ABB125
Established Member
What train journey recording are there, other than RailMiles? I currently use a very basic spreadsheet to record everything, but it's somewhat unwieldly and obviously doesn't have most of the features of a "proper" system (such as most frequent journeys, quick and easy filtering of entries etc). I would quite like to upgrade to a better system, but not RailMiles (for a number of reasons, including cost and having lots of features I don't want/need).
Do any other systems exist? I've done a bit of searching, but haven't found anything. There seem to be quite a few different offers for planes, but not trains...
I have some potentially quite niche requirements I'd like: I'm not bothered about departure times, headcodes etc, all I care about is date, start/end/via, distance, unit/locomotive, and free text field for notes. Needs to be able to cope with international journeys/trains, and Underground/metro/tram etc, as well as UK trains, with the ability to categorise each entry appropriately. Ability to "collapse" entries into days/multi-day trips, multi-segment journeys etc (here's a hypothetical example of each of these: day 1 I travel BHM-GLC then GLQ-ABD then ABD-INV then INV-EUS on the sleeper, day 2 I travel EUS-MAN then MAN-YRK then -BHM. I want this to be viewable as individual journey segments (eg: BHM-GLC via WCML on 390xxx on 1 January, xxx miles), daily totals (BHM-GLC, GLQ-ABD-INV-EUS on 1 January, xxx miles total) and trip totals (BHM-EUS on 1 January, EUS-BHM on 2 January, xxx miles total). However, the INV-EUS sleeper is actually split into two segments: INV-EDB diesel-hauled, then EDB-EUS electric-hauled - at present, this would be recorded as two separate entries in my spreadsheet (and would also be split across two days) with a note that it's a sleeper train, but I'd like it to be treated as a single INV-EUS journey for things like "longest journey"*).
Alternatively, any suggestions for the best way to make my own, ranging from advanced spreadsheets (which I should be quite capable of doing, with the help of Google) to building my own database system (suggestions of software to do this with welcome... I dabbled with Microsoft Access in around 2018 as I happened to have access (ha ha) to it, but for various reasons that didn't work out) would be welcome. Has anyone done this themselves? Given how picky I am, I suspect a custom system is probably best, but will be quite a bit of work!
Thanks very much, if any of that doesn't make sense please let me know.
*A similar but even more niche scenario which I have concerns loco-hauled** services which split/join en-route (mainly Austrian RailJet services). Say I'm going from Munich to Vienna: between Munich and Salzburg, it's nice and simple, one RailJet set with one locomotive powering; but then, at Salzburg, it joins to another RailJet set from Innsbruck (or beyond) for the remainder of the journey - that's now two locomotives powering, but still the same journey... Note that the Caledonian sleeper doesn't fall into this category, because it swaps locomotives, rather than adding them.
**but not multiple-unit services, due to the way I record things!
Do any other systems exist? I've done a bit of searching, but haven't found anything. There seem to be quite a few different offers for planes, but not trains...
I have some potentially quite niche requirements I'd like: I'm not bothered about departure times, headcodes etc, all I care about is date, start/end/via, distance, unit/locomotive, and free text field for notes. Needs to be able to cope with international journeys/trains, and Underground/metro/tram etc, as well as UK trains, with the ability to categorise each entry appropriately. Ability to "collapse" entries into days/multi-day trips, multi-segment journeys etc (here's a hypothetical example of each of these: day 1 I travel BHM-GLC then GLQ-ABD then ABD-INV then INV-EUS on the sleeper, day 2 I travel EUS-MAN then MAN-YRK then -BHM. I want this to be viewable as individual journey segments (eg: BHM-GLC via WCML on 390xxx on 1 January, xxx miles), daily totals (BHM-GLC, GLQ-ABD-INV-EUS on 1 January, xxx miles total) and trip totals (BHM-EUS on 1 January, EUS-BHM on 2 January, xxx miles total). However, the INV-EUS sleeper is actually split into two segments: INV-EDB diesel-hauled, then EDB-EUS electric-hauled - at present, this would be recorded as two separate entries in my spreadsheet (and would also be split across two days) with a note that it's a sleeper train, but I'd like it to be treated as a single INV-EUS journey for things like "longest journey"*).
Alternatively, any suggestions for the best way to make my own, ranging from advanced spreadsheets (which I should be quite capable of doing, with the help of Google) to building my own database system (suggestions of software to do this with welcome... I dabbled with Microsoft Access in around 2018 as I happened to have access (ha ha) to it, but for various reasons that didn't work out) would be welcome. Has anyone done this themselves? Given how picky I am, I suspect a custom system is probably best, but will be quite a bit of work!
Thanks very much, if any of that doesn't make sense please let me know.
*A similar but even more niche scenario which I have concerns loco-hauled** services which split/join en-route (mainly Austrian RailJet services). Say I'm going from Munich to Vienna: between Munich and Salzburg, it's nice and simple, one RailJet set with one locomotive powering; but then, at Salzburg, it joins to another RailJet set from Innsbruck (or beyond) for the remainder of the journey - that's now two locomotives powering, but still the same journey... Note that the Caledonian sleeper doesn't fall into this category, because it swaps locomotives, rather than adding them.
**but not multiple-unit services, due to the way I record things!
