Transitdocs map frozen

[Skyline]

I check North American trains daily like some who track the stock market or sports scores. Bet a lot of us do.

So I checked into transitdocs this AM and found trains scattered all over the place where none SHOULD be. It's like a de ja vu of the old film "The Day The Earth Stood Still."

Refreshing my browser produced no change. Trying 45 minutes later? Nada.

Then I see in the far upper right corner, "Amtrak feed is stale (4:06AM)." What happened?

 

[acelafan]

Amtrak's data feed stopped updating but they are aware of the problem. I don't have any info of when it might be fixed.

Don't forget that Amtrak Status Maps also has live data for the trains.

 

[acelafan]

The data has started to update once again.

 

[cpotisch]

I haven't had any problems today.

 

[Lonestar648]

I see that the last update seems to have been 5:30 AM approx. PDT today (6/11).

 

[acelafan]

I watch this data, too, and it's an Amtrak problem (their own Track-a-Train map is also not updating).

But I don't have a good way to contact someone responsible for the source data. When you use their "Contact Us" webpage to report a problem, they reply with something like "The map shows the current location of Amtrak trains. Thank you for writing us."

 

[MikeM]

Just tried about five minutes ago, and it's stuck again. Thought it could be a buffer issue so cleared my buffer, also tried another browser, no dice.

 

[Lonestar648]

I also tried a different browser, clearing the buffer, but nothing is working. It is an Amtrak issue, but not sure they know they have a problem.

 

[MARC Rider]

Still not working. 6/12 0545

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Maybe it's just the cynic in me but I've honestly been kind of surprised (and impressed) with how well Amtrak's train tracking has worked until recently. My experience with commercial location monitoring was anything but robust. The inbound data routinely featured missing/incorrect/expired entries and had to be repeatedly adjusted and/or manually re-polled over and over again.

 

[TC_NYC]

Looks like both the amtrak site and the transitdocs map are still down. Quick way for people to check the amtrak site is going to https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html

 

[bratkinson]

In many ways, Transitdocs reminds me of a situation I was in 30 years ago...that of being 'downstream' from the data-supplying system.

While working as a contractor at a Baby Bell, I was given the project of writing an extract program to get all changed data from the 'Ma Bell' CRIS customer billing system IMS hierachical data base and use it to populate their shiny new DB2 relational data base for marketing. Each data base held 30-40 billion data records (rows) so the extract had to run as fast as possible every night just to 'keep up'. The problem was that the team that handled the billing system wanted nothing to do with the marketing team I was on. So, what happened too frequently was they'd change a record structure or add something new that the extract program was totally 'unaware of'. I'd be 'aware' of the problem with a 2-3AM phone call from operations indicating that 'my' extract program 'blew up' ('blue screen in Windows terms) and I had no choice but to immediately go in to work and fix it.

The exact same 'downstream' issues occur with the Youtube download program I use. Youtube changes their 'protocol' or <whatever> and the next time I try to extract a video, it dies and I have to download and install an updated version of the extract program.

Transitdocs is in the same boat. Every time Amtrak changes something on their site, the only 'learn' of it when their data retrieval activities cease to function. Sometimes it can be fixed in a couple of minutes, sometimes hours, and sometimes longer. It depends on how complex the changes made by Amtrak are.

Now if I could only get Amtrak to update their Guest Rewards database instantaneously when my ticket is scanned. UPS, Fedex, and even the US Postal Service scans their packages as they are delivered and their computers are instantly updated. Why not Amtrak?

 

[railpost]

Yes I noticed the same thing this morning in fact the "transit docs" site now only has the trains in the Northeastern section of the USA on the Map.

Yesterday 6/11/2018 the Capitol Limited (train 30) was delayed west of Conellsville Pa for about 2 hours yet well after they resumed travelling east the transit docs map as well as the official Amtrak map show the train stuck west of Conellsville all day long which was even true after the Capitol arrived in Washington DC about 3 1/2 hours late.

 

[railpost]

The Amtrak Status Maps site is working at the moment.

 

[Lonestar648]

Amtrak Map has NOT updated since approx. 7:30 AM CT

 

[acelafan]

The Amtrak Status Maps site is updating since it uses different source data.

 

[Lonestar648]

I checked the Track a Train status for trains in all time zones and they all stopped updating about 7:30 AM CT this morning.

 

[PVD]

I was on 30. Train Status was updating, the Train Tracker was not. The delay was due to a tree down, and it was removed by a CSX maintenance crew.

 

[Pastor_Mac]

Looking at the Track-a-Train map right now (12:23 pm 6/12) I see 176 stuck between Lynchburg & Charlottesville as of 8:25 am on 6/11. Meanwhile, Train Status appears current.

 

[Dakota 400]

Amtrak's Track Your Train is not working as of a few minutes ago. Data is frozen in place when such was last available.