Search help

1. Quick search

2. Advanced search

3. Using search results

4. If you have problems

1. Quick Search

Use Quick Search (on the Homepage) when looking for a specific term or name, and want to see quickly all occurrences in Railway Directory. You can search for companies or associations, for products or services, for people (select the “People” radio button to look for names of people only) – or any other text forming part of the database.

You can search for more than one word, but note that all entries with any of the words will be returned as results, so you may get a lot of results. Use the “Search exact phrase only” option if you wish to limit results to that phrase alone.

2. Advanced Search

This can help reduce the number of results and increase their relevance to your search. It also allows you to look results meeting several criteria (eg metro operators in Spain, or companies making wheelsets in Germany).

Where possible, use the drop-down lists to choose the specific categories you are interested in – rather than the free-text “Search for” field. Lower-order filters become available if a suitable higher-order filter is chosen.

Filters operate directly on the data we hold to reduce the amount of the database searched, and so to reduce the time taken to provide results.

Note that city railways (metros and light rail operators) are primarily associated with the city rather than country – so if you are looking for this data for a specific country you will need to modify your search strategy to avoid using the Country filter, as in this example:

Example search: to find all metro operators in Spain Filtering by “Spain” as the country and “Metro operators” gives no results, as urban rail operators are primarily assigned to the city they serve, not the country, for the purpose of filtering. No metro operators serve the country of Spain, hence no results.

However, it is quite easy to get the right result. Instead, search for the country name in the free text field, and select “Metro operator” as the filter. This will then search our database for all entries categorised as metro operators which include the word Spain (most likely within the address of entry). This search generates the correct list of metro operators in Spain.

3. Using the search results

You can save any search for later reference by clicking on “Save search result” and giving your search an identifying name (such as terms or filters you searched on). Retrieve any saved searches by clicking on “My account” in the login panel, top right. Any searches you no longer need can be deleted by clicking on the bin icon.

Railway Directory is a very big database, so you may find that the search results run to several pages. If you need to view all results at once, simply click on the “Show full list” button – though response times may lengthen for very large results lists.

Use the check boxes to select the results you want, or use the “Select all on this screen” check box – you can then export Railway Directory data to a local spreadsheet to print labels etc. Your account includes export credits, but you can always purchase more if you need to – simply contact us.

Contact subs@railwaygazette.com if you have any problems with export credits.

4. If you have problems

We are happy to hear from customers if they need help or advice using the search options, and will use feedback to develop the site FAQs and try to improve our service further. Please e-mail queries to editor@railwaydirectory.net.

You may have very complex data requirements that cannot be fully met using the tools built into this website. We would be happy to quote for any specific pieces of research requiring more extensive querying of our database and the extensive knowledge and information resources of Railway Directory and the Railway Gazette International team. Again, please e-mail editor@railwaydirectory.net with a description of your research requirements.