Rail Data - About - What's New

This page gives details of new features and functionality on this website. Note that it does not include additions and changes to the content data; this is covered on a separate Latest Data page.

16th February 2023
Numerous functionality improvements
As part of a '2 years on' review, about 80 page files have been revised to improve usability. Many of the changes will not be apparent to normal users, but here are some that you might notice:

Pages to request a password reminder or password reset have been created, and can be accessed from the normal log-in page in case you forget your password.
When you log-in, you will now be notified of any changes to your content since your last log-in. This will include things like sightings, listings, notes etc having been approved, rejected, edited or noted. This information will also be shown on the 'My Account' page.
All input fields that take dates are now in the 'normal' DD/MM/YYYY format, and will also accept vague inputs such as c12/1987 or b2012. The database still stores the values in the YYYYMMDD format to enable sorting.
All input pages (to add or edit sightings, notes, etc) should now have a preview stage, help tips, error trapping and date-checking.
Most detail pages (such as ones showing a TOPS code, a design, a batch or a pool) now have previous/next links. These are both contextual (based on your last-used filters and sorting) and overall. The links also work with key presses n, N, p and P (upper-case ones do the contextual link).
The Number detail page will now (at last) show all relevant renumberings, including those that were not one-to-one.
The Number detail page will now include photos, sightings and listings for related numbers (i.e. earlier or later numbers carried). For example, the page for 37712 will now include photos and data relating to its earlier number of 37102.
The TOPS detail page will now include listings for any sub-codes. For example, the page for TOPS code BBA will now include listings for BBA-B, BBA-C, BBA-F etc. This has resulted in the page now taking a few seconds to load but I am working on improving that.
Preserved steam locos that have TOPS numbers allocated can now be added in such a way that you can use either number when searching (or when adding sightings, listings etc). For example, LNER A4 number 4468 will be added as '4468 [98868]'.
Notes can now be edited at any time (previously they could only be edited for 30 minutes following initial posting). This may result in manually approved being reverted to 'semi-approved' or 'pending approval'.
The Home page now shows the dates of the latest news items, as well as an improved stats section.
The Fleet News section will hopefully now be more up-to-date, as I have allowed site Editors to add their own items.

16th November 2022
Menu changes, Photolinks enabled and other changes Numerous design changes have been uploaded today, including...

Revised main menu structure. The Articles section has been renamed More and will now be home to anything that doesn't fit elsewhere.
Cosmetic tweaks. The appearance of the main menus and the breadcrumb trails have been standardised.
New Latest Data page to see all of the most recent database additions and edits in one place.
Photolinks now enabled. These are links to individual photos on other websites, and can relate to any existing number, TOPS code or design. Users can add their own links but these will have to be approved before being generally visible.
Renumberings now updateable. I have finally got the pages to add and edit renumberings working, and I will be making a start on bringing the data up to date. However, I still need to do some work on the displaying of renumberings.
Improved PDF links on All Numbers page. To avoid memory errors, the links to generate PDF outputs of the numbers list will now automatically break-down into chunks of 25,000 records each (if required).
For editors only: More of the editing pages have been brought up to the current standard, with error checking and previewing. This includes the main number editing page.

23rd August 2022
Forum, Member List and Galleries List now available. A forum (for non-specific information and/or chat), a member list (showing some statistics) and a galleries list (with links to other websites with photos of UK rolling stock) have been added.

2nd May 2022
Downloadable PDFs of some data now available. To allow the data on LTSV-RD to be downloaded and 'preserved', a series of PDF versions of list and detail pages are being rolled out. So far done are TOPS codes, Fishkinds, Numbers and Sightings. To view the PDFs, go to the relevant page and look for the link in the introduction text.

12th December 2021
Various small improvements, including Previous/Next links. Recent improvements have included:

The Previous and Next photo links on the Photo View page can now be accessed using the keyboard (n key for Next, p for Previous).
Previous and Next links have also been added to the Number Detail page, so that you can quickly move from (for example) 81.70.5932.151-0 to 81.70.5932.152-8. These links can also be accessed with the p and n keys. Similar links will be added to the detail pages for Lots, Designs and TOPS codes. Note that the links on the Photo View page are contextual (i.e. they take into account any filtering and/or sorting that the user has applied). Previous and Next links on other pages are likely to be 'simple' (i.e. just linking to the previous and next item in the overall list, ignoring any filtering and/or sorting).
The Prefix detail page has had an error fixed and you can now view the details of single-letter prefixes.
The layout of the Number Detail page had been revised to reduce 'white space', making it possible to see more data without having to scroll down.
When logged-in, you can save your site settings (colours, font size etc), which will then be automatically applied each time you log-in.
On the Sighting Detail pages, the series of each number is now indicated, so that you tell your 56001 from your 56001 from your 56001!
On the Number List page, you can now see which numbers have not yet had a status code applied.
A new page has been added that lists the 17 different status codes used on LTSV and gives details of their meanings.

16th October 2021
Highlighting on filters added. To make it clearer which filters have been applied, a red box highlight will now appear on any user-selected filters on all pages where filters are used.

30th September 2021
Sightings list speeded up. The sightings list had been getting very slow to load. Some adjustments to the database have now made the page load much faster.

6th June 2021
Drawing references added. Having added a load of drawing references to the database, various pages have been revised to show the relevant details.

17th May 2021
Search wildcards on Number list revised. Wildcards will no longer automatically be added to number searches. This allows users the choice of using wildcards (manually) or not. Various minor tweaks to other pages.

16th March 2021
The main Number List page has been revised. It now has columns to show data (eg TOPS code) from the last recorded listing for each number.

24th February 2021
A Links page has been added. This can be found in the Articles section.

21st January 2021
A whole raft of page updates have been published, many of which are minor or invisible (these being for admin purposes). However, there are some changes worth mentioning.
Users can now add Sightings: Either singly or in mutiple
Users can now add Listings
The visibility of unapproved Sightings and Listings is now dictated by your log-in (as with Notes): Approved and semi-approved items will be visible to anyone. Unapproved items will only be visible to Contributors (so that they can approve them) and the original poster. Rejected items will only be visible to the person who originally posted them and the person who rejected them
The approval status of Sightings and Listings is indicated by coloured balls: This will make it easier for contributors (and admin) to find items that are awaiting approval.
The Additions page (in the News menu) has been added: Use this to view the most recently added records in a variety of tables (e.g. batches, listings etc).

1st January 2021
To start with, here is a summary of how LTSV Rail Data differs from the previous website; LTSV Wagons.
More Photos: Up from 3,391 to 5,254 with more being added all the time. The focus is still on wagons but locos, coaches and multiple units are also now included.
More Data: The data tables on numbering and classification now also include locos, coaches and multiple units in addition to wagons.
New Data: There are now tables listing lot numbers, design codes/diagrams, pools etc, plus sightings, drawings and dimensions.
More Detail: Information can be added against individual codes and numbers.
More Up-to-date: The new site has been designed to make it much easier to add and update the information.
More Reviews: Reviews have been added for more books, magazines and websites, all now with lots of page samples.
More Interactive: Users will be able to add their own information, comments and sightings. These features are being introduced in stages
Easier to read: Using the Site Settings page, users can specify the colour scheme and font size, and can add highlighting of numbers and TOPS codes.