Loco2 and Bethnal Green Ventures have teamed up to host Off the Rails, a hack day for doing cool stuff with train data and APIs.

The hack day will be held at Campus London (near Old Street/Moorgate, London) on Saturday October 13th.

The day

We'll follow a loose format, starting with an introduction to the datasets, code/APIs, and a selection of noteworthy existing applications (please bring your own to show off!).

Developers, designers and ideas people will then break into groups to get hacking. The results will be presented in the evening, all accompanied by free food and drinks.

The data

2012 is an exciting year for rail data, with lots of datasets and APIs becoming available that could solve a lot of headaches for train travellers. The UK is leading the way, with Network Rail recently making realtime data available along with existing timetable datasets.

Elsewhere in Europe, the Dutch national rail company, NS, has released an easy-to-use, versatile API, and the French and Germans are beginning to follow suit. And then there’s carbon-footprinting data to help to determine exactly how smug we can all feel for taking the train. There are plenty of ingredients for some exciting apps...

About YOU

We’re looking for enthusiastic train and software geeks, as well as designers and others interested in the worlds of trains, travel and/or sustainability. Everyone is welcome, and all expertise is greatly appreciated so that we can get a good mix of technical and creative minds.