RailEnquiry

This is by far the coolest thing I have came across in recent times! Imagine that there was a (Google) map of India which shows the present location, live, of ALL trains currently running in India my means of dots or arrows, just like the one seen in rail controller’s offices in TV shows and films. Also imagine that the map will show you the running status of all trains, their route, stops and origins and destinations. And this map is interactive, zoom in and out-able and plain vanilla. Done imagining? Now make a wish. Poof! Your wish has been granted!! Atleast mine) Can you believe how awesome this is? Ok, I am getting ahead of the story. Click on this URL below

RAIL RADAR ON TRAIN ENQUIRY

Fantastic, isn’t it?? This is the holy grail of information dissemination! You can scroll along the map and see what train is runnign where in the country! What an initiative! Wow!! You can find:

All trains represented across India as little arrows which point in the direction the train is running
A Blue arrow means the train is on time and a Red arrow means that the train is running late
Hover over an arrow to see what train it represents
Click on the arrow and the route of the train will be drawn across the map in yellow
The route already covered by the train will be shown as a solid yellow line
The route to be covered will be shown in dashed yellow lines.
Clicking on a train’s arrow will also open a popup box which will show the train’s full name and number, the day started from its originating station, the last station of updation, next scheduled stop of the train, how late the train is or if it is on time, a link to display the latest status of the train (which will point to trainenquiry.com), links to display all stops of the train which will be shown as blue circles along the yellow line and a link to mark the train as a favorite. There are some screenshots below.

Of course, you can zoom in and zoom out on the map, search for a particular train or station and there is a counter on top which shows the total number of trains running as of now and what percentage is on time.

Awesomeness. Just select the map and choose a train on a major route and see all trains running along the line, or zoom out to get a broad view of the sheer size of the Indian Railways! Whoa! I am having as much fun as a kid left in a candy store!

(PS: Google has got nothing to do with this, yes, this is an initiative of the Railways, or more exactly, Indian Railways Center for Railway Information System (CRIS) and the website RailYatri.in! Yes, a fully homegrown initiative! Now this does make me proud! Kudos CRIS and Rail Yatri, Awesome Work!)