Need help regarding a project on railway section controller

[curiousbud]

I'm working on a project and need to display a live map that tracks trains on railway tracks.
The map needs to update dynamically as new location data for the trains comes in.
Can I use this project (or a similar mapping technology) to build something like the live train tracker shown in the image below, and if so, how?
I'm not looking for an exact copy, but I'd appreciate ideas and guidance on the best approach.

[hiddewie]

I think such a display consists of different pieces of data:

• The (local) network of rail and stations and points
• Live data from trains on the network
• Live data about train protection with reserved / cleared blocks
• Layout of the network such that it looks readable and compact

The data of a local network could be extracted from OpenStreetMap, similar to how the OpenRailwayMap imports data. You would need a priece of OSM data that matches the region you want to display.

The layout of the network is more difficult to get right automatically. OpenStreetMap can provide the "graph" of railway lines and points connecting them, but the layout is not something present in OpenRailwayMap, so will probably have to be annotated manually. It might be possible to do a "best-effort" graph layout algorithm to generate something that looks a bit like the display in the image.

Live trains: there is an open issue #220 to integrate the Transitious project (see https://transitous.org/ and https://api.transitous.org/).

Live train protection data is hard, if not impossible, to come by, without integrating with railway infrastructure systems. I am not aware of any country that provides such live data as Open Data.

[curiousbud]

At the moment, I don’t need to work with live data. I can use historical data to simulate a live data stream—such as local train schedules—and introduce my own events like delays or disruptions.

I already have a map of a section I plan to use as my starting point. However, I’m struggling to figure out how to create an interactive map similar to the example above, where moving trains are displayed graphically. The coding part of this is where I’m stuck.

1. From my research, it seems I’ll need a graph-based data structure, possibly using data from OpenRailwayMap—but I’m not sure how to extract or use it properly.
2. I also need to understand how to animate moving elements (like trains) on the map.

To give an idea of what I’m aiming for, I want something similar to how Google Maps visualizes a live route when you start navigation. Ideally, I’d like to:

• Create a widget representing the full length of a train.
• Add widgets for platforms, signals, and crossings.

I believe my main challenge right now is understanding how to code and connect all these interactive elements together.

[MatisseBE]

@hiddewie Not to clutter this thread with irrelevant items for OP, but The Netherlands has http://spy.signaling.nl/ (http without the s), which is a live data feed of their high speed line's ETCS system.

The closest to a Europe wide train coverage is with https://tis-prod.rne.eu/ - which has data from different IM so it even integrates some freight trains too. However no free/open API...

[curiousbud]

@MatisseBE Thanks for sharing these links! — I’ll definitely check them out. Even though my current project is focused on India, it’s helpful to see how other systems handle live train data and TCS integration.

[hiddewie]

It really depends on what level you want to use the OpenRailwayMap.

You could embed the map as an <iframe> inside another page.

You could use the "entire" map including UI, then the https://github.com/hiddewie/OpenRailwayMap-vector/blob/master/proxy/js/ui.js has all the UI logic, including the code to create the Maplibre GL JS map.

You could also use just the Maplibre GL JS style, for example the standard style is available on https://openrailwaymap.app/style/standard.json. Then you could use that to host your own map, but use the layers from the OpenRailwayMap map style.

You could also use the raw data sources and build your own Maplibre GL JS style around that, displaying the features on the map you like, with the data straight from the tiles, for example https://openrailwaymap.app/railway_line_high,railway_text_km/10/719/454. The schema is output in the source, for example https://openrailwaymap.app/railway_line_high.

Note that there are no backwards compatibility guarantees on the data format of the UI, the tiles or the style details. The implementation details can and will change without notice.

[curiousbud]

@hiddewie can I somehow copy the exact visual like the map here: https://openrailwaymap.app/#view=17.74/19.789997/72.761548
Into my project. How can I create the map currently hosted in my project?