Passenger Trains > Amtrak tracking and dixieland

I notice that after a couple of days of being unable to access the Amtrak tracking maps from Dixieland, the link has now disappeared entirely. I hope this is only a momentary glitch and not what I fear and expect it is: that Amtrak asked for the link to be removed because it allowed people to access the maps without going through the Amtrak web site.

It is working for me.

Normanroger Wrote:
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> It is working for me.

When you're on dixieland, do you get the little blue circle that directs you immediately to tracking?

It is working for me but lately it takes forever to have anything appear on the screen.

I just checked several trains. No little blue circles on any of them.

John Webb
Trinidad, CA

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The link that a bunch of us had that allowed access directly without going to Amtrak.com no longer works.
Discussion here at Amtrak Unlimited...

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/57182-real-time-train-tracker/

John

Ptolemy Wrote:
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> I notice that after a couple of days of being
> unable to access the Amtrak tracking maps from
> Dixieland, the link has now disappeared entirely.
> I hope this is only a momentary glitch and not
> what I fear and expect it is: that Amtrak asked
> for the link to be removed because it allowed
> people to access the maps without going through
> the Amtrak web site.

Fear confirmed:

I don't know if Amtrak did it exactly like that, but what they've done has had the same effect:

There is no direct access to the tracking maps without going through Amtrak.com. The tracking map is
no longer accessible as a link to akamai.net, which is the company that actually hosts it. It is
now accessible only by a script which is linked on the Amtrak.com routes page: http://www.amtrak.com/train-routes



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/13 11:14 by GenePoon.

I don't know if this is the link you all are talking about but this one works for me.

http://dixielandsoftware.net/Amtrak/status/StatusMaps/

That's the link to DIXIELAND.

The Dixieland Train Status page used to have a link to the AMTRAK Train Tracker. That is the link that is now defunct.

OK, Gotcha.

I don't know about anyone else, but I got some nasty spyware pop up box on Internet Explorer, and it has Akamai in the address.

Akamai Technologies is a legitimate and longstanding (1998) company serving many companies worldwide,
delivering Internet content. In many instances, when you access a website, you are actually accessing
Akamai (tracing the route to your destination will often reveal this). Facebook, Twitter, Bing, and even
the White House use Akamai as a contractor to provide server capacity for their needs, mirroring their
content.

In this case Akamai is a contractor providing the Train Tracker for Amtrak. It acquires data from Amtrak
and integrates it so that it is usable by a lay person as end user.

I don't know what in your anti-malware program may have been triggered by the Amtrak Train Tracker, but there
is nothing sinister about Akamai in and of itself.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/13 07:59 by GenePoon.