Frequently asked questions
A short guide to what you can do on RailPics, and how.
How do I link my Flickr profile?
Open My account and enter your Flickr address under "Flickr account". Any of the three works: the profile URL (flickr.com/photos/yourname/), the display name or the NSID.
The link then sits at "not yet verified". An administrator releases it, and that is not a formality: anyone could enter any NSID, and without the check that photographer's imported photos would land in someone else's account.
Releasing it does two things at once: future imports come to your account, and photos already on the site under "(Guest)" are transferred to you. You need do nothing else.
Where do the photos on RailPics come from?
Two sources: uploaded directly, or imported hourly from a Flickr group pool. An imported photo always links back to the original on Flickr.
What is edited here stays: a later import never overwrites an existing photo. Flickr seeds the collection, it is maintained here.
What is a photospot?
A place where photos were taken. Photos shot close together land at the same photospot automatically and appear together on the map. A photospot is named after the nearest settlement.
A photo without coordinates is perfectly fine: it simply does not appear on the map. Coordinates can be added at any time.
Who may comment and like?
Signed-in accounts, once they are approved. Photographers are approved automatically. The approval exists because a comment box with no check at all takes care of itself very quickly.
Who may download my photos?
You decide under My account. The setting is a ladder: no downloads, small, medium, large, or everything. Only "everything" hands out the uploaded original.
To be honest: the resized images are in every page anyway, because the browser needs them to show the photo. What the setting really protects is the original.
How do I fill in the vehicle and operator?
On the photo page via "Edit", or in one go under My photos: there is a filter for incomplete photos and a button that takes you straight to the next one.
A photo counts as incomplete without an operator, without a vehicle (class and number) or without a capture date. None of it blocks anything: you can always publish, the photo is simply easier to find with those details.
What can the map tools do?
The big map offers two planning tools under “Layers & tools”. Sun position shows, for the map centre, where the sun stands at a chosen time: sunrise and sunset directions, the day's sun path with hourly marks and a compass ring. Light & shadow shades the terrain that sits in mountain shadow at the chosen moment.
Both are driven by the time bar at the bottom: pick a date, drag the tape. Times are the map centre's local time, daylight saving included. With the shadow tool running, the sunrise and sunset readouts show when the centre actually gains and loses sunlight, computed through the terrain.
Where do the automatic tags come from?
From a photo's coordinates: the places the point sits in (village, municipality, canton, country) are offered as ordinary tags, along with well-known photo regions such as Gotthard, Engadin or Centovalli.
They stay ordinary tags: you can delete any of them, and a deleted one does not come back. The automation can be switched off entirely in your account settings.
Can I link my social profiles?
Yes: under “My account” there are fields for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X. The links appear as icons on your public profile. Unlike the Flickr link nothing is verified here; it is purely display.
Where does the map data come from?
What do “from the ground” and “elevated camera position” mean?
From the ground Essentially without a ladder, and in our judgement comfortably possible from the ground. A few of these photos did involve a ladder after all — what matters is this: every subject marked this way can be shot from the ground with no equipment.
Elevated camera position Photos taken with a ladder, a camera mast or a drone. As a rule these cannot be reproduced without such equipment.
Some of our photos carry no answer yet: the marking is being added by hand over time. Drone shots the site recognises itself, from the camera data in the file. On the map, under “Settings”, both the elevated and the not-yet-marked photos can be switched off; both are shown by default.