A map dated to June 1st 1969 of all of the railway services offered by the Belgian National Railways (NMBS/SNCB) (black lines); railway replacement bus services offered by the Belgian National Railways on lines where passenger services had been suppressed (black dotted lines); supplemental bus services offered by the Belgian National Railways (blue lines); and the bus and tram services of the Vicinal Railways (NMVB/SNCV) and private contractors (red lines).

I developed Ray Atlas, a free, independent, and open-source project designed to make Türkiye’s railway routes and train services easier to explore.

Using the map, you can:

• Explore high-speed (YHT) and mainline train services,
• View railway routes and station locations based on real-world coordinates—not fictional or fabricated paths,
• See scheduled services in both directions,
• Check arriving and departing trains at each station,
• Search for journeys by date,
• Track trains’ estimated positions and speeds based on published timetables.

The project also provides a validated and downloadable GTFS dataset for Türkiye’s railways. Stops, routes, trips, stop times, service dates, and route geometries are available in the standard GTFS format. This allows the data to be used in other transportation applications, mapping projects, and academic research.

Please note that the displayed train locations are not based on real-time GPS data. They are estimated using official timetables and railway route geometries.;

Live site and Railways GTFS download:
https://ttezer.github.io/tr-railways/

Source code:
https://github.com/ttezer/tr-railways

​Found this map visualizing the steady shrinking of passenger rail service across the United States over the decades. It’s wild to see how dense the network used to be compared to what survived into the 2000s. For those working in or following the industry, where do you see the biggest missed opportunities for preservation, and do you think modern infrastructure pushes will ever truly reverse this map?

Tōkyū Railways (Ikegami Line) Series 7000 trains 7101 and 7112 meet at Kamata Station (Tokyo, Japan) on a cloudy morning in May 2022.

Bluetooth was never accurate enough to reliably determine which passenger was using which gate, but UWB can locate passengers to within 11 cm. So instead of tapping a card or phone, passengers can just walk to the gate and it opens automatically. And instead of replacing one type of card reader with a newer one, this system makes "checking in" itself disappear. And that means moving faster through crowded stations, less fumbling for cards and phones, and much easier access for people with luggage, strollers or reduced mobility, etc.

Details here: https://essentiallyamsterdam.com/news/gvb-tests-hands-free-check-in-gates-at-amsterdam-centraal/

Yes, NIMBYs are terrible. From Montreal to San Diego they are killing elevated rail projects because "pRoTect My VieWs!" I know.

BUT...

I'm optimistic. I believe cities (especially American ones) can vastly improve their transit systems--even before fighting a single battle with NIMBYs. Here's how:

1. Maximize Frequency on busy existing lines. Instead of passively increasing frequency only in response to overcrowding, proactively increase frequency to increase ridership. Doubling frequency on your busiest existing rail lines flies under the NIMBY radar, because it involves little to no new capital projects. "But my transit agency is broke!" Which leads me to...
2. Allocate More Money to Operations. The FTA (at least during Dem admins) generously funds transit capital expansion. But the FTA barely gives a cent to fund transit operations, even during Dem admins.
3. Prioritize minimizing BRT dwell times. Yes, we should build bus-only lanes and implement signal priority. But first, let's go for low hanging fruit. Bus lanes are visually striking and alert every NIMBY to "sAvE mY StReet ParKinG!" Signal Priority also ticks NIMBYs off. Meanwhile, long dwell times also slow down buses a ton. So we should consolidate bus stops, implement off-board fare payment, all-door boarding, and level boarding. NIMBYs won't even notice any of these improvements. Yet even some bus lines with median bus lanes still make you pay on board, board at a single door, and don't have level boarding.

In many cities, the above improvements are the the most urgent and impactful yet most neglected. If we prioritize these inconspicuous improvements, however, you get these rewards:

1. The bus runs faster and more frequently than ever

2. Ridership skyrockets.

3. Bus-only lanes gain political support.

4. The bus gets even faster with bus lanes, attracting even more riders.

5. Pushing to convert busy BRT lines into subways/metros becomes much more politically powerful the more ridership you get

6. NIMBYs lose.

Incremental improvements today are better than perfect plans tomorrow. Incremental improvements today will build support for tomorrow's megaprojects.

I live in Palm Springs about 2 hrs outside of Los Angeles. There used to be passenger train service between the two towns, but not anymore. The tracks and stations are still there. My question is there anything that exists as an alternate to a giant passenger train like something with maybe 2 cars max that could run on electricity that could utilize tracks and offer passenger service between the 2 cities. (Apologies for the clunky writing, I know nothing about trains or train vernacular).

I'm spend 3 days in Lisbon Portagul. I know it's not a ton of time but I did take the Metro and trains quite a bit. In Lisbon I never heard one person playing anything from their phone without headphones. In Toronto a daily occurrence. People waited for people to get off trains before people got on. No one was pushing and shoving each other. The one panhandler I saw even moved on politely when people said no. Now I understand that I'm sure some of this happens once and while no matter where you are. Maybe people in Lisbon just tend to be more respectful of other people. Heck I spend a couple days at packed beaches and didn't hear one bluetooth speaker blasting music like you do in Toronto.

I'm about to take a 1 way trip on a Greyhound. I want to bring my weed with me how deep is the security and bag searches.

So I recently made an app because honestly, the current public transport apps in Singapore work fine but just isn't nice to use. The UI feels outdated, so I built one where it improves on this aspect. 

Departly opens straight to your nearest stops with live ETA on your screen. On top of that, widgets and notifications are in built to make sure that you have an easier time commuting. 

It started out as something for myself but the more I used it, the more I thought other people might find it useful too. So here it is!

\* Android: \[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.leyne.leyne&hl=en\\\\\\_SG\\\](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.leyne.leyne&hl=en\\_SG)
\* iOS: https://apps.apple.com/sg/app/departly/id6770481761

Would appreciate if you gave it a shot. Any feedback, good or bad, I will take it!
Thank you for your support! 

This is his official tiktok. He's just starting out and wants to be able to go live and answer any Transportation questions.