ridealong - Live 3D visualization of London trains
Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D
ridealong offers an immersive, real-time 3D experience for tracking London trains directly in your browser. Powered by TfL Open Data and National Rail Enquiries, this tool transforms raw transit information into an interactive map where users can drag to explore the city's rail network. Created by Martin as a vibecoded project in London, it leverages OpenStreetMap building data to render a dynamic environment. Whether you are a transit enthusiast or a local commuter, ridealong provides a unique visual perspective on the movement of trains across London, making complex data instantly engaging and easy to understand.
vibecoded in london by martin
- IIAOPSW
This is frustratingly close to amazing. Obviously you went through all the trouble of pulling all the data from all the trains and displaying them in 3d, but then lock our view on to just one train or one station while all that interesting information zips around in the periphery. The view port needs to be more free form...less on rails.
- Rophlock
Congratulations, it seems very cool.
It's not the same, but I've tried to create a free browser-based app to track bus lines where I live (Brazil), but I had to pause this project, as each city uses a different way to track their public transportation, and it would be hard to gather all the info in a way to be usable in the whole country.
It's nice to see something similar implemented to track the transportation in another country.
- darknavi
I'd love to see a view with all/many trains. In London I was constantly wondering what the criss-cross of underground lines looked like.
- modeless
The rendering is a bit weird. It's disorienting to have the trains simultaneously underneath the map and occluding it. It also seems like the z-buffer is not being used correctly when rendering the train cars.
- flockonus
Looking at this gave me a renewed (even if brief) sense of appreciation for our society.
Even with all of its problems, for this moment in time our society is operating effectively enough that humans can engineer interesting, beautiful, culturally rich landscapes (cities) in quite a significant size scale.
Cheers to us, in 2026.