Signalbox maps Great Britain's rail network in real time

Signalbox is a browser-based tool that renders the live state of Great Britain’s rail network on an interactive map, showing trains as they move across the country in something close to real time. Rather than a static timetable or a single operator’s app, it presents the whole network at once, letting anyone watch services progress between stations without installing anything.

The project reflects the wider ecosystem of tools built on Britain’s open rail data feeds, which expose train positions and service information to third-party developers. Projects like this turn that raw operational data into an accessible visual layer that’s useful to commuters, enthusiasts, and anyone curious about how the network behaves during normal running or disruption.

On Hacker News its appeal is largely as a well-executed data-visualization project — a clean demonstration of what public transport data makes possible when surfaced through a responsive web interface. The main caveats are the ones common to any live-map: accuracy depends entirely on the upstream feeds, and coverage or refresh rates can vary by operator and region.