All aboard: New real-time map lets travellers track trains across France, Spain and Belgium

For the age-old question of “where’s my train?”, there's now a new live map for that which tracks rail traffic across France, Spain and Belgium.

Launched in August with an initial focus on the three countries, TrainTracker24 lets users browse Europe’s railway network in real time, from how many trains are active, average delay time in minutes, percentage of on-time trains as well as the percentage of cancellations. The map itself can be rotated, zoomed and explored to your heart's content.

Users can filter the map by a country’s train operator, with TrainTracker24 also including data on Eurostar and Italy’s Frecciarossa service. Other filters focus on infrastructure, such as stations that are without any rail service, those with high-speed lines, and stations that are operational, but closed to members of the public. There are also widgets with live rankings of the most delayed trains and most disrupted stations.

And if you have a train number handy, even better. Train enthusiasts can look up scheduled runs, past journeys as well as live tracking. Other search functions include departures, arrivals, punctuality and facilities available at stations in France, Germany, Spain and Belgium.

There is also a section to search rail operators, their routes and performance. For instance, when Euronews Travel looked at France’s high-speed SNCF performance, at the time of writing, the operator had 601 trains running, 80 of which were delayed by 15 minutes or more and 22 were cancelled. This network snapshot is refreshed every 20 seconds, so you can quite literally watch any rail dramas unfold there and then.

While the above basics are free, paid features include a personalised journey map, live data on interrupted services shown on the map, the ability to sort trains by delay, as well as more map details highlighting infrastructure, track types and an expert reading, among other features.

The platform gets all of its information from open data from operators, regions and infrastructure managers about timetables, real-time updates and disruption information.

According to a post via X, the platform is on track to expand further into Europe.

Sounds familiar? It should

Does this concept sound familiar? TrainTracker24 joins other platforms, including TrainTracker.live.

The latter is also free to use and offers users a live map and details on train positions, timetables and punctuality statistics for rail networks. Boasting data on almost 11,000 live trains as of when I browsed the website, TrainTracker.live’s reach span across four continents, including Europe, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

In fact, train enthusiasts are spoiled for choice on where to get these insights from, with other available platforms, such as TrainsTracking, which offers live information as well as fare comparisons with links to official booking operator pages across 76 countries. However, its insights are most detailed in Europe, Japan, India, Pakistan and the US.

Meanwhile, the SignalBox live train map focuses solely on trains and rail networks within the UK.

Perhaps all this sounds slightly reminiscent of Flightradar24, too? Well…

Elric Battello, TrainTracker24’s founder, told Luxembourg-based media outlet Virgule: “When you’re flying, or waiting for someone at the airport, it’s easy to open Flightradar24 to track the flight live on a map; the same goes for shipping. With trains, it’s different. You’ll often see a display at the station or receive a notification in the event of a delay. But you don’t really know what’s going on”.