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Flightmussy 6 hours ago [-]
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.
decimalenough 13 minutes ago [-]
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.
cwal37 4 hours ago [-]
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.
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.
tapland 4 hours ago [-]
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?
ks2048 4 hours ago [-]
AI lets people produce things that look authoritative, but are crap. Tiresome.
That’s a completely different thing - a map of all railway infrastructure, vs a map of passenger rail lines.
febusravenga 6 minutes ago [-]
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.
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.
quietthrow 5 hours ago [-]
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
artisinal 35 minutes ago [-]
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.
angry_octet 4 hours ago [-]
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."
Also missing (a big chunk of) the Indian Pacific (east to west coast, has passenger services several times a week).
kimos 1 hours ago [-]
I wonder where the data is sourced. It has lots of detail about some VIA Rail routes in Canada and entirely misses others.
rjmunro 5 hours ago [-]
https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ is much more comprehensive. It's open street map data, but filtered for railway infrastructure.
decimalenough 5 hours ago [-]
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.
ks2048 4 hours ago [-]
How is it comprehensive? Did someone just say “be comprehensive” to their agent?
Quick Look in Mexico and it’s not good.
decimalenough 15 minutes ago [-]
Are you taking about World Train Map here? This whole subthread is about how it's not even trying to be comprehensive.
tcumulus 33 minutes ago [-]
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.
xx__yy 4 hours ago [-]
That's more like it, the Ghan (AU) track is shown
dvh 1 hours ago [-]
Košice-Prešov link is missing
ykl 3 hours ago [-]
This is super cool, but at least by a quick glance, I think the coverage for China is very incomplete.
RugnirViking 6 hours ago [-]
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
Flightmussy 6 hours ago [-]
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.
throw-the-towel 6 hours ago [-]
This is very cool! Out of curiosity, where are you getting the data from?
ofcrpls 6 hours ago [-]
India is so barren
asios 4 hours ago [-]
amazed and intrigued. great work.
ks2048 4 hours ago [-]
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.
songhonglei1985 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
tw1984 2 hours ago [-]
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".
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 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....
Old data? Where's the data from?
At first glance, https://www.openrailwaymap.org seems much better
> 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.
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.
But missing the iconic Ghan in Australia https://digital-classroom.nma.gov.au/images/route-taken-ghan
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.
Quick Look in Mexico and it’s not good.
a highly inaccurate map is worse than not having such a "map".