timezone-boundary-builder VS OpenRailwayMap

They don't really bother me. They aren't AI spam, and some folks may enjoy them. It's pretty easy to not click on a link, for me.

TZ are a fun project. I found that it's difficult to translate a long/lat into a TZ ID, so I wrote this[0].

Works a charm. It's based on the Timezone Boundary Builder[1].

[0] https://github.com/LittleGreenViper/LGV_TZ_Lookup

[1] https://github.com/evansiroky/timezone-boundary-builder

I wrote a tutorial on SpatiaLite here: https://datasette.io/tutorials/spatialite - "Building a location to time zone API with SpatiaLite"

It shows how to use SpatiaLite + Datasette to build an API that can tell you what timezone a latitude/longitude point is in, using data derived from OpenStreetMap via https://github.com/evansiroky/timezone-boundary-builder

Here's a demo: https://timezones.datasette.io/timezones/by_point?longitude=... - add ".json" to the URL for the JSON output.

I have never had an opportunity to deploy this tool, but here's a program for generating a TZ shapefile from OpenStreetMap data:

https://github.com/evansiroky/timezone-boundary-builder

In principle a calendar program could use its output to perform GIS lookups of locations then use the tzinfo DB to get the correct timezone at the given location and specified time.

You could ask google. Amazon or Microsoft probably offer similar APIs. Or you can do it yourself. It's a very complicated topic, though.

There is a separate timezone boundary builder which maps geography to timezones using a shapefile, and the shapefile is >35MB uncompressed. By comparison the latest tzdata is 1.2M uncompressed.

Looks nice but it's probably not really usable for navigation. I checked the Netherlands and Germany. You'd need more details for safely navigating on the water. But it definitely has potential.

There are also some other specialized open street map based maps for

- rails: https://www.openrailwaymap.org/

- cycling: https://www.opencyclemap.org/

- sea map (competes with this I guess, and is a bit more detailed for navigation): https://map.openseamap.org/

And probably loads of other ones.

This might be a good place to share: https://www.openrailwaymap.org

The other thing to take into account is where they would need to build routes to make it happen. Looking at https://www.openrailwaymap.org/, there's some spots that need to be filled in to make a Pittsburgh <-> Erie line. But, I could see Meadville and New Castle being at least two of the stops on the way.

The Amtrak plan I linked shows it following the Norfolk-Southern Harrisburg line. It would come from Reading and Phoenixville, through KOP, then join up with the Trenton line near Rte1 and head towards 30th St. From there it looks like it would follow the remainder of the Keystone route. You can follow the path here too:https://www.openrailwaymap.org/

^ This is just not true. For reference.

France has an excellent high speed rail network it has less need for domestic flights. Other countries in the EU could learn from that.

Germany particularly is a basket case. If you take the "high speed" train from Berlin to Köln, it takes nearly five hours, the train stops lots of times, and with the exception of a few tens of kilometers never hits anywhere near its maximum speed. Combined with all the delays, cancelled trains, strikes, etc. It makes for a bit unpredictable experience. Domestic flights are well under 1 hour, typically. Even with the hassle of getting to and from airports, it's way faster.

https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ has a nice map that you can show the maximum speeds on rail segments. Spain and France are the best. I've taken high speed trains in both and their high speed trains go the maximum speed most of the journey. Germany is notable for just not having a lot of rail suitable for its trains to drive their maximum speed.

Germany could do a lot better. But it will require massive investments.

I think the idea of a night train is more attractive than the reality of it being very slow, expensive, and relatively uncomfortable (at least I never managed to sleep well on one).

IMHO domestic flights in many countries can start transitioning to fully electric hops in the next decade or so. Anything under 700 miles is fair game for that. The battery technology is getting there. So, investing in lots of rail might not be the smartest thing.

Open Infra Map; shows major electrical lines, power plants, gas & oil lines, and telecom/data centers. Gets its data from Open Street Map: https://openinframap.org/

Open Railway Map; shows railroad lines. Also gets its data from OSM: https://www.openrailwaymap.org/

This is even better: https://www.openrailwaymap.org