Open Train Times live signalling maps

[whole diary]

[a-driver]

OpenTrainTimes have recently launched some live signalling maps featuring some Great Western routes, namely Paddington, Southall to Stockley, Reading to Cholsey and Didcot Parkway to Banbury.

Very useful if you want to check the location of a train or you're sitting in a queue of delayed train following a signal failure.

http://www.opentraintimes.com/maps

[Adelante_CCT]

I know this is just up and running so mistakes will always occur but on the Reading Map I've noticed a couple of errors, signal 1743 on the down main appears to have a connection on to the festival line after it, I don't believe this is true, also if you were heading west on the Feeder Main there should be a crossover to the Feeder Relief just before Oxford Rd Junc

[W5tRailfinder]

They are 2, I have already noticed. There's another couple of minor problems I have noticed, but I was going to wait until there was a service on all lines before informing Peter Hicks.

There is a problem with the Southall map at the moment, already notified, where the signal aspects have gone awry. This is most probably due to the re-signalling that has been going on in the area.

[Phil Farmer]

Just started yesterday - open train times has installed the live version of the Swindon area track plan

http://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/swindon

[BerkshireBugsy]

I was playing with this earlier on (having only learnt about it over the weekend from this forum). I brought up the  Reading map and click on a service which was in P1 at the time and it brought up a service from Euston

Maybe just teething troubles but I think whoever has put this together has done a great job!

[tomL]

Can now follow my whole journey from Swindon to Oxford, which is pretty cool. 

Also shows the track fault that is causing express trains to call at Platform 3 at Didcot, with the berth to 0952 closed (asked about in another thread).

[patch38]

But no clue why the line is currently closed between Swindon and Didcot! (17:45 on Monday)

[EDIT] - scratch that - it's a 24-hour old tweet from @FGW^▸ (First Great Western)! 

But there is something going on: 1L80 seems to have been held outside Swindon for 20 minutes or so...

[BerkshireBugsy]

I've just looked at Open Train Times and it shows 2N52 on P4 at Didcot - when I click on that headcode it shows a service from London Victoria to Ashford International...am I missing something here?

[Adelante_CCT]

I've noticed occasionally on the Reading diagram that signals will turn from green to red without any train being shown on the Map eg: A train has allegedly gone into P10 so I have a look on RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) to find that '1A01' has actually just arrived into P10. I then look further down the line on the OTT^▸ (Open Train Times website) map to see '1A01 only passing through Tilehurst. I then look back onto RTT to see that this unit passing Tilehurst is in fact '2B02' so it seems the OTT map system doesn't quite register every train correctly.

[paul7575]

I've just looked at Open Train Times and it shows 2N52 on P4 at Didcot - when I click on that headcode it shows a service from London Victoria to Ashford International...am I missing something here?

Seems the designer of OTT^▸ (Open Train Times website) has not designed the link from the signalling display to account for the 4 character train IDs not being unique, across the country, there's about 87 x 2N52s in the list his search system shows up:   http://www.opentraintimes.com/schedule/search?commit=Search&page=4&q%5Bc%5D%5B1433786431605%5D%5Ba%5D%5B0%5D%5Bname%5D=train_identity&q%5Bc%5D%5B1433786431605%5D%5Bp%5D=eq&q%5Bc%5D%5B1433786431605%5D%5Bv%5D%5B0%5D%5Bvalue%5D=2N52&utf8=✓   

Paul

[W5tRailfinder]

As a long time user of OTT^▸ (Open Train Times website), I can report that it is normally real time, only a few seconds delay. There was an error last week, now fixed, which introduced a delay. (see Blog at bottom).

The maps are only reporting what the data feed from Network Rail signalling centre is providing (TVSC^» (Thames Valley Signalling Centre - about) in the case of GW^▸ (Great Western)). Each signalling element is represented by 1 bit (ie 0 = red, 1 = green) in the feed. If you want to read about the technicalities of it go to the Open Rail Data Wiki, but you need a good understanding of binary.

Peter Hicks, the developer, does this as a hobby. I have reported to him the faults with the Reading map, but he has obviously been busy creating the new maps to correct them.

I normally watch OTT in one window and RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) in another just for time tabling info, and as I said in the Reading thread RTT cannot be relied upon for the actual routeing and platform allocations.

[Poggs]

Hello, it's Peter here - I run OpenTrainTimes.

As a long time user of OTT^▸ (Open Train Times website), I can report that it is normally real time, only a few seconds delay.

I measured it as less than two seconds between a signal changing from a proceed aspect at Putney this evening, and the map on my phone updating.  That's really quite fast!

Peter Hicks, the developer, does this as a hobby. I have reported to him the faults with the Reading map, but he has obviously been busy creating the new maps to correct them

I have the faults logged in Jira, I just need to find some time to sit down and work on them - OpenTrainTimes is my hobby, I don't make a penny from it and I spent an inordinate number of hours working on it, keeping the Open Rail Data wiki up-to-date and replying to messages on the openraildata-talk mailing list.  I'm surprised I have time to eat...!

[Poggs]

Seems the designer of OTT^▸ (Open Train Times website) has not designed the link from the signalling display to account for the 4 character train IDs not being unique, across the country, there's about 87 x 2N52s in the list his search system shows up

It's not quite that straightforward - there are 87 instances of a 2N52, but I take in to account the location the train originates, and I also try to 'hand over' data between train describers (there can be three train describers reporting the same train in the same berth in some places around Upminster) - but it's not currently perfect and sometimes mis-links trains.

I'm working on a better solution - either I need to improve the fuzzy matching I do, or I need to nail it down and make it accurate, but liable to break when train describer configurations change, as they do regularly.

[Network SouthEast]

Welcome to the forum Poggs 

[BerkshireBugsy]

Welcome to the forum from me and a big thanks for the work you have done on OTT^▸ (Open Train Times website)

Maybe one day I will see my line (from Reading through Thatcham) - I believe it goes as far as southcote Jn at the moment

Once again many thanks