About RailGlance

What RailGlance is

RailGlance combines compatible public transportation feeds into a provider-neutral view of active passenger trains, routes, stations, service information, and recent train-position history. It is privately operated and is not a government service, railroad dispatching system, or official application of any transit operator.

The project’s goal is statewide coverage without pretending all realtime data has the same accuracy. Useful operator reports and trip estimates can appear, but they must remain visibly different from coordinate-bearing VehiclePositions.

What “live” means here

Map matching may place a train icon on the appropriate rail alignment. When a raw coordinate exists, RailGlance retains it and displays the raw fix separately. Optional projection between updates is off by default.

An open request to train operators

If you operate passenger rail in California, RailGlance would value a documented and authorized way to display your service accurately. Public, stable feeds help riders, researchers, accessibility tools, and independent trip-information projects.

Especially useful data includes:

• Static GTFS with stable route, trip, shape, stop, and service identifiers.
• GTFS-Realtime VehiclePositions containing coordinates, vehicle/trip identity, and source timestamps.
• Trip Updates, cancellations, platform information, and Service Alerts.
• Bearing, speed, consist or locomotive identifiers when they are approved for public distribution.
• Published update cadence, rate limits, authentication instructions, license terms, attribution requirements, and a technical contact.
• For non-GPS train-control or operator-location systems, documentation describing what the coordinate represents so RailGlance can label it honestly.

RailGlance can accommodate API keys, reasonable polling limits, attribution, feed-specific quality rules, and advance notice of schema changes. It does not need access to dispatch controls, employee systems, passenger identities, security-sensitive infrastructure, or non-public operational data.

RailGlance welcomes contact from authorized operator, agency, and data-platform representatives. A public data-contact address will appear here once established.

Data sources and attribution

Operator names are used only to identify services and data sources. All operator names, logos, maps, and trademarks remain the property of their respective owners. Appearance in RailGlance does not imply sponsorship, endorsement, partnership, or verification.

Privacy notice

RailGlance currently has no public user accounts, advertising profiles, ticket sales, payment processing, or sale of personal information. The browser stores map preferences, viewport, filters, and display settings locally on your device. The service worker may cache versioned application assets for faster loading.

Like most internet services, hosting and security infrastructure may temporarily process technical request information such as IP address, user agent, requested path, timestamps, and error details. RailGlance also stores observations about public trains for a limited history period; those records describe trains and feeds, not site visitors.

The map requests tiles or context from third-party mapping services, including OpenStreetMap-related services. Those providers may receive ordinary network request information under their own policies. RailGlance does not request browser geolocation, camera, microphone, payment, or USB access.

RailGlance does not sell or share visitor information for cross-context behavioral advertising and does not serve targeted ads. You can remove locally stored preferences and cached application assets through your browser’s site-data controls. Because RailGlance has no public accounts, it does not maintain an account profile for you to access or delete.

Terms of use

Informational use only

RailGlance is provided for general informational and enthusiast use. Positions, arrivals, alerts, vehicle identities, routes, and availability may be delayed, incomplete, incorrect, duplicated, or unavailable. Always rely on the relevant operator’s official channels for travel decisions.

Not safety-critical

Do not use RailGlance for dispatching, train separation, emergency response, trespassing, approaching tracks, locating personnel, law enforcement, or any activity where inaccurate information could cause harm. Never enter railroad property or unsafe areas to confirm a map position.

Acceptable access

You may use the public website normally and link to public train or station pages. Do not disrupt the service, evade rate limits, probe private endpoints, attempt unauthorized access, overload upstream providers, impersonate RailGlance or an operator, or republish third-party data in violation of its license.

No warranty

The site and its data are provided “as is” and “as available,” without guarantees of accuracy, completeness, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, continuous availability, or non-infringement. To the maximum extent allowed by applicable law, RailGlance’s owner is not liable for losses arising from reliance on the site or inability to use it.

Changes and removal

Feeds, features, coverage, and these terms may change as operators update their services or requirements. RailGlance will honor valid data-license, attribution, security, and removal concerns and may suspend a provider while a concern is reviewed.