the movements of steam locos on the mainline network? One was seen in the Leicester area an hour ago and i can find no information on it.

Thanks.

it does show the movements in detailed view. I believe that was 5Z30 Cardiff -Leicester, with Black 5 45212

 

[1D54]

Thank you both.

I saw that on RTT but stupidly was looking for something heading to the SVR. Cardiff Brickyard Siding means nothing to me so i took it to be a light engine on the way to Leicester LIP.

 

[ainsworth74]

I saw that on RTT but stupidly was looking for something heading to the SVR. Cardiff Brickyard Siding means nothing to me so i took it to be a light engine on the way to Leicester LIP.

The clue to me was the operator, WR = West Coast Railways.

 

[1D54]

What is it doing at Leicester?

 

[chrisjo]

Cardiff Brickyard Siding means nothing to me ...

It's one of the places where GWR trains terminating at CDF go before they turn into GWR trains starting at CDF and heading back to England.

 

[1D54]

To answer my own question looks like Black 5 45212 is on a Railtour tomorrow from Newcastle to Norwich and i could very well be over that way so will pick it up at Ely.

 

[DavidGrain]

Steam locals are shown on RTT as diesel locos probably because there is usually a diesel loco in the train, either as a back up or because some tours require a reversal which would require the diesel to actually haul the train for some parts of the journey. Some tours may have a steam engine coming on for just part of the journey. My first rail tour was to Carlisle and we were steam hauled only over the S & C. Also in planning routes not all locos are capable of maintaining line speed so the timetable planner needs to know the power of the loco and the load weight. It would be much easier to look at the tables for an equivalent diesel loco that have to have the same information for every steam loco.

 

[takno]

Steam locals are shown on RTT as diesel locos probably because there is usually a diesel loco in the train, either as a back up or because some tours require a reversal which would require the diesel to actually haul the train for some parts of the journey. Some tours may have a steam engine coming on for just part of the journey. My first rail tour was to Carlisle and we were steam hauled only over the S & C. Also in planning routes not all locos are capable of maintaining line speed so the timetable planner needs to know the power of the loco and the load weight. It would be much easier to look at the tables for an equivalent diesel loco that have to have the same information for every steam loco.

The code D in CIF is used for diesel and steam haulage. Reversals and changes of motive power are perfectly doable within the timetabling system, so I'd guess it's just because steam is always a weird edge case which it isn't worth supporting another "normal" code for.