# Status of Amtrak Status Maps - dixielandsoftware



## Tennessee Traveler (Jun 27, 2013)

Is it just me or is anyone else having problems with "slowness" and "no data received" last evening and this morning Thursday, June 27 with both dixieland software and the status map?


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## Ryan (Jun 27, 2013)

No issues here.


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## John Bobinyec (Jun 27, 2013)

Tennessee Traveler said:


> Is it just me or is anyone else having problems with "slowness" and "no data received" last evening and this morning Thursday, June 27 with both dixieland software and the status map?


I haven't noticed anything amiss.

Do you mean the maps are being updated infrequently?

Do you mean the data for particular trains at certain stations is missing?

Do you mean that your browser is loading the page very slowly or not at all?

Can you try another browser or a different computer/device?

jb


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## JoeBas (Jun 27, 2013)

Working fine here... closely tracking #1 to see how much time it can make up after yesterday and it's updating fine.

As a general rule, if you're having trouble with more than one site... the trouble is usually yours.


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## Tennessee Traveler (Jun 27, 2013)

I am having trouble with no other sites on all three browsers--Chrome, Firefox, and IE. Until last evening I had no problem. The problem I am having is that the "page" is not loading in my browser or taking a very long time. This morning I get a message that site cannot be loaded in all three browsers. Just now I got to the page with the map where you can click on the "west" area but when I click on the West area I still get message page cannot be loaded. Until yesterday, I had no problem.


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## Ryan (Jun 27, 2013)

I just loaded that exact page without any issues.


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## John Bobinyec (Jun 27, 2013)

Tennessee Traveler said:


> I am having trouble with no other sites on all three browsers--Chrome, Firefox, and IE. Until last evening I had no problem. The problem I am having is that the "page" is not loading in my browser or taking a very long time. This morning I get a message that site cannot be loaded in all three browsers. Just now I got to the page with the map where you can click on the "west" area but when I click on the West area I still get message page cannot be loaded. Until yesterday, I had no problem.


Sounds like there are network issues between you and the commercial server that I'm using right now. I have two commercial servers that I use for exactly this reason. I can switch to the other one, but would rather not. Tell you what - check back with us in two hours - 12.15 p.m. EDT and let us know what's going on. I can switch the servers, but even still it takes a couple of hours.

jb


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## FriskyFL (Jun 27, 2013)

Working fine for me, Dolphin Browser on Android device.


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## Tennessee Traveler (Jun 27, 2013)

Thanks, John. Just checked and the pages are downloading ok for me now. I just need to learn some patience when this happens. Even though I only travel couple times a year on Amtrak, I enjoy keeping up with the statuses etc almost daily. You can say I am "addicted". I appreciate you creating the sites and making them available.


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## chakk (Jun 27, 2013)

Working fine for me as is with IE, Firefox, and Chrome.


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## John Bobinyec (Jan 21, 2014)

Things are a bit slow today. When I get home in a bit, I'll have to see what the deal is.

jb


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## andersone (Jan 21, 2014)

They updated Chrome on Friday, It hosed my Norton so I am back suffering with IE. God only knows what impact it had on other apps. Oh well, Google owns the world, they can do as they please


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## Ryan (Jan 21, 2014)

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/


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## John Bobinyec (Jan 23, 2014)

Things are on the fritz again (1/23/2014 11:13 a.m. EST). Looks like it might be the router. Unfortunately, it'll have to wait until I get home before I can switch it out.

Sorry,

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Jun 1, 2015)

Amtrak Status Maps, et al, is on the fritz now (6/1/2015 8 a.m. EDT). Seems like both web hosting companies are having problems. They are resetting the domain. This could take a while.

jb


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## acelafan (Jun 1, 2015)

Thanks for letting us know. Must be Monday..


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## Devil's Advocate (Jun 1, 2015)

John Bobinyec said:


> Amtrak Status Maps, et al, is on the fritz now (6/1/2015 8 a.m. EDT). Seems like both web hosting companies are having problems. They are resetting the domain. This could take a while. jb


What exactly does "resetting the domain" mean in technical terms?


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## John Bobinyec (Jun 1, 2015)

Well, the domain is registered with company A. Normally it forwards everything to Company B. That wasn't working so I put in a request to stop the forwarding. The request wasn't getting executed and was "pending". I contacted Company A support and informed them about it. They said they see that the request is hung up and in order to free things up, they "reset the domain." That could take between 4 and 24 hours, they say.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Jun 1, 2015)

Company B is still messed up. Company A got straightened out so now we're using that one, for the time being.

jb


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## chakk (Jun 6, 2015)

There have also been problems this week with the domain name servers used by comcast, causing browsers to slow or stall on computers using comcast as their internet service provider. It is possible to -- in a simple manner - tell your browser to use another, public domain name server, such as Google's domain name servers.


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## Devil's Advocate (Jun 6, 2015)

Determining and modifying the DNS resolution is a dead simple task for IT folks. That being said there is no evidence this outage has anything to do with Comcast and I'm not about start suggesting average computer users to begin disabling DHCP and creating their own DNS server entries.


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## John Bobinyec (Jul 11, 2015)

Due to an enhancement to the "Alternate Track-A-Train" that Train2104 recently made, I have added another icon to the trains' listings:

When you list out a train's performance, the leftmost icon on the top row opens up the "Alternate Track-A-Train" map, but zoomed in to the location of the train which you're looking at. The rightmost icon yields the map of the United States, un-zoomed.

jb


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## chakk (Jul 12, 2015)

You can use DHCP to assign your IP addresses ar the same time that you choose your own DNS addresses that are different from the defaults. In my case, I use the DNS sites that Google runs on all of my pc's. I set my primary DNS server to 8.8.8.8 and my secondary DNS server to 8.8.4.4, per the Google instructions. Works very well.


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## afigg (Sep 13, 2015)

At the moment (early Sunday afternoon), it appears that Status Maps is down. Shows the last update was at 3:01 AM on Sunday, September 13. So did Amtrak do an update to the data interface that broke Status Maps or did the data feed go off-line?


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## acelafan (Sep 13, 2015)

afigg said:


> At the moment (early Sunday afternoon), it appears that Status Maps is down. Shows the last update was at 3:01 AM on Sunday, September 13. So did Amtrak do an update to the data interface that broke Status Maps or did the data feed go off-line?


Hopefully it's just a temporary problem; amtrak.com looks to be reporting the data in the same format (I think).


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## John Bobinyec (Sep 14, 2015)

Amtrak changed the size of the file that they send back from a status query. I check the size of the file and since they were suddenly smaller than a threshold that I use, they were being flagged as errors. I do this because when Amtrak refuses to answer a query, their response file is smaller than one where they actually give the information that I want. It's a method that I use to see if they are trying to shut me off. Anyway, they were providing the information okay, but because the files were a bit smaller, I thought there were problems. That effectively shut the system down. I was busy and didn't get to check and fix the problem until much later in the day.

jb


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## Agent (Sep 14, 2015)

Some trains are still missing from the map. #6(12) for example.


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## AmtrakLKL (Sep 14, 2015)

Glad it wasn't a major change. Back in my data analysis days, I had similar built-in checks to keep tabs on our IT department. They had a wonderful habit of changing things to suit them ("Oh, yeah. We ran an update last night, sorry."), but heaven forbid a user request changes. They'd mire you down in change requests forms, ROI spreadsheets and endless meetings to ensure your request didn't affect any other departments.


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 12, 2015)

The Amtrak servers seem to be having problems this morning (10/12/2015), so that suspends Amtrak Status Maps, ASM Alerts and the Station Status Boards, until they come back up.

jb


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## Palmetto (Oct 12, 2015)

Track-a-train doesn't want to open for several hours now either.


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## montana mike (Oct 12, 2015)

John Bobinyec said:


> The Amtrak servers seem to be having problems this morning (10/12/2015), so that suspends Amtrak Status Maps, ASM Alerts and the Station Status Boards, until they come back up.
> 
> jb


Still down as of this evening. Wow, in this day and age to have your entire web site down for this long is amazing. No info on any of the LD trains since midday.


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## AmtrakBlue (Oct 12, 2015)

Sure, there's info out there, you just need to know who to ask. :giggle:

91 passed through WIL (Wilm, DE) around 1 pm. 92 passed through around 5 pm. 97 was running about 8 mins late to WIL (due in at 5:19 pm) the last time I checked (was going to wait for it to pass my SEPTA station but gave up as it lost more time).


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 12, 2015)

If y'all check Amtrak.com right now (9.47 p.m. EDT, 10/12/2015) you'll see that Amtrak has lost their main website. They have put up a "lite" version of it so that you can still get some information and make simple reservations. Unfortunately, my system is incompatible with this one, so we'll just have to wait until they fix the main site. Hopefully it won't take too long.

jb

Amtrak Status Maps

ASM Alerts

Station Status Boards


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## tim49424 (Oct 12, 2015)

John Bobinyec said:


> If y'all check Amtrak.com right now (9.47 p.m. EDT, 10/12/2015) you'll see that Amtrak has lost their main website. They have put up a "lite" version of it so that you can still get some information and make simple reservations. Unfortunately, my system is incompatible with this one, so we'll just have to wait until they fix the main site. Hopefully it won't take too long.
> 
> jb
> 
> ...



Amtrak's track-a-train still seems to be working. It just cannot be accessed from the main site.


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## GG-1 (Oct 12, 2015)

John Bobinyec said:


> If y'all check Amtrak.com right now (9.47 p.m. EDT, 10/12/2015) you'll see that Amtrak has lost their main website. They have put up a "lite" version of it so that you can still get some information and make simple reservations. Unfortunately, my system is incompatible with this one, so we'll just have to wait until they fix the main site. Hopefully it won't take too long.
> 
> jb
> 
> ...


Very interesting, Yesterday news reported that due to a computer glitch the necessary boarding time was 4 hour at McCarren Airport in Las Vegas

Aloha


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## montana mike (Oct 13, 2015)

Still down. The Amtrak IT guys need to be fired.


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## Ryan (Oct 13, 2015)

Because we totally know that it's all their fault. 

People that demand that someone gets fired without a clue as to what's going on should be shot. (See, I can make sweeping generalizations too!!!)


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## montana mike (Oct 13, 2015)

OK. I have a wee bit of history and knowledge of this business, since that is what we do, and for hundreds of people, so I believe I can speak with some assurance here. In one way you have a point, since there could be some sinister third party that has struck and killed all of the backups they should have, et. al..... BUT with that being said web sites should not go down for days on end, especially not one of this magnitude. Have you ever seen Amazon or Google down for more than seconds or minutes? We have back ups and back ups for the back ups for ALL of our sites in at least three different locations in the US. If one of our server sites is totally destroyed, within a few seconds the first backup is up and running. The same is to be said if this is a really dumb coding error by someone trying to "update" the code over the weekend--which we never recommend or do btw (we beta test all updates off line first and more than once and then bring the new site up at one of our locations first. If that crashes, we immediately revert to the previous version and the screwed up version is pulled off line.


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## Rail Freak (Oct 13, 2015)

montana mike said:


> OK. I have a wee bit of history and knowledge of this business, since that is what we do, and for hundreds of people, so I believe I can speak with some assurance here. In one way you have a point, since there could be some sinister third party that has struck and killed all of the backups they should have, et. al..... BUT with that being said web sites should not go down for days on end, especially not one of this magnitude. Have you ever seen Amazon or Google down for more than seconds or minutes? We have back ups and back ups for the back ups for ALL of our sites in at least three different locations in the US. If one of our server sites is totally destroyed, within a few seconds the first backup is up and running. The same is to be said if this is a really dumb coding error by someone trying to "update" the code over the weekend--which we never recommend or do btw (we beta test all updates off line first and more than once and then bring the new site up at one of our locations first. If that crashes, we immediately revert to the previous version and the screwed up version is pulled off line.


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## Ryan (Oct 13, 2015)

montana mike said:


> Have you ever seen Amazon or Google down for more than seconds or minutes?


That's good that you're in the business - that means that you should have an even better appreciation of the fact that sometimes compost occurs.

Amazon had a somewhat severe issue with AWS here just recently as a matter of fact:

http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/300077740/overnight-aws-outage-reminds-world-how-important-aws-stability-really-is.htm

As did Google Docs last week:

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/93822/20151011/google-docs-outage-was-the-perfect-excuse-for-workers-to-slack-around-and-create-these-hilarious-memes.htm

They even provide a dashboard to let you know what's up and what's down at any given time:

http://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en&v=status

So yeah, even when best practices are follows, sometimes the fecal matter comes into contact with the rotating blades, which makes sitting back from afar without any knowledge of the specific situation pretty dumb.


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## montana mike (Oct 13, 2015)

dumb answer!!!

I try to explain how things should NOT happen if they are properly set up and all you spew is stuff about "fecal matter", as if web sites go down for NO reasons at all. Unless you are in the business, as we are and have been for 11 years, this should not have happened-period. Yes, sites go down for very short time frames, but we are now closing in on 48 hours for a major e-commerce site that likely has hundreds of thousand of hits each day.

S**t does not happen if it is done right.


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## Ryan (Oct 13, 2015)

You asked about Google and Amazon being down and I provided recent examples. I'd be a little upset too if my point were deconstructed so completely.

If only we were all as perfect as you are, the trains would run on time and the website would be perpetually available. 

**** always happens. Always.


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## jebr (Oct 13, 2015)

Let's ensure that the discussion does not degenerate into personal attacks. Thanks.


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## Phil S (Oct 14, 2015)

10:24 PST. Amtrak.com dysfunctional. Can't make reservations. I don't see how to get to Track A Train. OTOH, the alternative track a train works fine. Amtrak Status Map (jb Dixieland) seems to be working fine. Sorry, I have to agree with Mike - this should not be happening, even given the extreme complexity of what Amtrak.com does (reservations, award stuff, system status map, etc). Just one opinion!


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## NW cannonball (Oct 14, 2015)

Amtrak.com seems back to normal now. I had to clear my firefox cache (and delete some cookies just for good measure) and I have no current reservations, so I can't test many functions,

But it seems to be back up and running.

As for the dixielandsoftware status maps, the official datafeed only came online an hour or 4 ago, some of the Western LD trains that departed during the downtime are not yet showing there , but mostly OK. Thanks, John

Glad *that *disruption is over with.

Take care, take trains.


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## Ryan (Oct 14, 2015)

WellTrained said:


> Sorry, I have to agree with Mike - this should not be happening


I don't think that anyone is arguing that it should be happening, I am most definitely not.

My sole objection is the knee jerk "Fire the IT people!" cry when we have no idea why the site was down and who (or what) was actually at fault.


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 14, 2015)

When budgets/schedules are tight, the first thing that goes is documentation. The second thing is backups.

jb


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## xyzzy (Oct 14, 2015)

John Bobinyec said:


> When budgets/schedules are tight, the first thing that goes is documentation. The second thing is backups.


Third, fourth, fifth, and sixth are code reviews, formal testing, formal change control/config management, and escrow deposits of source code... not necessarily in that order. Have seen it happen too many times.


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## neroden (Oct 14, 2015)

At some point, informal testing goes too.


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 16, 2015)

Another one of life's little disappointments. The emailer program that sends out the Alerts is not working. The code hasn't been touched in years. And it looks normal. I suspect there's trouble with my ISP's SMTP server, but I have yet to pin it down.

jb


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## NW cannonball (Oct 16, 2015)

Thanks JB for keeping your service running. It's helped me and many others I know.


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 18, 2015)

John Bobinyec said:


> Another one of life's little disappointments. The emailer program that sends out the Alerts is not working. The code hasn't been touched in years. And it looks normal. I suspect there's trouble with my ISP's SMTP server, but I have yet to pin it down.
> 
> jb


Yep, the ISP implemented a security protocol. It took a while but we're back in business.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Dec 20, 2015)

Had a little bit of trouble this morning. Amtrak changed something with its website and it took me a little while to adapt things to it.

This will affect

Amtrak Status Maps - they're working and they are "catching up"

ASM Alerts - ditto

Station Status Boards

Amsnag - I have notified Paul.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Jan 2, 2016)

The system seems to be uncooperative this morning (1/2/2016). Unfortunately, I won't be able to deal with it until this evening.

It may be working, but it doesn't look like it. This affects:

Amtrak Status Maps

ASM Alerts

Station Status Boards

jb


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## ScottRu (Jan 2, 2016)

Good luck, John. And thanks for all your efforts on our behalf.


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## Trollopian (Jan 2, 2016)

ScottRu said:


> Good luck, John. And thanks for all your efforts on our behalf.


I associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from Massachusetts (Scott). I'm a big fan of the status maps, and have several ongoing alerts just to monitor the performance of my pet trains, even when I have no travel planned. Thanks, John, for this labor of love.


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## Chey (Jan 2, 2016)

Trollopian said:


> ScottRu said:
> 
> 
> > Good luck, John. And thanks for all your efforts on our behalf.
> ...


Ditto that


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## John Bobinyec (Jan 3, 2016)

The system (several ancient machines) collectively decided to quit working yesterday morning, while I was not at home. I worked on them last night and had only very slight success. Late this morning I was finally able to get them calmed down enough to where they would cooperate with each other. We're back online - for now.

jb


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## Chey (Jan 3, 2016)

John, I have a question that you may (or not) be able to answer. When I see a blank instead of a time for a stop, I know if I look in the Amtrak train status it's going to say "Status Unavailable." So are they recorded manually and skipped when they're too busy? It's just surprising to me when it happens for a major station on a route; in this case SAS for the SL westbound (1). No record of when it got to SAS and no record of when it left (01/03/16). I know this is a particularly busy station, what with the switchings of the 421 and 422 from/to the Eagle..


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## John Bobinyec (Jan 3, 2016)

Chey said:


> John, I have a question that you may (or not) be able to answer. When I see a blank instead of a time for a stop, I know if I look in the Amtrak train status it's going to say "Status Unavailable." So are they recorded manually and skipped when they're too busy? It's just surprising to me when it happens for a major station on a route; in this case SAS for the SL westbound (1). No record of when it got to SAS and no record of when it left (01/03/16). I know this is a particularly busy station, what with the switchings of the 421 and 422 from/to the Eagle..


Concerning the blanks shown in my system, blanks are shown until Amtrak presents a time for a train on their website. Yesterday into today, my system was a mess, so you can't go by that for that time period.

If you're talking about Amtrak itself recording a time at a station, they have (I'm guessing) at least four ways to enter it:


they detect the GPS coordinates of a train's lead engine - this is, I think, the predominant way of doing things, They don't always have things defined correctly, though, so sometimes times are omitted in their reservations system.
an Amtrak agent can enter the time into the system
an Amtrak dispatcher (on Amtrak owned/operated lines) can enter the time into the system
an Amtrak IT person can enter the time
Obviously, the most automatic way is the GPS system, but when it's down or there's a mistake in it, or perhaps even when an unusual move happens, the times can be wrong, or omitted.

Someone else with more direct knowledge is invited to chime in.

jb


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## Chey (Jan 3, 2016)

Thanks, I did mean the Amtrak system for tracking times. I didn't think of GPS but I thought there had to be a way to automate it somewhat. I was just wondering about the blank spaces, which are sometimes filled in later, sometimes not, wondering if someone manually records the times also. I don't know how else they could go in later and fill in the times, when they do show later.

I'm really grateful you provide this for us, it's a pain in the butt to look up one station, one train at a time on their train status page...


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## John Bobinyec (Jan 14, 2016)

Unfortunately, the system is down right now ( 8 a.m. 1/14/2016) and I won't be able to do anything with it until this evening. This affects:

Amtrak Status Maps

Station Status Boards

ASM Alerts

Sorry for the inconvenience.

jb

Edit: System stayed down all day and decided to come back online just before I got home. By the time I got there, it was fine. I couldn't find out who the bad actor was.


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## John Bobinyec (Jan 15, 2016)

Today is a repeat of yesterday. The system is on the fritz (11 a.m. 1/15) and I won't be able to do anything about it until I get home.

jb


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## CCC1007 (Jan 15, 2016)

Seems that the gremlins have learned your schedule.


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## John Bobinyec (Jan 15, 2016)

CCC1007 said:


> Seems that the gremlins have learned your schedule.


I agree. And they know just how much mischief they can get away with.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Jan 15, 2016)

John Bobinyec said:


> Today is a repeat of yesterday. The system is on the fritz (11 a.m. 1/15) and I won't be able to do anything about it until I get home.
> 
> jb


It did it again. Just about the time I could get to the system and work on it, everything cleared up.

Personally, I think the trouble is with the ISP. The only other possibilities are the router and the modem, and I didn't touch either one of those - either time.

jb

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Jan 18, 2016)

Monday, 1/18/2014 System is down again. This time it looks like the router is on the fritz.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Feb 1, 2016)

Monday, 2/1/2016, 1.17 p.m., Amtrak.com is down. They've got AmtrakLite running, and my system isn't yet compatible with it.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Jun 6, 2016)

Amtrak.com is down for maintenance. They're running "Amtrak Lite" as of 2.20 p.m. EDT Monday, June 6, 2016. Amtrak Status Maps is not set up for that, so the maps, station status boards and Alerts are all down for the duration.

jb

Edit: Looks like regular Amtrak.com is back online at 2.45 p.m. 6/6/16.


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## John Bobinyec (Jun 10, 2016)

Amtrak.com is running extremely slowly as far as train status queries go. That effectively raises the devil with ASM. Friday, 6/10/2016 1.20 p.m. EDT.

jb

1.48 p.m. Amtrak Lite has now replaced Amtrak.com. That kills ASM.


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## MiniMax (Jun 10, 2016)

It's working fine for me. Can anyone explain why some numbers are red and others green? I understand that grey is "disrupted service" and black is "don't ask." BTW, I'm tracking Train 2. It is currently way south of its usual route because of work being done on the Brazos River Bridge near Sugarland. It's weird seeing #2 so far off of its usual line of travel. I'm taking Train 2 next week from Los Angeles to New Orleans and hoping that it continues to get there without too much meandering about the state of Texas.


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## John Bobinyec (Jun 10, 2016)

My bad. ASM is Amtrak Status Maps. You must be using either Amtrak's Track-A-Train, or Better-Track-A-Train. Those two use Amtrak's GPS reporting of a train's progress. That seems to be working fine, evidently. On the other hand. ASM gets its information from Amtrak.com, which itself is in difficulty.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Jun 13, 2016)

Well, obviously Amtrak went down around noon on Monday, June 13, 2016. They did manage, after a while, to get Amtrak-Lite running. Here it is 9 hours later and Amtrak-Lite is still being used instead of Amtrak.com.

As I have mentioned, Amtrak Status Maps is incompatible with Amtrak-Lite. The good news is that I was able to figure out how to make them work together. It'll still take me a day or two to implement the code, though.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Jul 29, 2016)

Both of my Amtrak Status Maps servers crashed today, 7/29/2016, more than once.

Trying to get them back online.

jb


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## George K (Jul 29, 2016)

Thanks for your efforts, John.


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## acelafan (Jul 29, 2016)

George K said:


> Thanks for your efforts, John.


Ditto on that.


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## John Bobinyec (Sep 20, 2016)

John Bobinyec said:


> Well, obviously Amtrak went down around noon on Monday, June 13, 2016. They did manage, after a while, to get Amtrak-Lite running. Here it is 9 hours later and Amtrak-Lite is still being used instead of Amtrak.com.
> 
> As I have mentioned, Amtrak Status Maps is incompatible with Amtrak-Lite. The good news is that I was able to figure out how to make them work together. It'll still take me a day or two to implement the code, though.
> 
> jb


Well, ASM is still not quite prime time ready for Amtrak-Lite.

Amtrak.com went down this afternoon (9/20/2016) and they now have Amtrak-Lite running. ASM gathers the data correctly from Amtrak-Lite, but doesn't parse it correctly. I think I've captured enough data to make the corrections, but hopefully Amtrak.com will be up and running before too long.

jb


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## Bob Dylan (Sep 20, 2016)

Thanks for all you do John, it's great!


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## John Bobinyec (Sep 29, 2016)

9/29/2016 2.37 P.M. EDT ASM is seemingly running very slowly. The trouble is that Amtrak.com status is itself struggling.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 3, 2016)

10/3/2016 9.47 p.m. EDT ASM has been down all afternoon. The trouble was a bad AT&T nameserver. After I discovered that, I specified a good one. System is recovering now.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Jan 17, 2017)

On Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017, something happened to Amtrak's tracking system. Many of the trains were not showing up on their Track-A-Train map, nor were the times being posted on their reservations system. That, of course, affects both Better Track-A-Train and Amtrak Status Maps.

Things were better yesterday, the 16th.

To my eye, looks like today things are acting up again.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Feb 21, 2017)

At about 9.30 p.m. EST on 2/21/2017, the web hosting company for Amtrak Status Maps (dixielandsoftware.net, statusmaps.com) started experiencing server failures. That is making it difficult to get to Amtrak Status Maps. Tech Support is aware of and working on the problem. No estimated up time.

jb


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## George K (Feb 21, 2017)

Thanks for the update.

And, of course, thanks for all your efforts.


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 8, 2017)

10/8/2018 7.47 a.m. Amtrak has changed its website(s). That has disabled Amtrak Status Maps. I'm working on it.

jb


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## ChuckL (Oct 8, 2017)

John Bobinyec said:


> 10/8/2018 7.47 a.m. Amtrak has changed its website(s). That has disabled Amtrak Status Maps. I'm working on it.
> 
> jb


interesting. I can't get a connection to Amtrak with their own iPhone app using iOS 10. Worked fine before the website change. Anyone else experiencing this as well? The app just starts up and crashes. 

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum


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## George K (Oct 8, 2017)

John Bobinyec said:


> 10/8/2018 7.47 a.m. Amtrak has changed its website(s). That has disabled Amtrak Status Maps. I'm working on it.
> 
> jb


Thanks for all your efforts. ASM is the "go-to" site for me.


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## AmtrakBlue (Oct 8, 2017)

ChuckL said:


> John Bobinyec said:
> 
> 
> > 10/8/2018 7.47 a.m. Amtrak has changed its website(s). That has disabled Amtrak Status Maps. I'm working on it.
> ...


It's Sunday morning. That's when we're most likely to notice issues after they do maintenance/updates during the night - Sunday mornings being the usual day, I believe, for doing these. 3 years ago this weekend the system was having issues most if not all day....just as some of us were heading out to the gathering.


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## jis (Oct 8, 2017)

Seems to be working fine now. Might have had something to do with the introduction of the new amtrak.com web site.

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum


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## Bob Dylan (Oct 8, 2017)

jis said:


> Seems to be working fine now. Might have had something to do with the introduction of the new amtrak.com web site.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum


Not working for me yet??? Showing info from late last nite but Amtrak App showing updated Train Status as of 10am CDT on Sunday10/8.


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## fixj (Oct 8, 2017)

I'm getting a blank map with just the routes on it. No trains. The Canadian portion is working.


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## Train2104 (Oct 8, 2017)

Fixed.


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## lo2e (Oct 9, 2017)

ASM has not worked right for me on Chrome 61.0.3163.100 with Mac 10.12.6 for several days. I see the routes and I see the trains on the map, but clicking on a train number does nothing, no station-by-station OTP on the left, no little popup box right by the train number.

I'm going to try to disable extensions (I have about 7 extensions running) one at a time to see if one of those is causing the issue. It is working fine on Safari and Firefox.

Edit to add: Found it - I was using Tampermonkey for a couple of scripts and disabling it instantly solved the ASM issue.


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## Train2104 (Oct 9, 2017)

lo2e said:


> ASM has not worked right for me on Chrome 61.0.3163.100 with Mac 10.12.6 for several days. I see the routes and I see the trains on the map, but clicking on a train number does nothing, no station-by-station OTP on the left, no little popup box right by the train number.
> 
> I'm going to try to disable extensions (I have about 7 extensions running) one at a time to see if one of those is causing the issue. It is working fine on Safari and Firefox.
> 
> Edit to add: Found it - I was using Tampermonkey for a couple of scripts and disabling it instantly solved the ASM issue.


I'm curious which scripts were the problem...if it's not too hard to find out, can you let me know?


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## JRR (Oct 9, 2017)

Does it have anything to do with Apple ios11 upgrade?

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 9, 2017)

Right now Amtrak Status Maps (ASM) is having a very hard time getting information from Amtrak.com, which is running very slooooowly. The result is that it looks like ASM is not working, but it is.

jb


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## Eric in East County (Oct 9, 2017)

We use FireFox and there still seem to be some bugs in the Train Status feature. We couldn't get information on No. 3 into LAX. Also, we had to manually reset the date to today's date. (It kept showing yesterday's date.)

Eric & Pat


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## Ryan (Oct 9, 2017)

JRR said:


> Does it have anything to do with Apple ios11 upgrade?
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum


No.


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## lo2e (Oct 9, 2017)

Ryan said:


> JRR said:
> 
> 
> > Does it have anything to do with Apple ios11 upgrade?
> ...


Not for me either. I wasn't using iOS, I am on a Macbook.


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## lo2e (Oct 10, 2017)

Train2104 said:


> lo2e said:
> 
> 
> > ASM has not worked right for me on Chrome 61.0.3163.100 with Mac 10.12.6 for several days. I see the routes and I see the trains on the map, but clicking on a train number does nothing, no station-by-station OTP on the left, no little popup box right by the train number.
> ...


Unfortunately I don't know as I simply disabled the entire Tampermonkey extension. I didn't disable scripts one by one.


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## John Bobinyec (Aug 27, 2018)

On 8/27/2018 Amtrak has made an "invisible" change to the Amtrak.com train status queries. This is causing trouble for Amtrak Status Maps, et al, which is limping along as best it can.

I'll keep you posted.

jb


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## George K (Aug 27, 2018)

Once again, thanks for your work on an irreplaceable resource!


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## John Bobinyec (Aug 29, 2018)

John Bobinyec said:


> On 8/27/2018 Amtrak has made an "invisible" change to the Amtrak.com train status queries. This is causing trouble for Amtrak Status Maps, et al, which is limping along as best it can.
> 
> I'll keep you posted.
> 
> jb


Not having much luck this time. I'm having trouble figuring out how to work with the changes Amtrak made.

Have to face the possibility that I might not be able to solve the problem.

jb


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## acelafan (Aug 29, 2018)

It might not be trivial but I think we can get it working again. Just need some time and maybe a little luck.


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## John Bobinyec (Sep 6, 2018)

John Bobinyec said:


> John Bobinyec said:
> 
> 
> > On 8/27/2018 Amtrak has made an "invisible" change to the Amtrak.com train status queries. This is causing trouble for Amtrak Status Maps, et al, which is limping along as best it can.
> ...


Finally fixed it. Unfortunately, Amtrak made the change right at the beginning of my vacation, so it took longer than usual.

A big thank you goes to Train2104 and acelafan for coming up with the solution and guiding my efforts.

jb


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## P42 AC/DC (Sep 9, 2018)

Just noticed that over the past few days, both ASM and Dixieland have had a hard time tracking train 448 when it leaves Albany.


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## John Bobinyec (Sep 9, 2018)

P42 AC/DC said:


> Just noticed that over the past few days, both ASM and Dixieland have had a hard time tracking train 448 when it leaves Albany.


I don't know what's been going on over the last few days, but the information from Amtrak (which is where we get our data) is a bit sketchy. For example, Amtrak's tracker shows the train to be in Albany while it's status page shows it to be east of Springfield, and no time was posted for Pittsfield.

jb


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## P42 AC/DC (Sep 9, 2018)

Thanks for the information, that was the assumption I had based on sketchy data from Amtraks track a train page these last few days. Thanks so much for these resources by the way, they are incredibly well made!


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## John Bobinyec (Sep 11, 2018)

Just thought I'd mention that Hurricane Florence is making a beeline for us. We're supposed to get 30'' of rain because the thing is supposed to stall. Although we have a full house generator, so power is not a problem, our cable/internet service might go down. If that happens, the following will suffer a "Service Disruption":

Amtrak Status Maps

ASM Alerts

Station Status Boards

jb


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## Mystic River Dragon (Sep 11, 2018)

Best of luck to you--we will be thinking of you and everyone else in the hurricane's path.


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## Rail Freak (Sep 11, 2018)

Hunker Down & Good Luck!!! 1 year ago, I was in the same situation!!!


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## acelafan (Sep 12, 2018)

P42 AC/DC said:


> Just noticed that over the past few days, both ASM and Dixieland have had a hard time tracking train 448 when it leaves Albany.


448 is tracking now - thanks for pointing that out. (I didn't fix it, but a little birdy I know at Amtrak must have.)


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## John Bobinyec (Mar 28, 2019)

For the last four days the servers have been experiencing network problems. This causes trouble in various ways. I'm working on it, but my time to do so is limited until Monday, 4/1/2019.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Mar 28, 2019)

The web hosting company is recycling my account because of some maintenance they did. I have to turn off any updates for up to 4 hours.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Mar 29, 2019)

Well, that didn't work. I've restarted the updates. The system will take a couple of hours to get caught up to where things were working very poorly, yesterday. Have to contact support again this afternoon.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Apr 6, 2019)

Well, finally, after a week (at least), things seems to be running normally.

jb


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## west point (Apr 6, 2019)

John" Why are the off route detours not showing ? ? ?


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## John Bobinyec (Apr 6, 2019)

On may maps (dixielandsoftware) it's not possible to show off-route detours.

I link to asm.transitdocs.com which does show them, usually. An occasion where they might not would be if a freight company's engine is in the lead and the Amtrak engine isn't reporting the train's location.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Dec 8, 2019)

I need to do some work on the system this afternoon. That'll take down the following starting at 1:15 p.m. EST for about 3 hours:

Amtrak Status Maps (will remain static during this time period)

ASM Alerts (will not send Alerts during this time period)

Station Status Boards (will remain static during this time period)

jb


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## yarrow (Dec 8, 2019)

thanks for all your work,john


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## John Bobinyec (Apr 29, 2020)

April 29, 2020. It looks like it's that time again. Amtrak is rolling out an updated version of their website and that is knocking Amtrak Status Maps, et al, offline. It'll take a day or two to get it going again (probably).

jb


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## greatwestern (Apr 30, 2020)

Back working again - I have missed it over the last few days. My wife uses it to track my progress when I am on Amtrak (and Via).

Unfortunately looks like I will myself be tracking the trip I *should* have been on in early June from here in the UK due to the travel restrictions from UK to USA that are in place.


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## MccfamschoolMom (Apr 30, 2020)

I used the Amtrak Status Maps a lot to check the progress of the trains my kids took coming home from grad school. (My son would take the Saluki up from law school in Carbondale, IL, and my daughter would take the Lincoln Service from Chicago to come home from library school in one of the near suburbs.)


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## John Bobinyec (May 3, 2020)

John Bobinyec said:


> April 29, 2020. It looks like it's that time again. Amtrak is rolling out an updated version of their website and that is knocking Amtrak Status Maps, et al, offline. It'll take a day or two to get it going again (probably).
> 
> jb


May 3, 2020.
It looks like Amtrak has finally rolled out the changes after experimenting with them for a week or so. I'm keeping my fingers crossed since they haven't broken ASM (yet). However, I did notice that if you ask for the times of the trains from their status tab on Amtrak.com, they give the wrong times. Julie, ASM and transitdocs are all giving the right times.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 23, 2020)

As of noon on October 23, 2020, Amtrak Status Maps is running very slowly because the information is coming back very slowly from Amtrak, for whatever reason.

jb


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## tricia (Oct 23, 2020)

John Bobinyec said:


> As of noon on October 23, 2020, Amtrak Status Maps is running very slowly because the information is coming back very slowly from Amtrak, for whatever reason.
> 
> jb



Thanks for the update.


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 25, 2020)

Update: October 25, 2020, 7 p.m. EDT

Amtrak's server is down for maintenance, so that shuts down:

Amtrak Status Maps
Station Status Boards
ASM Alerts

Hopefully their server will come back online tonight.

jb


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## John Bobinyec (Jul 13, 2022)

This is a different kind of post, so if the moderators want to move it somewhere else, that'll be okay. In any case, no further discussion is necessary for this post.

Some of you may know Mike Collins. He's a disabled dispatcher who has fallen on hard times. He still compiles Amtrak consists and distributes them. He has also helped me get to the bottom of some of Amtrak's major delays, which helps me to keep Amtrak Status Maps as accurate as I can make it. So if anyone wants to help him out, here's a link:
https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8Lnsn8Ti4p
In a private note, he advised that he really needs twice the requested amount. So, give what you can.
Thanks,
jb


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