World Train Map – 1247 train routes around the world
111 points - yesterday at 10:42 PM
Sourcejosefrichter
today at 7:08 AM
Tracks in Czechia are mostly missing. It’s known as a country with the most dense railroad network in the world.
Flightmussy
today at 12:24 AM
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
today at 6:15 AM
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.
fittingopposite
today at 7:00 AM
North Korea is missing. How should Kim Jong Un travel on his armored train to China?
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.
[0] https://www.gridstatus.io/map?zoom=4.45¢er=-95.70000,40....
Beijinger
today at 4:51 AM
I would not bet on AI. I think this map is older.
bryanrasmussen
today at 7:04 AM
I was wondering because I don't know why it should be considered AI, but whois tells me the domain was registered yesterday?
Really nice, how does this compare to https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ ?
One is AI slop, one is direct OSM data
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.
angry_octet
today at 2:33 AM
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."
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.
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?
quietthrow
today at 1:42 AM
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
today at 5:53 AM
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.
jillesvangurp
today at 7:00 AM
I took the Amsterdam to Berlin route a few days ago with almost two hour delays because of some diversions. There are very few proper high speed tracks in Germany. Mostly the trains are routed over older tracks that aren't suitable for higher speeds.
Basically the only stretch where the train to Amsterdam might hit anywhere close to its maximum speed is the 20% of the journey between Berlin and Wolfsburg. And even there it slows down frequently. But you might see it go 250 km/hour for a few minutes.
I took a proper highspeed train from Madrid to Valencia a few years ago. It goes 300km/hour. It leaves Madrid, accelerates. And then a bit over 1.5 hours later you arrive in Valencia. It's about 400km. The train has one stop about mid way. Otherwise, it stays at its maximum speed the whole journey. At that speed, Amsterdam-Berlin should be doable in a bit over 2 hours.
https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ is much more comprehensive. It's open street map data, but filtered for railway infrastructure.
decimalenough
today at 1:08 AM
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.
How is it comprehensive? Did someone just say “be comprehensive” to their agent?
Quick Look in Mexico and it’s not good.
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.
decimalenough
today at 6:13 AM
Are you taking about World Train Map here? This whole subthread is about how it's not even trying to be comprehensive.
That's more like it, the Ghan (AU) track is shown
I wonder where the data is sourced. It has lots of detail about some VIA Rail routes in Canada and entirely misses others.
This is super cool, but at least by a quick glance, I think the coverage for China is very incomplete.
RugnirViking
today at 12:13 AM
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
today at 12:19 AM
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.
Košice-Prešov link is missing
throw-the-towel
today at 12:50 AM
This is very cool! Out of curiosity, where are you getting the data from?
AI lets people produce things that look authoritative, but are crap. Tiresome.
At first glance, https://www.openrailwaymap.org
seems much better
That’s a completely different thing - a map of all railway infrastructure, vs a map of passenger rail lines.
febusravenga
today at 6:22 AM
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.
amazed and intrigued. great work.
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
today at 4:49 AM
[dead]
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".