This week has been hard work, but there’s a surprise – three new maps!

• The Sandwell and Dudley to Penkridge map covers Sandwell and Dudley, Wolverhampton, Portobello Junction and the line to Darlaston Junction, plus the avoiding line to Bushbury Junction, continuing to Penkridge
• The Nuneaton to Lichfield Trent Valley map covers from just north of Nuneaton up to Lichfield Trent Valley and the chord to Winchnor Junction and on to just south of Rugeley Trent Valley
• The Stafford map covers Rugeley Trent Valley, the line to Rugeley Town and Rugeley Power Station, part of the line to Stoke-on-Trent, the whole Stafford area including the remaining track to Penkridge, part of the line to Stone, and finishes just short of Crewe

As well as a trio of new maps, many (but not all) trains are now shown in white text where they’ve been linked to a schedule. Clicking on the white headcode will bring up the schedule for the train. It’s not perfect – there’s more work to do, but it’s a start. Some trains may be linked to the wrong service in another train describer area, and some trains may lose their link and appear in yellow text en-route. Soon, this linking will be extended to show train lateness in real-time – showing early, on-time and late trains in different colours.

There are also a few bug-fixes, including layout changes on the Brighton Main Line maps.

Until next time, enjoy the new maps and please keep emailing in your feedback!

When I started OpenTrainTimes over three and a half years ago, I never believed it’d be quite as popular as it’s turned out to be.

October 2012 saw me launch real-time signalling maps. I started off with a few areas I knew well – such as London Euston to Hatch End, the East London Line and the southern end of the Midland Main Line. Just under three years later, I’ve amassed a total of fifty maps covering numerous parts of the country. They’ve proved popular with everyone – commuters, enthusiasts, train operators and Network Rail.

Each map takes a long time to build – I draw them from hand based on whatever documentation I have, be it anything from signalling scheme plans to TOC route-learning material and, in the case of the Watford Junction to South Hampstead map, from a route learning DVD and many trips up and down the line.

My day-job now involves consultancy in the rail industry (and if you want to hire me, please get in touch), I’m much closer to the professionals who use the site, and many new features have been driven by requests from rail industry staff. It seems slightly weird to come home and spend a couple of hours working on a map after working with, say, freight data all day, but it’s a strangely relaxing task.

That’s enough history – on with this week’s exciting news – the Glasgow Central map is now live. The trackwork is complex and this has taken me twice as long as I anticipated, but hard work pays off.

As ever, there are a number of little things fixed:

• Sometimes, searching for a train on a previous day returned a server error due to a coding problem. This is now fixed.
• The Tring to Wolverton map now includes the track up to Hanslope Junction
• Some missing and mis-drawn signals on the East Coastway and West Coastway and Queenstown Road to Surbiton maps have been fixed
• The Peterborough to Doncaster (GNGE) map now has the Barnetby branch included, and has been extended as far as Collingham

I’m aware there are still some emails I’ve yet to reply to about the site, and some bugs to fix at London Victoria, Reading and on the North Kent map. I’ll try to get those done in the next couple of weeks.

Oh, and before I forget, the next map will be Wolverhampton.

This week’s gift to you all is signal and route indications on the London Waterloo – Queenstown Road, the Queenstown Road – Windsor, Chertsey and Longcross and the Queenstown Road – Surbiton maps.

Not all the signals are indicated – automatic signals (those which return to danger when a train passes) aren’t usually shown and have a white circle on the map, and for the area controlled by Woking ASC around Surbiton, we don’t currently have any data.

On another subject, progress on the Glasgow Central map is going slower than anticipated. If you have knowledge of the local area, please get in touch!

As usual, there are a number of bugs and improvements to the site. Here’s what’s working better than before:

• The London Waterloo map now shows the contents of the departure (front) berths correctly. You can now see which trains are departing the station
• On the Oxford map, the fringe between Marylebone, Banbury South, Banbury North and Oxford PSBs have been tidied up
• The North London Line map has been tidied up around Willesden Junction, and platforms have been made consistent
• The Tring to Wolverton map has been showing incorrect indications for some signals. This was the fault of a data error which shifted signalling data around
• The Charing Cross, Cannon Street and London Bridge to Forest Hill showed green aspects on "Limit of Shunt" signals, which have been fixed, as well as signals 5130 and 5132 permanently showing a green indication
• Some pointwork on the London Victoria map has been fixed and tidied up at Victoria, Streatham North and Pouparts Junction
• Finally, the London Liverpool Street map no longer shows the same train description in berths 82 and 83

Until next time, enjoy the flashing lights on the South West Main Line maps

// Peter

I’m very pleased to announce that the Reading to Cholsey map is now live. This map covers the main and relief lines from just west of Twyford, all the way through Reading station, out to Cholsey and Reading West. Of course, the Southern platforms are included, with coverage of platforms 4-6 all the way down to Earley station.

Along with this change, the Maps page has also been reworked. Each Network Rail route now has its own section, with maps grouped under each route. For example, under "London North Eastern&quot, the "East Coast Main Line" section has the Kings Cross to Hitchin, Hitchin to Stoke Tunnel and Stoke Tunnel to Retford maps in order.

The next map will be of Glasgow Central and the surrounding area.

As always, there are a number of smaller things fixed on the site:

• When searching for trains in the next few hours, the times shown on the location page were 1 hour out. All other times were OK. This was down to an issue processing times from Network Rail’s TRUST system
• Platform numbers on a number of maps have been fixed
• On the Hitchin – Stoke Tunnel map, two berths on the line to Spalding were showing incorrectly
• On the London Victoria – East Croydon Approach map, two berths between Balham and Wandsworth Common were missing
• On the Charing Cross/Cannon Street/London Bridge to Forest Hill map, the berths for signals TL4016 and TL4444 were reversed

Since it’s raining outside, it’s perfect weather for a BBQ. Enjoy your long weekend!

Sunday’s planned update was delayed somewhat due to a personal emergency – nothing serious, but life comes before OpenTrainTimes!

There are two new maps this week:

• The Banbury to Didcot Parkway map, under development for months, is now live
• The Rugby map has returned, but extended and is now the Rugby to Nuneaton map

As usual, there are a handful of little problems fixed – once again, I’m grateful to everyone who’s emailed in to report problems:

• A mis-positioned crossover and ‘dead’ berth on the East London Line map have been fixed
• Train schedules weren’t appearing across midnight – instead, an unhelpful server error appeared instead – this is fixed
• A missing crossover at Sleaford East on the Peterborough to Doncaster via Spalding map has been added in, as well as a few spelling mistakes
• Some signals on the Southall – Stockley Bridge map and Rugby to Birmingham map now show their aspects rather than grey circles
• Berths at Heathrow Airport on the Southall – Stockley Bridge map have been fixed, as they weren’t showing any trains

That’s it for this week. There won’t be an update this coming Sunday as I’m taking a week or two off from development, but when I’m back, I’ll start work on a map of Reading.

A very brief post to keep you up-to-date with some minor bugs fixed following last week’s release:

• The Stockley Bridge – Southall map had a missing crossover at Southall West Junction, was missing Platform 1 at Hayes & Harlington, and trains disappeared at Heathrow Airport. These are now fixed.
• The St Pancras International – Harpenden map had incorrect track layout at West Hampstead, which has been fixed
• The Fenchurch Street – Shoeburyness map was missing, and has now been put back
• The Barking – Grays map was oversized, and this has now been trimmed down
• The Bethnal Green – Cheshunt map had an incorrect track layout at Cheshunt, which has been corrected
• The site was intermittently slow due to a missing database index – this has been fixed

Thanks to everyone who reported these bugs.

There’s just one new feature this week:

• The Hitchin – Ely map is an extension of the former Hitchin – Cambridge map, and covers all the way up to just south of Ely

Finally, I’m nearly ready with a map of Foxhall Junction to Banbury which should be out in the coming weeks.

This weekend, an army of engineers have been busy on Stage EA04 of the Thameslink Key Output 2 (KO2) programme. Page 19 of this presentation shows some of the work being done over the next months.

There are minor changes that have been made to the North Kent East – Dartford and London Bridge – Forest Hill maps, which will start to come alive on Tuesday morning.

Today’s the day. The new version of OpenTrainTimes is now live!

This release has been many months in the making, because there are days where the last thing I want to do is spend 8 hours at work talking about the railway, followed by four hours of writing code to crunch data about the railway.

I’ve also been busy working with a number of people to help get their great ideas off the ground, plus talking to people in the industry about what the ‘next steps’ are.

Here’s the summary of what’s new.

Track Diagrams

I’ve been hard at work drawing new, and extending existing diagrams:

• Hitchin to Cambridge now includes platforms 7 and 8
• Rugby to Birmingham includes signal aspects for 6xxx signals from Long Lawford Junction to Coventry
• London Victoria to East Croydon is the London Victoria – Streatham Junction map extended to include Selhurst
• St Pancras International to Thames Tunnel is an extended version of the St Pancras International – Stratford map
• Ashford International has been redrawn completely and includes data from HS1
• London Marylebone to West Ruislip/Aylesbury is the return of the former Chiltern map, but extended
• Hitchin – Stoke Tunnel is an extension of the Hitchin – Tallington map
• London Road/Plumpton to Ham Street is an extension of the Glynde – Ham Street map, which includes Lewes
• East London Line has some alterations around New Cross Gate as a result of Thameslink works
• London Paddington has returned
• Southall – Stockley Bridge is a new map which includes the lines to Heathrow Airport
• Manchester Piccadilly includes the approaches to Manchester Piccadilly, plus the through lines to Manchester Oxford Road
• North Kent East Junction to Dartford includes the lines via Woolwich Arsenal, Bexleyheath and Sidcup to Dartford
• Charing Cross/Cannon Street/London Bridge to Forest Hill is brand new
• Bethnal Green – Cheshunt via Tottenham Hale, including Enfield Town and part of the Chingford branch, is brand new
• Wakefield Westgate to Leeds makes a welcome return
• York station and the surrounding area is also brand new

Advanced Search

There’s a new advanced search function available – click the ‘Trains’ button at the top of the page. Click the ‘+’ button to add search criteria, and ‘-‘ to remove one of the criteria.

Real-time data

I’ve put in a lot of effort behind the scenes to prepare the site for real-time data. Although I could have done this several years ago, I felt my experience and knowledge was better spent helping others do great things with the data that Network Rail have released.

Most of that work is now done, and National Rail Enquiries have released their Darwin Push Port data on really good terms. I’ll be working to include this data in the site over the next few weeks.

In the mean time, I’ve integrated real-time data from Network Rail’s TRUST system, albeit at a basic level at the moment, to help fill the gap.

Bugs

There are bugs – some of the things that aren’t quite finished yet:

• Schedules should have mileage data, but I don’t have that data for every pair of TIPLOCs yet. If anyone can help, please get in touch
• Some of the ‘train ready to start’ indications on maps don’t light up correctly, and sometimes signals show a green aspect when they should show red
• When searching for schedules which have a start date of before today, sometimes the site will say the schedule wasn’t valid when it was

If you find more, please email support@opentraintimes.com with details, how to reproduce it (if you can) and, ideally, a screenshot.

This weekend, the Thameslink Core section from Kentish Town to Elephant and Castle was recontrolled from West Hampstead and Victoria signalboxes to Three Bridges ROC.  The signalling for the new Canal Tunnels has been put in place.

To keep up-to-date with these changes, the following maps are now updated:

• The St Pancras International to Radlett

map, newly extended to Harpenden, is showing data from the new signalling system

• The Thameslink Core map has data from the new system at Three Bridges
• The East Coast Mainline (South) map has signals K251 and K253 at the exit to the new tunnel

The maps including St Pancras International will take a while to update – berths will show a yellow number until a train has passed through them for the first time.

This is the last of the updates to the ‘old’ OpenTrainTimes server – if all goes to plan, on Sunday 29th March, the new OpenTrainTimes will launch, with more maps and more data.

It’s been a long time in the making, but the next release of OpenTrainTimes is nearly here.

There are still a few loose ends to tidy up, but we’re close enough to be able to share with you some of the new features.

The final date for release hasn’t yet been set, but it’s likely to be within the next month.

Real-time data

There will be full historical data from TRUST, and soon after it’s released, live real-time data from National Rail Enquiries’ Darwin system.

The incidents feed from National Rail Enquiries will also be integrated in to the site, as well as – where available – information on train formations and short formations.

Search

There will be a new, powerful search function allowing you to find schedules by train operator, timing point, train category, schedule type, and much more.

Maps

Consistently a favourite, there will be a number of brand new maps:

Southern

• London Victoria to Streatham Junction has been extended down to East Croydon
• East Coastway will cover Glynde to Ham Street, including the resignalled area around Eastbourne
• A new map of North Kent East to Dartford, including the routes via Greenwich, Bexleyheath and Sidcup

Great Eastern Main Line

• The suburban lines to Enfield Town,  Chingford and the routes via Southbury and Enfield Lock to Cheshunt are covered

Others

• High Speed 1 has been extended down to the Thames Tunnel

Thameslink

• Thameslink Core will include the new route on to the East Coast Main Line via the new Canal Tunnels
• A reworked map of Charing Cross and Cannon Street to Forest Hill via London Bridge, including the remodelled Low Level station

Chiltern

• The map of  London Marylebone to West Ruislip and Aylesbury will be returning

East Coast Main Line

• Hitchin to Tallington has been extended to Stoke Tunnel,
• A new map of Stoke Tunnel to Retford
• A new map of Peterborough to Doncaster via Spalding
• A new map of York station and the approaches
• The return of the Leeds map, extended down to Wakefield Westgate

Great Western Main Line

• London Paddington map returns
• A new map of Southall to Stockley Bridge, including Heathrow

London, Tilbury and Southend

• The London, Tilbury and Southend area has a new map covering Barking to Grays

The North

• Manchester Piccadilly gets its own brand new map, covering the approach to the station

Midland Main Line

• The St Pancras International map is extended from Radlett to Harpenden, with a further extension back to Bedford under development