Worldwide Rail Network Map

https://www.openrailwaymap.org/?style=standard&lat=51.58248&lon=15.6501&zoom=3

by stereo • 4 years ago

201 77 4 years ago

stereo• 4 years ago

A detailed map of the world's railway infrastructure, built on OpenStreetMap data.

This is one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time. I can't believe the time I've wasted looking at all the old rail lines and where they go from the places I've lived.

Many thanks to the team

whydoyoucare• 4 years ago

Great stuff! I tried zooming in to some of the dense Indian railway networks and surprisingly it has a very good amount of detail.

kposehn2• 4 years ago

I was curious how accurate it is for India. Such an amazingly dense and intricate rail network.

lephty• 4 years ago

Pretty accurate, actually. Even has details of the several recently built city metro rail systems.

neogodless• 4 years ago

Some historical discussions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15965912 (Dec 20, 2017) 58 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29950286 (Jan 15, 2022) 15 comments

detritus• 4 years ago

Crikey, the Beeching review really did change Britain's rail infrastructure... .

jamiek88• 4 years ago

It’s so sad.

kposehn2• 4 years ago

Always love this when it comes up on HN. There are some inaccuracies that only a total train nerd such as myself would find (or care about) but those do nothing to detract from how good it is :)

timeon• 4 years ago

Could those inaccuracies be edited through OpenStreetMap?

playingalong• 4 years ago

Yes. ORWM takes directly from OSM

jumelles3• 4 years ago

Fix them! https://www.openstreetmap.org/

qwezxcrty2• 4 years ago

A bit confusing as it somehow includes metro lines in China that are still in construction or even only planned, and it seem there is no way to filter them out.

harry-wood2• 4 years ago

If you can pinpoint the data in OpenStreetMap we could try to figure out if this is something wrong in the map data (Anyone can fix it!), or maybe it's a tag they should be filtering out on the OpenRailwayMap rendering.

qwezxcrty2• 4 years ago

Hmmm, the specific case I was looking at is the North extension of Nanchang Metro Line 1 to 昌北机场. Which doesn't exist yet.

I'll also have a look myself tomorrow.

abbusfoflouotne• 4 years ago

Lived in Barcelona for two summers, loved going back over the metro lines (one of the best things about the city imho) and looking at all my favorite places. Excellent detail!!

sdoering• 4 years ago

Not far from the place where I live there is a small railroad in an old bog. It is not connected to any major railroad line. Just a tourist attraction. And available in the map. I am thrilled.

jumelles3• 4 years ago

mempko• 4 years ago

China is impressive. USA not so much...

bill38• 4 years ago

Corsica railway is missing :( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemins_de_fer_de_la_Corse

jumelles3• 4 years ago

Zoom in

11thEarlOfMar2• 4 years ago

Almost on topic...

When we were kids, my brother studied a railroad atlas any time he wasn't in school or church. This thing was a monster, large book with hundreds of pages of maps. Literally county by county across the Unites States, all railroad lines and yards. I'd go to sleep Friday night while he sat in an overstuffed chair, studying. I'd wake up at 7:30 AM Saturday... he hadn't moved. Still there, a few pages further into the atlas.

As an adult, he worked for the Illinois Central as a hump yard operator. Later the Iowa Pacific, and ultimately found himself doing customer service for a small line in Texas, mainly shipping sand. His job frequently included finding 'lost' cars somewhere in the US, on any line that happened to be in that car's route. He was really good at it.

One notable call had him searching railroad yards in Missouri. He had a strong hunch that the misplaced car was on a spur where that yard stored cars that had lost their way. But he needed to confirm. He could have called that yard, but getting the right person to check logs or go hunt was always a hassle. So... He Googled up the yard, zoomed in on the spur and noted that Google helpfully displayed several businesses in a strip mall backed up to the spur. He dialed up 'Patty's Nail Salon' and the call went something like: "Hi Patty, this is Craig with the Iowa Pacific. I'm tracking down a misplaced car and I have reason to believe it is sitting on the spur outside your back window. Would you mind checking for a car with ID 123876?"

Extended pause....

"I'll be right back!"

Sure enough, there is was.

quarterdime• 4 years ago

Is your brother still in the industry? If so, what are his thoughts about the current working conditions and the possible strike beginning Friday?

nonethewiser2• 4 years ago

What exactly was he studying? What you describe is pretty intense and sounds more involved than looking with intrigue.

Was he memorizing names? Routes? Charting different paths?

11thEarlOfMar2• 4 years ago

Yes. We used to drive cross-country twice a year. Any time, day or night, if we encountered a rail line, he knew what rail line it was, what town was upline to the left and what town was upline to the right. He literally memorized that atlas.

beefield• 4 years ago

I had to google because I was pretty sure I had heard the story before. and I think I had... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29057134

harry-wood2• 4 years ago

There's another site called https://openstationmap.org/ which shows some details within train stations in a fun 3D way, letting you flip through the "levels" data (Again, all data from OpenStreetMap). I feel like these two could combine nicely somehow.

mqus3• 4 years ago

I didn't know that site, thanks! But I have to note that those stations are missing pretty basic and crucial information like platform numbers. I probably won't be using those maps anytime soon.

jabroni_salad• 4 years ago

huh, so there is a line between des moines and minneapolis. Just no passenger service :(

eherot• 4 years ago

You will find this to be a common theme across most of the country

always2slow3• 4 years ago

Is there anything like this but for fiber optic?

nerdkid93• 4 years ago

There's this, but it doesn't appear to be fully complete: https://www.infrapedia.com/app

always2slow3• 4 years ago

This is a good start, thanks for sharing!

jhugo3• 4 years ago

For undersea cables, TeleGeography's map is a great source: https://www.submarinecablemap.com/

always2slow3• 4 years ago

This is a really cool map, but doesn't provide useful information for someone who wants last mile fiber. I would love to see this expanded to every fiber cable laid everywhere.

lmm• 4 years ago

For a "network map" I'd hope to have something that showed which routes services ran on. An international version of that would be really cool.

mqus3• 4 years ago

data-wise this could be possible. I know at least in Germany, there is also data in OSM about each line and which tracks they are using.

danhor2• 4 years ago

This is basically the transit or ÖPNVKarte layer on https://www.openstreetmap.org/.

But that data is less complete and only shows route names at high zoom levels

stanislavb• 4 years ago

Poor Australia...

mbo• 4 years ago

I'm not sure if you're aware but the places where the rail lines (the coasts) are pretty much 80% of the Australian population. Australian rail is... not the greatest, but there is rail where people actually live.

Grimburger3• 4 years ago

Australian rail is... not the greatest

Last time I went home I bought a 3 month NSW regional rail pass, which will also get you to Brisbane and Melbourne.

Nearly 70% of my booked trips were replaced with buses. One from Sydney to Canberra ended up being 7 hours long, the train takes 3. Pretty disappointing.

High Speed rail has been discussed for decades now, huge studies and inquiries, the route is basically decided, but it was always deemed "too expensive". Note that we spent 3x the cost of a 10 year Melbourne to Brisbane HSR system in 2021 on covid cash handouts.

quickthrower2• 4 years ago

It is OK we have lots of toll roads

gernb• 4 years ago

The Tokyo area is missing so many lines!!! .... or maybe there's just hard to see because for some reason they're in super non-contrasty colors.

My guess is, whoever made this, based it on the idea that trains and subways are different things. They aren't in Japan. For example the Mirai-Line (subway), The Tokyu Tokoyo-Line (train), Eiden-Fukutoshin-line (subway), Tobu Tojo Line (train) can all share the same cars and some "cars" run all 4 lines where other cars run just their own line.

I'm not sure what the definition of "subway" vs "train" is. In Japan it's certainly not "runs underground vs runs above ground". Even in NYC all the trains run for a long ways underground to get to Central or Penn station.

It's also certainly not "need a harder to get ticket than just use a transit pass" as pretty all the trains lines in Japan except for a few super express trains can be ridden just by starting with the cheapest ticket you got out of a generic ticket machine and paying the difference when you get off". So for example you can ride the San-Yo line 333 miles (537km) and it's just a normal hop on, hop off train. you don't have to go to some ticket booth/kiosk and reserve a seat like you would for say an ICE train in Europe or the bullet train in Japan

danhor2• 4 years ago

All rail infrastructure should be mapped, even streetcar tracks. Tokyo is full of subway-like lines (in light-blue) so at first glance it doesn't seem like many are missing.

This is based on OSM data, so the definition on the wiki should be used: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:railway%3Dsubway (which isn't very specific).

bobthepanda2• 4 years ago

Usually, the distinction is equipment.

“Train” usually refers to that equipment that is compatible with the larger national mainline network, which is regulated nationally so that signaling, size, and safety are consistent (e.g. two trains from different companies crashing into each other is not a disaster, they fit on each others’ tracks and stations, they can talk together on the same radio frequency and hook into the same cab signals, etc.)

Metros tend to be isolated systems doing their own thing and are not easily compatible. In the most extreme case like London Underground, they are wildly different dimensions than mainline trains.

Tokyo does have lines like these in its subway umbrella; the Ginza Line and Oedo Line cannot host through operations. It’s not common though, Japan is at the forefront of blending the two, which is often desirable for intraurban operations.

iggldiggl2• 4 years ago

In the most extreme case like London Underground, they are wildly different dimensions than mainline trains.

Though on the other hand especially in the case of the London Underground the boundaries are actually quite blurry, too.

First of all it's only the deep tubes that are running those noticeable smaller trains, and even then the Bakerloo line nevertheless actually has some through-running onto the mainline railway network, too (Queen's Park – Harrow & Wealdstone).

Secondly, the subsurface lines have some more through-running (District Line to Wimbledon and Richmond and most noticeable the Metropolitan Line north of Harrow-on-the-Hill) and historically, the boundary between the Underground lines and the mainline network used to be even fuzzier, e.g. for a time some District Line trains used to run all the way to Southend and Shoeburyness, beyond today's Circle Line the so-called Middle and Outer Circle services partially ran on mainline railway infrastructure in West London, etc. etc.

Even as late as 1988 there was a special railtour on the subsurface lines utilising standard Gatwick Express Mk2 railway carriages (albeit hauled by London Underground battery locomotives).

iggldiggl2• 4 years ago

My guess is, whoever made this, based it on the idea that trains and subways are different things.

I think Openrailwaymap started out as a German project ("Bahnkarte") and it might still be somewhat German-dominated to this day (?)… – and in Germany there is indeed a clear legal split between mainline railways and subways, because the latter are built and operated according to the regulations that are also applicable for trams/streetcars, while the former have their own set of applicable laws and regulations.

So that relatively hard split might have coloured the world view of the Openrailwaymap creators somewhat in that regard…

(Though even in Germany there are some edge cases – the Hamburg and Berlin S-Bahn systems are legally railways and have some, albeit only limited interaction with the rest of the mainline network (respectively in the case of Hamburg some actual through-running again as of a few years ago), but in regards of operations and signalling they're (especially historically) in some ways more closely related to other rapid transit networks than to the rest of the mainline railway. I notice that in Openstreetmap those networks are currently tagged as "light rail", which with regards to the distinction from the regular mainline network might not be that inaccurate, but on the other hand is equally confusing, because "light rail" can mean loads of things:

- historically in the UK minor branch railways built according to simplified rules and regulations – but still railways in spirit – were called light railways

- these days it gets commonly used for anything between basically souped-up trams (sometimes not even all that souped-up) and full-scale rapid transit-type rail (which at other times is actually termed "heavy metro" if you want to distinguish it from "lesser" light railways)

- due to differing crash strength regulations and the historic US approach of "buff strength over alles", some types of (albeit light-weight) European main-line multiple units are seemingly classified as tram-train/light rail operations in the US )

IIAOPSW• 4 years ago

Try adjusting the zoom. At first I had the same problem with New York, but actually it was just doing that thing online maps do to avoid clutter. Subways are absolutely in there.

wanderingmind• 4 years ago

If you use OsmAnd~ (F-Droid), you can use this map as an overlay (underlay) map to help navigate the train network. If you don't use OsmAnd, I strongly encourage you to use it.

Melatonic• 4 years ago

Which one of these routes is Snowpiercer?

BashiBazouk• 4 years ago

I can't vouch for the rest of the lines but I am impressed the local small line that borders my property is on there.

Stratoscope• 4 years ago

Anyone interested in this may also enjoy learning about historical railroad routes:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31017135

I posted a comment in that thread about some old SF Peninsula and South Bay routes, along with the USGS topo map page where you can discover what was in any area of the US at any particular year:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31036776

Enjoy!

nantes2• 4 years ago

Wow, the in-park "railroad" for the amusement park I grew up going to is present!

https://www.openrailwaymap.org/?style=standard&lat=51.58248&...

nantes2• 4 years ago

Ha! And the Kansas City Zoo, too.

https://www.openrailwaymap.org/?style=standard&lat=51.58248&...

Grimburger3• 4 years ago

Really excited for the new line through Laos that just opened up this year. It now means you can go Singapore to London overland entirely by train.

Have done Singapore to Shanghai overland, but there was a lot of terrifying busrides inbetween lines.

jhugo3• 4 years ago

I did Singapore to Berlin overland in 2016 via the southern route (Singapore - Malaysia - Thailand - Myanmar - India (northeast) - Bangladesh - India - Pakistan - Iran - Turkey - Bulgaria - Serbia - Hungary - Slovakia - Czechia - Germany).

On that route, there are only a few relatively short stretches where there's no train. I had to get local drivers across the Thai - Myanmar and Myanmar - India border, and through northeast India to the Bangladesh border, and I walked across the Iran - Turkey border as the train wasn't running. The whole rest of the route, I was on trains.

The Laos train is indeed exciting. If/when China comes to their senses w.r.t Covid and Russia w.r.t invading their neighbours, it would be interesting to repeat the trip the northern way.

Grimburger3• 4 years ago

Quite an adventure, I always assumed getting between SEA and the Middle East to be difficult, particularly Myanmar<->India but looking at the map the gaps are quite small and it seems like a better way, especially these days.

I did the long way round via Cambodia/Vietnam rather than through Thailand/Sichuan province, the map says there is a train now between Hanoi and Nanning but when I went it was 10+ hours on a bus including a lengthy golf buggy ride between no-mans-land with a 18yo kid armed with an AK at the Chinese border.

The bus trip between Phnom Penh and HCMC was utterly terrifying, we spent a quarter of the trip on the wrong side of the road with the driver holding down the horn to make oncoming traffic move out of the way, bigger vehicle and all that. There was an American couple trying to pay the driver to slow down but that just made him more angry. Really makes you appreciate a good sleeper train or plane.

Aachen2• 4 years ago

Terrifying why?

divbzero• 4 years ago

I would love to see map layers for other infrastructure as well such as gas and oil pipelines, electric transmission lines, navigable waterways, or aqueducts.

Aachen2• 4 years ago

There are various feature maps based on the same OpenStreetMap data. I don't know any of the ones you mentioned off the top of my head, though I seem to remember a project called open infra map that might display gas pipelines (they're not that well mapped, to be fair) as well as a map for nautical use.

njpurchio• 4 years ago

Why is there no railway from the lower 48 to Alaska?

S201• 4 years ago

Why build a rail line when you can ship goods down the coast?

jmpman• 4 years ago

Can someone add a Stonehenge feature to these maps for each overpass. I want to know which day aligns with the sunset/sunrise for every railroad overpass. When the sun sets, it lights up the rails with pinks and purples. I’d love a coffee table book/calendar of railroad sunsets.

f_allwein• 4 years ago

Great resource if you want to travel on any of those lines: https://www.seat61.com/ has detailed information about train travel pretty much anywhere in the world.

dougmwne• 4 years ago

This site is such an Old Internet gem.

pvsukale3• 4 years ago

If you want to see a regularly updated map of Indian Railways you can find it here [1]. This map has a lot of contributions from users and has details about new lines, lines under upgradation, electrification status.

This website can also show a route particular train takes in India fairly accurately. For example here is route map of Vivek express, covering longest distance, 4,218.6 kilometres (2,621.3 mi) in single journey [2].

[1] https://indiarailinfo.com/atlas

[2] https://indiarailinfo.com/train/map/route-dibrugarh-kanniyak... [2]

psnehanshu• 4 years ago

Interesting how apart from US, Europe, India, China (east), and Japan, the rest of the world is mostly devoid of railways.

martopix2• 4 years ago

Is there a way to get OSM to display names in Latin characters? I was in Thailand last week and looking at this very railway map I got really frustrated because I couldn't understand anything with the Thai script.

mqus3• 4 years ago

This depends on the renderer/render settings. e.g. https://openstreetmap.de/karte/ always shows the german names alongside, if available. But those are set by the site owner, not the user (those are not vector tiles after all)

wdutch• 4 years ago

Thai is so inconsistently romanized you still might not understand anything! for example bangkok could be Baanggaawk.

martopix2• 4 years ago

That is still much much better.

Worldwide Rail Network Map

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