Unfamiliar with North America’s Official Guide of the Railways? Read this introduction to “The Guide” to welcome you to an excellent – and complex – resource
Published 1st October 2020
Our overview to the RCH describes its role and history, and uses the colourful maps to share some railway snippets.
[Article under development]
“Are you married or do you live in Maidenhead?“. How Brunel’s Great Western Railway helped to create a fashionable – and somewhat louche – river resort.
[Article under development]
Fifty regional operators dominated the British bus industry after the Second World War. As an introduction to the bus timetable collection, our map and historical overview explain how the industry was structured.
Published 8th October 2020
East Prussia, Memel and Pomerania are no longer German. Follow the former main lines to Königsberg and Insterburg in timetables and maps.
[Article under development]
The Colorado Midland Railway appears in our 1916 Official Guide but is gone by 1918. It was just too difficult to operate – and the US Government shut it down. We tell its story in timetables and maps.
[Article under development]
The new-style website is released today. People's expectations have changed in the 11 years that Timetable World has been running and we've taken the opportunity to completely rewrite it to use the latest technologies. It is designed to work on handheld devices that didn't exist when the site first started, whilst making full use of ever-larger desktop screens. There are many more timetables and maps now available and, importantly, a new team of volunteers helping to scan and index the material coming in from collectors and our archive partners.
The articles promised on the front page will follow soon, and we'll add more timetables during October.
This is an archive, not a fully curated online exhibition. Expect to do some work to find the nuggets that interest you. The timetable viewer has many controls to help you navigate including preset bookmarks and we encourage users to take the time to learn the toolkit provided.
Please tell us about any faults you find. It is difficult to test every combination of device, browser brand and version, language etc. The site relies on reasonably up-to-date browsers and we are not attempting to support ancient systems.
Please share your ideas for improvements too. The Timetable World project is very much alive and seeking new people to get involved.
The new website is taking shape with about three weeks to go before it is cut over to live. Timetable World‘s core group of volunteers and contributors are today being invited to review the site.
We’ve over-achieved on the scanning front and look like having around 150 books available when the website is relaunched.
Effort is now focussed on website development. Much of the work is writing text, which I enjoy doing, but I cannot deliver at the pace of a professional journalist.
The project is on schedule. You’d expect nothing less from a timetables website, would you?
The last three weeks have been busy, with around 80 timetables arriving here for scanning.
Two collectors have opened their archives of European rail timetables, for which Timetable World is very grateful. There should be a representative national timetable for almost every European country at the relaunch.
The Bus Archive has also come good. They have shared 32 timetables from the late 1960s, covering most non-municipal services in England & Wales. The whole stack of 8,542 pages has been digitised – over three long days.
Volunteers to spread the work are still wanted. Please make yourself known if you have some free time to help. Thank you!
There’s a lot happening. Users waiting for timetableworld.com to be relaunched will have to be patient; it will be a big expansion and improvement – and there’s much more to do. Expect the relaunch October 2020.
A few highlights:
Things we need:
Plans for refreshing the website are developing quickly.
The former (inactive) email address has now been replaced by
A second forum thread is demo-ing a possible new way of displaying timetable books and is available at railforums.co.uk. Add your thoughts to the thread or by emailing me.
After a long period with no development taking place on the site, I’ve opened up a debate on whether to do a major revamp. You can read the forum debate at railforums.co.uk
The site has been receiving 40,000 visitors per month but, to take it forward, I need to assemble a small team to help with the work. My post on the forum says more about what’s involved. Please share your thoughts.
Please visit the About menu pages to learn about the project and its technologies, then make contact with Timetable World via our email address
Timetable World has expanded to cover 25 countries, including most in Europe. There are 186 complete timetables and maps on the site already, representing over 51,000 pages of scans. Lots to explore.
Not all books are fully indexed – around 40%. We rely on volunteers to complete the work.