I am going to sleep now because it is pretty late in Norway and I can sense that I will have a very long work day tomorrow. It is crazy to see that World Train Map is on the front page. Holy shit!
Please give feedback meanwhile because it helps the site a lot. I want to add both many more routes and have a well functioning verification system. I hope that the map is giving all of you an enjoyable experience.
A lot of the "feedback" below seems to consist of people complaining that this is not a comprehensive map, despite your site clearly saying it's a " curated atlas of notable passenger routes — not every railway on Earth". Sigh.
Hacker News have a limited amount of comments which I can leave. so will give the link to my twitter: https://x.com/Flightmussy which I want to use as the communication channel besides the email.
I have gotten perhaps a bit too much harsh feedback with this project, since I have posted it on the RailUK Forum and OSM community to give feedback about this project. Until yesterday, the website was called Trainrouter, but I decided to change the url because it was a bad fit for what the website really tried to do.
You should have seen how bad this project was before I posted it on RailUK.
The map is ok, but mostly I'm interested in the number of map apps people are cranking out with AI. The design elements pretty clearly mark them as such (and it's even more obvious once you poke around a bit). I love maps, so I get it, they tend to hook people, and the relative density of information can be very high.
I work in the electricity space (and of course we have a map[0]), and it has been wild to see the number of "I was a PM at a B2B SaaS/AI company and now I'm here to solve the grid with this vibe-coded tool", which inevitably involves a map. Seems like an inflection point was hit sometime late last year where first SMEs could make little apps they couldn't before, and then it expanded further into people who truly don't know a space but the AI can make it look like they do to other people who also don't, and the cycle continues.
Openrailway is a bit more technical product than World Train Map. The goal of World Train Map is to have a good selection of almost all passenger rail routes around the world, where the user can hover over each route to get a quick story.
The tracing on World Train Map is based on OSM and I am thankful for both their tracings and the community which has corrected this project. Most casual users like me are not interested in signals or the technical stuff about the line, but rather simpler technical details such as speed, average speed and where you can take the route from and to.
Besides OSM is really all rail routes, while World Train Map is only passenger service.
Besides the obvious fact you stated, I think they actually show different information: the thing we're discussing is a map of popular or famous or remarkable train routes, not the map of all the railways in the world.
Then you must be sad that the "AI slop" is a user friendly, working toy whereas the OSM data one is just a miserable static database-render.
Go and compare them. I love getting lost in data, and I was happy to see all the overloaded, very badly curated, non-dynamic OpenRailwayMap. I cannot click on a railway to get more info, the electrification map is just a mess of many similarly shaded colors. Not user friendly, even if it _has_ the data, it is unfriendly to the user, and makes exploration hard.
I say this as an OSM enthusiast and contributor.
Compare this to the "AI slop"; even though at first I ran into a misinformation (Zambia central links to London Central), it still made me stay on the page and explore some scenic routes. I obviously knew that this is NOT all the railways, but something fun to engage with and maybe even learn / explore some new things, hell maybe start planning my winter vacation.
I guess what I am saying is: your comment has no added value, just sourness, negativity.
I hope the author keeps iterating on this project, eventually make it more OSM-interconnected, fix the tiny bugs and focus on bringing joy to us who are interested. After all, this product is out in public now, whereas your miserable comment will get buried here for good.
This is a very dangerous site for train travel geeks. Like, what am I doing with my life? I should be catching the Nile Valley Sleeper, 879km "Overnight up the Nile past Luxor’s temples: wake to feluccas and the First Cataract at Aswan."
I have the same feeling. There are so many places and things to experience which I want to do. I am not sure what I am doing with my life either.
In a way I have to grow up and become "successful", but at the same time I would rather just sit in a train somewhere in the alps with the craziest view, have a small wine bottle at train table and trying the best ice cream ever in a random North Italian town.
I really admire the train vloggers on Youtube because that seems so cool to do.
I do not know where to even start, there are so many routes that I want to do right now.
This is missing just about all of the short lines in America. So by default the is NOT a world train map. This link and website is misleading to think it is the world of train maps. Disappointing.
Amazing. Also super interesting to see that when you filter for high speed rail it’s basically Japan, China and Europe. America (north and south), Africa - basically the rest of the world is in dark ages
The high speed filter is a bit misleading. Amsterdam to Berlin is marked as high speed. But it takes 6 hours and 41 minutes to cover the ~580km distance. It might technically qualify as high speed but it doesn’t feel like it.
Washington DC to NYC is comparable.
At night I can legally drive to Amsterdam faster by car. 670km on the Autobahn in 6 hours can be done. Not as comfortable of course, but just to prove the point.
I took the Amsterdam to Berlin route a few days ago with almost two hour delays because of some diversions. There are very few proper high speed tracks in Germany. Mostly the trains are routed over older tracks that aren't suitable for higher speeds.
Basically the only stretch where the train to Amsterdam might hit anywhere close to its maximum speed is the 20% of the journey between Berlin and Wolfsburg. And even there it slows down frequently. But you might see it go 250 km/hour for a few minutes.
I took a proper highspeed train from Madrid to Valencia a few years ago. It goes 300km/hour. It leaves Madrid, accelerates. And then a bit over 1.5 hours later you arrive in Valencia. It's about 400km. The train has one stop about mid way. Otherwise, it stays at its maximum speed the whole journey. At that speed, Amsterdam-Berlin should be doable in a bit over 2 hours.
I am aware of that. Lines like Karlovy Vary - Loket or Strakonice - Tabor are missing. I have travel by rail in Czech Republic a bit too much according to my friends lol.
The reason why they are not added yet is because I am working on a verification system. I see that there are many routes in Czech Republic which are not shown either in OBB Scotty. I will see if I can use Ceske Drahy to verify and get at least almost all routes.
World Train Map is, by design, a curated map of interesting passenger trains, not a comprehensive map.
The problem with every comprehensive map I've seen is that they are way too comprehensive. If you look at Congo on https://www.openrailwaymap.org/, you might assume the country has a functional passenger railway network, when almost most lines shown were for bulk cargo only, fell into disrepair in the 1960s and certainly haven't had passenger services in decades if ever. Even for first world places like Australia there are tons of supposedly "main lines" listed that are nothing of the sort.
It's not comprehensive. More than 75% of the passenger lines are missing in Belgium. I imagine this is the same for many other countries, especially the ones with a lot of passenger service.
Interesting! It's definitely not complete, quite a few reasonably common passenger routes in Europe I know are missing. But a fun idea, one I would love to play around with more were it more complete
The last few days I have been working on a new verification system. I hope to be able to add many more routes through this system, so that World Train Map can have high quality routes that are verified.
I am trying to use a verification system to get the data from, however it is an incomplete system. The idea of the system is the route being traced either by OSM or local operators data and either use OBB Scotty (for European routes) or local operators data to make sure that the route actually exists.
For example this is how I got the data for the route Sarajevo - Ploce.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from 2 OpenStreetMap relations, their own nodes end to end: relation 2674114 (169 km), relation 1646595 (30 km) — 192 km of the route between them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 9 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: ŽFBiH red vožnje — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
There is also something about train routes, but these messages are conflicting... also you don't immediately see explanation that it is curated d that's why people complain about missing routes.
Really hard to understand purpose when visiting first time.
I am going to sleep now because it is pretty late in Norway and I can sense that I will have a very long work day tomorrow. It is crazy to see that World Train Map is on the front page. Holy shit!
Please give feedback meanwhile because it helps the site a lot. I want to add both many more routes and have a well functioning verification system. I hope that the map is giving all of you an enjoyable experience.
I got a question . Whats the core purpose behind this endeavour ?
Ive seen a lot of other website tracking different things in the world. Is there a monetisation angle or a leisurely hobby ?
A lot of the "feedback" below seems to consist of people complaining that this is not a comprehensive map, despite your site clearly saying it's a " curated atlas of notable passenger routes — not every railway on Earth". Sigh.
Thanks a lot!
Hacker News have a limited amount of comments which I can leave. so will give the link to my twitter: https://x.com/Flightmussy which I want to use as the communication channel besides the email.
I have gotten perhaps a bit too much harsh feedback with this project, since I have posted it on the RailUK Forum and OSM community to give feedback about this project. Until yesterday, the website was called Trainrouter, but I decided to change the url because it was a bad fit for what the website really tried to do.
You should have seen how bad this project was before I posted it on RailUK.
The map is ok, but mostly I'm interested in the number of map apps people are cranking out with AI. The design elements pretty clearly mark them as such (and it's even more obvious once you poke around a bit). I love maps, so I get it, they tend to hook people, and the relative density of information can be very high.
I work in the electricity space (and of course we have a map[0]), and it has been wild to see the number of "I was a PM at a B2B SaaS/AI company and now I'm here to solve the grid with this vibe-coded tool", which inevitably involves a map. Seems like an inflection point was hit sometime late last year where first SMEs could make little apps they couldn't before, and then it expanded further into people who truly don't know a space but the AI can make it look like they do to other people who also don't, and the cycle continues.
[0] https://www.gridstatus.io/map?zoom=4.45¢er=-95.70000,40....
I would not bet on AI. I think this map is older.
I was wondering because I don't know why it should be considered AI, but whois tells me the domain was registered yesterday?
Really nice, how does this compare to https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ ?
Openrailway is a bit more technical product than World Train Map. The goal of World Train Map is to have a good selection of almost all passenger rail routes around the world, where the user can hover over each route to get a quick story.
The tracing on World Train Map is based on OSM and I am thankful for both their tracings and the community which has corrected this project. Most casual users like me are not interested in signals or the technical stuff about the line, but rather simpler technical details such as speed, average speed and where you can take the route from and to.
Besides OSM is really all rail routes, while World Train Map is only passenger service.
One is AI slop, one is direct OSM data
Besides the obvious fact you stated, I think they actually show different information: the thing we're discussing is a map of popular or famous or remarkable train routes, not the map of all the railways in the world.
Then you must be sad that the "AI slop" is a user friendly, working toy whereas the OSM data one is just a miserable static database-render.
Go and compare them. I love getting lost in data, and I was happy to see all the overloaded, very badly curated, non-dynamic OpenRailwayMap. I cannot click on a railway to get more info, the electrification map is just a mess of many similarly shaded colors. Not user friendly, even if it _has_ the data, it is unfriendly to the user, and makes exploration hard.
I say this as an OSM enthusiast and contributor.
Compare this to the "AI slop"; even though at first I ran into a misinformation (Zambia central links to London Central), it still made me stay on the page and explore some scenic routes. I obviously knew that this is NOT all the railways, but something fun to engage with and maybe even learn / explore some new things, hell maybe start planning my winter vacation.
I guess what I am saying is: your comment has no added value, just sourness, negativity.
I hope the author keeps iterating on this project, eventually make it more OSM-interconnected, fix the tiny bugs and focus on bringing joy to us who are interested. After all, this product is out in public now, whereas your miserable comment will get buried here for good.
This is a very dangerous site for train travel geeks. Like, what am I doing with my life? I should be catching the Nile Valley Sleeper, 879km "Overnight up the Nile past Luxor’s temples: wake to feluccas and the First Cataract at Aswan."
Hahahaha thanks!
I have the same feeling. There are so many places and things to experience which I want to do. I am not sure what I am doing with my life either.
In a way I have to grow up and become "successful", but at the same time I would rather just sit in a train somewhere in the alps with the craziest view, have a small wine bottle at train table and trying the best ice cream ever in a random North Italian town.
I really admire the train vloggers on Youtube because that seems so cool to do.
I do not know where to even start, there are so many routes that I want to do right now.
This is missing just about all of the short lines in America. So by default the is NOT a world train map. This link and website is misleading to think it is the world of train maps. Disappointing.
It's missing some weird ones for having others operating as part of the same public transport systems too.
Old data? Where's the data from?
Amazing. Also super interesting to see that when you filter for high speed rail it’s basically Japan, China and Europe. America (north and south), Africa - basically the rest of the world is in dark ages
The high speed filter is a bit misleading. Amsterdam to Berlin is marked as high speed. But it takes 6 hours and 41 minutes to cover the ~580km distance. It might technically qualify as high speed but it doesn’t feel like it.
Washington DC to NYC is comparable.
At night I can legally drive to Amsterdam faster by car. 670km on the Autobahn in 6 hours can be done. Not as comfortable of course, but just to prove the point.
I took the Amsterdam to Berlin route a few days ago with almost two hour delays because of some diversions. There are very few proper high speed tracks in Germany. Mostly the trains are routed over older tracks that aren't suitable for higher speeds.
Basically the only stretch where the train to Amsterdam might hit anywhere close to its maximum speed is the 20% of the journey between Berlin and Wolfsburg. And even there it slows down frequently. But you might see it go 250 km/hour for a few minutes.
I took a proper highspeed train from Madrid to Valencia a few years ago. It goes 300km/hour. It leaves Madrid, accelerates. And then a bit over 1.5 hours later you arrive in Valencia. It's about 400km. The train has one stop about mid way. Otherwise, it stays at its maximum speed the whole journey. At that speed, Amsterdam-Berlin should be doable in a bit over 2 hours.
Tracks in Czechia are mostly missing. It’s known as a country with the most dense railroad network in the world.
I am aware of that. Lines like Karlovy Vary - Loket or Strakonice - Tabor are missing. I have travel by rail in Czech Republic a bit too much according to my friends lol.
The reason why they are not added yet is because I am working on a verification system. I see that there are many routes in Czech Republic which are not shown either in OBB Scotty. I will see if I can use Ceske Drahy to verify and get at least almost all routes.
Also a TON of trains in Poland.
Nice work!
But missing the iconic Ghan in Australia https://digital-classroom.nma.gov.au/images/route-taken-ghan
Also missing (a big chunk of) the Indian Pacific (east to west coast, has passenger services several times a week).
Just turn the luxury filter on;)
https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ is much more comprehensive. It's open street map data, but filtered for railway infrastructure.
World Train Map is, by design, a curated map of interesting passenger trains, not a comprehensive map.
The problem with every comprehensive map I've seen is that they are way too comprehensive. If you look at Congo on https://www.openrailwaymap.org/, you might assume the country has a functional passenger railway network, when almost most lines shown were for bulk cargo only, fell into disrepair in the 1960s and certainly haven't had passenger services in decades if ever. Even for first world places like Australia there are tons of supposedly "main lines" listed that are nothing of the sort.
How is it comprehensive? Did someone just say “be comprehensive” to their agent?
Quick Look in Mexico and it’s not good.
It's not comprehensive. More than 75% of the passenger lines are missing in Belgium. I imagine this is the same for many other countries, especially the ones with a lot of passenger service.
Are you taking about World Train Map here? This whole subthread is about how it's not even trying to be comprehensive.
That's more like it, the Ghan (AU) track is shown
North Korea is missing. How should Kim Jong Un travel on his armored train to China?
I wonder where the data is sourced. It has lots of detail about some VIA Rail routes in Canada and entirely misses others.
Interesting! It's definitely not complete, quite a few reasonably common passenger routes in Europe I know are missing. But a fun idea, one I would love to play around with more were it more complete
The last few days I have been working on a new verification system. I hope to be able to add many more routes through this system, so that World Train Map can have high quality routes that are verified.
This is super cool, but at least by a quick glance, I think the coverage for China is very incomplete.
Košice-Prešov link is missing
This is very cool! Out of curiosity, where are you getting the data from?
Thanks!
I am trying to use a verification system to get the data from, however it is an incomplete system. The idea of the system is the route being traced either by OSM or local operators data and either use OBB Scotty (for European routes) or local operators data to make sure that the route actually exists.
For example this is how I got the data for the route Sarajevo - Ploce.
How this line was checked - Line drawn from 2 OpenStreetMap relations, their own nodes end to end: relation 2674114 (169 km), relation 1646595 (30 km) — 192 km of the route between them - Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 9 m from it - The operator publishes this line's timetable: ŽFBiH red vožnje — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
AI lets people produce things that look authoritative, but are crap. Tiresome.
At first glance, https://www.openrailwaymap.org seems much better
That’s a completely different thing - a map of all railway infrastructure, vs a map of passenger rail lines.
On mobile you're welcomed with following text
> The world railway map
There is also something about train routes, but these messages are conflicting... also you don't immediately see explanation that it is curated d that's why people complain about missing routes.
Really hard to understand purpose when visiting first time.
beautiful website, congrats. would be cool if every rail route could be mapped. are there other resources?
https://indiarailinfo.com/atlas
^^ for indian railways.
India is so barren
amazed and intrigued. great work.
Whatever this AI slop is.. the better way would be to use OSM data. If you want more “curated” - there should be corresponding metadata in OSM.
according to this "map", there is only HSR train route from Shanghai to Hangzhou. in fact, it shows there are literally just HSR rails in China.
a highly inaccurate map is worse than not having such a "map".
I was about to say the same thing, having just coincidentally been looking at China's map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_China#/media...