"Alternate Track-A-Train" v2

[George K]

Works great in Safari 9.0. Thanks for the great work.

Is that for Windows? The current Mac version is 8.0.7.

Chris got it, Safari 9 is paired with 10.11 Beta 1.

Ah, living dangerously, I see.

 

[TraneMan]

The FAQ page, cut off.

Try using incognito mode. Does it work?

That worked in that mode.

 

[Train2104]

The FAQ page, cut off.

Try using incognito mode. Does it work?

That worked in that mode.

That would mean something's wrong on your side, either an addon conflict (not really likely) or something with the cache. Try a hard refresh in regular mode by pressing CTRL + F5.

 

[justinslot]

Thanks for putting this together, the official one hasn't worked for me all day.

 

[Train2104]

IE support has been added. The fix involved a line of code that was the same in both old and new, so the old one wouldn't have worked in the new one.

The issue was with the Google API that generates the number image given text and color, apparently IE didn't think the output was an image. So now it calls a middleman script which fetches the image and presents it to the front end with the right headers. There may be a slight slowdown in populating the map as a result.

 

[TinCan782]

IE support has been added. The fix involved a line of code that was the same in both old and new, so the old one wouldn't have worked in the new one.

The issue was with the Google API that generates the number image given text and color, apparently IE didn't think the output was an image. So now it calls a middleman script which fetches the image and presents it to the front end with the right headers. There may be a slight slowdown in populating the map as a result.

Don't know what you just said but, it works for IE! I use both IE and Chrome for no apparent reasons!

Thanks

 

[amtkstn]

Thank you for getting it fixed. It has been missed and I like the new look with the bigger time numbers.

 

[printman2000]

This may be a limitation of the data you get from Amtrak's site, but would it be possible to put actual expected times in the left had column instead of just how many minutes late a train is expected? That way if someone does not know what time a train is suppose to arrive at a particular station, it would tell them.

I do have that data. However, given the limited space available in the column, I think that OTP is a better use, so it's easy to see the trend and predictions.

If more people want times, it's easy to show them instead - but showing both in the column is not possible (except by tooltip, which isn't mobile compatible but I'll give it a shot)

This may not be doable but thought I would throw it out there...

What about a duplicate page that shows times instead of just minutes?

Just a thought. Thanks!

 

[Train2104]

Update: Upon request (and realizing that I misinterpreted the Amtrak OTP standards), the thresholds used for determining color schemes have been changed to match PRIIA Section 207.

 

[Train2104]

Update: Amtrak has made a significant change to their data feed. I have a working local version but there's some issues that need to be worked out before I can make it publicly usable.

 

[Tennessee Traveler]

Thanks, Train 2014. Is this why I am now getting message, "Unable to connect to server. Refresh the page or try again later."?

 

[fixj]

I got the map yesterday, but today I see only the map withthe red routes but no train data. Using Chrome

Tried Explorer and got the "unable to connect to server.

 

[Train2104]

Thanks, Train 2014. Is this why I am now getting message, "Unable to connect to server. Refresh the page or try again later."?

Yes

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Thanks again for your effort. Your map is faster, easier to use, and more functional than any of the other maps I've tried including Amtrak's own.

 

[Train2104]

*Temporarily* restored. I have no idea how long it will stay up.

The data may be a couple minutes staler than usual; and the ability to force an update by clicking on the time has (hopefully temporarily) been removed.

 

[fixj]

Crashed again with "an unknown error"

I really love this site and thank you for setting it up.

Can't wait for it to return.

 

[Tennessee Traveler]

Still not working for me this morning 12/10/2015. The official Amtrak version works but requires going into the Amtrak.com website. Much prefer this alternate version 2.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Where's Mr. Akamai when want someone to do the needful?

 

[John Bobinyec]

Still not working for me this morning 12/10/2015. The official Amtrak version works but requires going into the Amtrak.com website. Much prefer this alternate version 2.

Try refreshing your cache (hit F5).

jb

 

[Train2104]

I haven't been able to replicate these intermittent failures myself - if refreshing the page doesn't work, try waiting 2 minutes and reloading it again. (it caches for 2m, so any corrupt data will be expired by then)

 

[Tennessee Traveler]

Still not working at 5:30 central time and now "track a train" on Amtrak not working. I have cleared my cache and also cleared my browsing history in Chrome with no success.

 

[Phil S]

Just about 4 PM PST and neither the better nor the Amtrak version is working. Better gives "unknown error" and shows the map with routes but no trains. Amtrak "track a Train" doesn't respond at all. Tried both Firefox and IE.

Curiously, Am Status Map (Dixieland) shows all the trains just fine EXCEPT 14(10). Surely it has left LA by now.

 

[John Bobinyec]

Amtrak Status Maps and the other two have different sources for their information.

jb

 

[John Bobinyec]

Try to go here. At the top of the page is a blue circle with a white arrow in it. Click on it. It should bring up the Better Track-A-Train with the map partially zoomed into 14(10). Did that work?

jb

 

[willem]

Both the version linked above and http://asm.transitdocs.com/worked for me a moment ago, on an iPad running iOS 9.2.