the other day when i was out near the Tanunda's old passenger station i noticed some people clearing the line that once had the limestone Penrice train ant the Barossa wine train it is broad guage and had not been used for at least 5 years could this be the start of something new

if anyone has inside information please respond ASAP.

I think you could add some of the user account shortcuts to the top navigation bar.

My suggestion would be: 
 "My recent Forum posts" which gives a drop down list of the last 10 threads posted to

 "My followed Forums"

 "Private messages" 

 "My images"

The notification for replies is excellent.   My idea is just to extend that funcitonality

Perhaps these could be customisable in the preferences or automatically set based on each users most often used items.

I think it would also encourage users to access all the features of the site.

BACKGROUND
I'm only an occasional user of Railpage and it feels that if I'm not just reading the front page news I have to go through two or three extra steps than I feel I should have to use.

I recommend a "forum post saved" feature that runs first at 30 seconds then runs every 15 seconds or so.   This is particularly important for long, considered replies.  The first save trigger time could be set to avoid saving quick replies which would just be an unwanted and unnecessary burden on your .  

I think users will also just expect this feature in the next few years as it is  standard in many websites and cloud editors.  
(The impetus for my suggestions was that 
I wrote a long post in a forum and when I clicked on post the dreaded "server connection lost" came up.  I couldn't go back and I lost the whole thing.   It wasn't "War and Peace" but I had given it some thought so it was pretty frustrating.)

Tim

Can we have a feature allowing a user to search for a train number in railpage and have returned the train number with running times?

By way of example

https://www.railpage.com.au/radar?mode=train&id=6BM4 this information would be accessible.  The train listing is great but needs to be manually entered via the URL above.

Next and at the same time have a search feature added when you search for a locomotive.  using the existing search at the top right return a location fix for the locomotive you search and if not on a train then return the last known location.

A website called BR Database has records of every single locomotive that operated on British Railways and any pre - nationalisation companies. Something like this on Railpage for each Australian State/Territory would be great, but would require lots of contributing from Railpage users. These databases would probably need to be separate websites altogether.

Currently the RSS/Atom feed (which I use to read Railpage news headlines) only shows the article title in the newsfeed.

This means I see titles such as "Premier announces $200m rail funding" which is pretty ambiguous because I have no idea for which state that applies!

Please add the news category to the article titles in the RSS/Atom feed -- I think a prefix would be best such as,

"QLD: Premier announces $200m rail funding"

which tells the readers all they need to know from a headline.

You can presently list a train number which includes the times the train has been through the key locations during the journey.

https://www.railpage.com.au/radar?mode=train&id=6708

if you click on the location in the list there is no output.  What if you could click on the location and the last 10 trains via that location and the next 10 trains (predicted) through that location could be displayed.

That would be awesome as this provides a better than ever MTP with real data.

Google has a great service where you can set keywords and once news arrives at Google matching the keywords an email is dispatched with a summary and link to the article.  It would be fantastic for users to subscribe to the keywords search for news and receive an email with the summary of news items matching the keyword(s)

e.g.

High Speed Rail
Melbourne Metro Rail Tunnel
Metro Trains
Spain
Amtrak

Users maintain a news profile (we have some of this already) but with the addition of the notification engine being able to send a pop-up and/or an email etc.

Currently only news articles are sent to our twitter feed using a 3rd party service.  Railpage has a large twitter following so this could be leveraged more.  

For the following actions a tweet is sent via their API:

DOWNLOADS
The approval of a new download on the site should produce a new tweet:

"A new download  has been added to the site in section XXXX http://xxxxxxx (URL) @Railpage"

PHOTO COMP
Each time a new photo comp entry is approved on the site the photo description, Comp month and year and URL are sent to the twitter feed. It would also be nice to send this notification to user s who are on the list of either entering or voting using the pop-up via chrome.

Could we also send a post to the facebook page timeline announcing the new photo and allowing users to click through to the photo to review.  It would be helpful is some of the notifications to facebook could be managed on an automated basis.

A tweet about the voting being open should be sent to the twitter feed.

LOCATIONS
When a new location is approved a tweet is sent to the feed with Details and URL. Sending this to the timeline on facebook would also assist.  We could also pop up notify users who have notifications turned on.

Perhaps this could form part of the current notifications engine where certain actions are sent to the twitter feed.

We have an opportunity to negotiate access and subsequent commissioning of two or three railcams at Port Augusta.  I envisage, subject to detailed design, having two cameras in a mode similar to what has been installed at Mount Lofty Railway Station.  One camera facing EAST and one facing WEST.

We would also like to install a PTZ based camera with variable zoom and focus to view trains coming and going from the EDI workshops spur lines.  The idea being users could control the PTZ camera for a period between certain hours of the day.

The cameras would also covering arriving and departing PRR steam and diesel hauled trains at the Port Augusta end of the narrow gauge line.

If you are in favour of this proposal please provide your vote so we can assess interest.