RealTimeTrains website

[Sealink]

I cannot access RTT live train times and have been getting this error :

"

Just a moment…​

We’re checking your browser before continuing to Realtime Trains. This is automatic and usually takes a few seconds. "​

I get stuck in this loop. Using Firefox 151.0.1 (64 bit) for Arch Linux. I turned off all ad blockers and Ublock origin. Works fine on firefox for iPhone.View attachment 206637

I get that if I inadvertently have lots of web browsers open.

 

[Mike395]

I get that if I inadvertently have lots of web browsers open.

I'm not convinced it'd have anything to do with the number of browsers?

 

[takno]

I cannot access RTT live train times and have been getting this error :

"

Just a moment…​

We’re checking your browser before continuing to Realtime Trains. This is automatic and usually takes a few seconds. "​

I get stuck in this loop. Using Firefox 151.0.1 (64 bit) for Arch Linux. I turned off all ad blockers and Ublock origin. Works fine on firefox for iPhone.

Don't have this issue on RTT, or on Cloudflare-protected sites generally. I do get it lot in Firefox for hotel/flight booking sites protected by the other big protection service (forget the name) though. I've found creating a new Firefox profile just for those sites usually works.

The trouble is that they aren't trying to spot or prevent blockers, but to spot and prevent people who aren't real users. Unblocking trackers can help, but in many cases once they have fingerprinted your browser and marked it as suspicious, they will just not let it in even if you change the behaviour that was initially suspicious. It's depressing how quickly AI scrapers have destroyed the viability of the open internet.

 

[Tom]

Wow - sorry, I'd missed that - thanks for responses. Selfishly, this is such a game changer when wanting to track down specific units on a day out!

Get RTT+ and you can search a whole fleet in one go (and it'll highlight the current service each unit is operating too as of this morning...)

I'm assuming RTT and RailChecker Pro source their running data differently - Railchecker Pro shows previous/next workings at the origin/destination which would be really useful in RTT - and it's presumably this that allows forecast delays en route to be more realistic (even before train has left origin) in Railchecker Pro.

At the risk of sounding like I'm dissing another product - Railchecker is essentially just a different frontend on Darwin, the official industry source of information. I can't imagine it does any forecasting of delay in house.

RTT is a very different entity and does all of its processing in house from different data sources which can and does result in different pictures of the truth. The reality is the answer is somewhere in the middle of both Darwin and RTT (we have a product that marries both for industry, which normally has a better picture of what is running and what is not... but we're not allowed to make it public).

I cannot access RTT live train times and have been getting this error :

Email support with your IP address and the link whatismybrowser.com gives you.

Don't have this issue on RTT, or on Cloudflare-protected sites generally. I do get it lot in Firefox for hotel/flight booking sites protected by the other big protection service (forget the name) though. I've found creating a new Firefox profile just for those sites usually works.

The trouble is that they aren't trying to spot or prevent blockers, but to spot and prevent people who aren't real users. Unblocking trackers can help, but in many cases once they have fingerprinted your browser and marked it as suspicious, they will just not let it in even if you change the behaviour that was initially suspicious. It's depressing how quickly AI scrapers have destroyed the viability of the open internet.

We've ended up adding a homegrown fingerprinter to try and allow a lot of devices that Cloudflare just doesn't care about as a pre-gate to Cloudflare. If you don't pass that gate (I'm not going to say how it works here, obviously - but I can tell you when I see you!) then you get passed to Turnstile. It looks like this user is looping on our homegrown one which probably means cookies are being rejected somewhere.

 

[35B]

Don't have this issue on RTT, or on Cloudflare-protected sites generally. I do get it lot in Firefox for hotel/flight booking sites protected by the other big protection service (forget the name) though. I've found creating a new Firefox profile just for those sites usually works.

The trouble is that they aren't trying to spot or prevent blockers, but to spot and prevent people who aren't real users. Unblocking trackers can help, but in many cases once they have fingerprinted your browser and marked it as suspicious, they will just not let it in even if you change the behaviour that was initially suspicious. It's depressing how quickly AI scrapers have destroyed the viability of the open internet.

I guess you mean Akamai? I’ve worked at a place where scrapers (not just AI) were a real problem and brought services down without that kind of fingerprinting - the only alternative was to put the service behind an account login, which would have undermined the whole purpose.

 

[General Zod]

Don't have this issue on RTT, or on Cloudflare-protected sites generally. I do get it lot in Firefox for hotel/flight booking sites protected by the other big protection service (forget the name) though. I've found creating a new Firefox profile just for those sites usually works.

The trouble is that they aren't trying to spot or prevent blockers, but to spot and prevent people who aren't real users. Unblocking trackers can help, but in many cases once they have fingerprinted your browser and marked it as suspicious, they will just not let it in even if you change the behaviour that was initially suspicious. It's depressing how quickly AI scrapers have destroyed the viability of the open internet.

Switching to Floorp browser (installed via flatpak ) the RTT site works fine ....

 

[Mike99]

Get RTT+ and you can search a whole fleet in one go (and it'll highlight the current service each unit is operating too as of this morning...)


At the risk of sounding like I'm dissing another product - Railchecker is essentially just a different frontend on Darwin, the official industry source of information. I can't imagine it does any forecasting of delay in house.

RTT is a very different entity and does all of its processing in house from different data sources which can and does result in different pictures of the truth. The reality is the answer is somewhere in the middle of both Darwin and RTT (we have a product that marries both for industry, which normally has a better picture of what is running and what is not... but we're not allowed to make it public).


Email support with your IP address and the link whatismybrowser.com gives you.


We've ended up adding a homegrown fingerprinter to try and allow a lot of devices that Cloudflare just doesn't care about as a pre-gate to Cloudflare. If you don't pass that gate (I'm not going to say how it works here, obviously - but I can tell you when I see you!) then you get passed to Turnstile. It looks like this user is looping on our homegrown one which probably means cookies are being rejected somewhere.

Tom, I did reply to your email this morning, verifying the account, is there an update? I realise your very busy though. Thanks Mike

 

[Sealink]

I'm not convinced it'd have anything to do with the number of browsers?

I can't remember the exact message but it was to do with the amount of data being transmitted, which to be honest, I thought was weird. I regularly do virus-checks on my IT and nothing came up.

 

[TastyMaltesers]

Do you run a VPN?

 

[Tom]

We have made some further changes to the anti-bot protections.

Also new on RTT+ web today:
* On fleet and vehicle search, the currently operating service is now highlighted
* There is now a beta calendar search on vehicle search
* There's a new trains only filter available in detailed mode

And on main RTT we've made a few other improvements behind the scenes to make things a bit quicker.

 

[Jim]

Very impressed with the latest changes that highlight "winners" in such a good fashion!

 

[CR165022]

I'm wondering if anyone can help. So, I'm trying to create an account on RailMiles, however I already have one on RTT.

It only lets me register with RTT, however because of that I can't set a username, so when I log with my RTT account on RailMiles and try and link them, it asks me for my Username and password afterwards but because I was never given the option to create one, I'm just stuck on the log in page.

It seems the Username/Password thing on RailMiles is a "Legacy Account", but now I simply can't create one and therefore can't merge with my RTT account.

Pressing "Change Details" on RailMiles just takes me to RTT too, where I can't set that username, as on RTT it only gives you the option for email, first name and last name.

Apologies if I'm missing something obvious here!

 

[bluegoblin7]

If you have never had a legacy RailMiles account you don’t need to worry about merging, linking or anything else - log in with your RTT account, make sure you have an active subscription and you’re good to go.

 

[CR165022]

Ah okay. Thanks!

Another thing, with the new calendar on the unit search page on RTT, would it be possible to have it so that it's the second option and not the first? So that it's today's list of services for that unit that always come up first rather than the calendar coming up first when you search.

 

[lokiavivson]

Allocations for all passenger TOCs except London Overground and Eurostar have been available for a few months now, although this isn’t ‘full’ Know Your Train data.

Does anyone know why allocations for Overground services aren't shown? I can understand allocations not being shown for Eurostar as they're not a domestic TOC.

 

[bluegoblin7]

Simply, because they’re not available in the open data / Gemini feed (I find this very annoying personally but it is beyond RTT’s control!).

 

[embers25]

Anyone else getting repeated full page popup on RTT from the media trust asking if I find the ad is misleading?

 

[Tom]

That should only come up if you tap the alert icon in the corner of an ad. If it’s repetitive and uncommanded, send support an email with screenshots, browser and IP address (find on ip6.me).

 

[Andy Pacer]

Anyone else getting repeated full page popup on RTT from the media trust asking if I find the ad is misleading?

Yes I am and its very frustrating!
Its in no way connected to the ads as none are displayed, it's just popping up randomly as im browsing through RTT.

 

[Tom]

It is completely connected to the ads regardless of whether any are shown or not. Our supplier uses them to filter out bad adverts.

Again I request send support an email with screenshots, browser and IP address (find on ip6.me).

Without that we can’t do much about it on our end other than say “we have reports”. If we have that, then we can present it to them as a problem.

 

[nineteenninety]

Does anyone know the likelihood of Eurostar adding trains to the know your train section or are all the diagrams/allocations managed on the French side? And would subsequently be wary of handing out such information as they have a different railway culture.

 

[Tom]

I can’t currently see (and am certainly not aware of) any logical route to Eurostar being added in full.

 

[talldave]

Anyone else getting repeated full page popup on RTT from the media trust asking if I find the ad is misleading?

Yes it's making RTT virtually unusable. On a mobile screen, whatever the offending ads are, they're not even visible and I'm not "touching" them. All I know is that the Media Trust are getting on my ****. If they'd tested their stuff properly this wouldn't be happening. I have no issue with ads and fully appreciate they pay the bills.

Waiting for a train, I realise it happens after a refresh when you touch the screen to scroll.

 

[Freightmaster]

Yes it's making RTT virtually unusable. On a mobile screen, whatever the offending ads are, they're not even visible and I'm not "touching" them. All I know is that the Media Trust are getting on my ****. If they'd tested their stuff properly this wouldn't be happening. I have no issue with ads and fully appreciate they pay the bills.

Have you contacted RTT support directly, as Tom has repeatedly asked people experiencing this issue to do?

 

[Tom]

We've been trying to work it through with the ad provider, but we have very limited to go on because we need to know more information. It's only affecting a small proportion of people, our current working assumption is that it's only affecting Android users on Samsung devices using the Samsung browser.

We only have that because two people have contacted us via support and have provided us enough information for us to assume that. I have no idea if that's right or not.

So - for the third time - if you are experiencing it please contact RTT support at hello@realtimetrains.com with screenshot, device and browser information.

 

[sammyg901]

Sent a report to support

 

[talldave]

Video sent with all the s/w version stats - hope it helps. It seems to be the first screen touch after a page load/refresh that triggers the pop-up. Unfortunately, refresh is the thing I do most whilst monitoring a train's progress !

 

[Tom]

We believe the TMT popup issue is now resolved but if anyone else is experiencing it then please let us know.

Meanwhile, for RTT+ users over this weekend is a new experimental feature (which may still change shape) which allows you to filter train services in detailed mode to either train services that have at least one report, or have been called in TRUST. You can alternatively add a 'highlight' which will highlight them in colour. It only works for train services from 1st July 2026 onwards while we are in beta for this.

 

[J-2739]

Is there a problem with displaying the train diagram in the app? It comes up with a blank on my Android device. Uninstalled the app and everything.

 

[Andy Pacer]

We believe the TMT popup issue is now resolved but if anyone else is experiencing it then please let us know.

Its definitely been better in that regard the past couple of days.