In Japan, China and Europe they provide excellent train service. Why can’t we in the US do the same?

It seems, that in my country I see railroads again. Now it would be great to register average waiting time at railroads crossings. My Waze always send me thrue a railway crossing, but nearby is a brigbe above train track, where I wait nothing. But the way via railway crossing is a little bit shorter, but Waze counts only with driving time, not with waiting time.

Train schedules should be well known. Can traffic delays due to train activity be planned? For example, the current route will be delayed by a train 20 minutes from now, therefore reroute.

To be able to post about that the freight train is causing traffic at the railroad crossing or if the train has stopped.

I too want train tracks visible in the App, and when I'm on a train I want it to snap me to the rail (automatically if no road is near, and/or manually by flipping a switch in the App instructing it that I'm on a train (making the App prioritize snapping to train tracs rather than to roads))

The train tracks are there in the Waze map when browsing the web. Please make them visible in the App and snap to them.

And a way to say the train is blocking traffic and set it for 15 minutes as this is the time it could back up traffic.

Don, the likelihood of that happening has increased because as they prepare the map for the return of railroads, they are connecting them to actual roads. I've greatly curtailed use as a result.

No recently s driver drove onto tracks following GPS unit in dark while raining leave off

Gen G. The US Federal Railroad Administration was working on automating that using differential GPS (DGPS), but this is not presently a function available in any GPS and it doesn't look like the FRA is going anywhere with it, at present. The only thing that can be done presently is if the guinea pig Wazer that gets stuck waiting for the train reports it in the Waze app (traffic, standstill) so other Wazers might be able to avoid it.

I live in an area where trains will sometimes stop the main flow of traffic for as much as 20 to 30 min. It would be VERY helpful if I could know when a train was crossing or stopped, so I could select another route

Waze announced the return of railroads to the client displays in September 2013. Just don't know when.

How can this be usefull?

Over three million people commute into London each day that's a lot of potential Waze users! The trains are regularly delayed, Waze would be ideal. If you made users manually switch from road to rail you would stop potential problems with cars jumping to railroads and vice versa.

there are users who want to use waze on trains to know about delays. Imagine if those users helped rout around train crossing delays... also- having train crossings marked has a obvious benefit.

+1 By displaing railroads, it would not be possible to pawe them again and again to gain points.

It would be amazing if there was some way to indicate actual train delays in real time - I realize that's a huge ask. Here in Flagstaff it's not unusual to get stopped at a rail crossing - sometimes by consecutive trains - and have to sit for minutes. If we knew the train was coming (and from which direction) we can choose alternate crossings to avoid it.

I realize that's sort of a dream feature but hey...

1. Railroads serve as a visual position reference indicator. 2. Intelligent grade crossings require GPS for in-vehicle train approach warning. Ref. http://www.techtransfer.berkeley.edu/railroad05downloads/BOUSQUET.pdf, Trains Magazine, Aug. 2011, p. 14. The Federal Railroad Administration has begun limited field testing.

1. Railroads are important landmarks for visual position orientation. 2. Intelligent grade crossings (http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/1270.shtml, Trains Magazine, Aug. 2011, p. 14, "Where the steel hits the road," http://trn.trains.com/sitecore/content/Magazine%20Issues/2011/August%202011.aspx) will incorporate GPS technology as a safety measure at grade crossings.

I also consider railroads being a MUST (albeit indeed optional) on an useful map!

+1 , Vote for it.