Hi, I'm Nathan — a college student from Greater Boston. I'd never thought much about a dedicated MBTA railfanning tool until the MBTA started repainting locomotives in heritage liveries. Suddenly, half the hobby turned into searching Facebook groups and waiting on word of mouth just to figure out where a unit was running. I don't railfan too often, but I drove out once on bad intel and did all that just to see a regular train.

Lightning Stripes is my attempt to fix that. It's a free, community-powered tracker built for the casual railfan who wants to catch a heritage unit without spending hours hunting for one. All sightings are contributed by fans like you, and verifications help surface the most reliable reports.

The Special Moves section came straight from fellow fans who wanted an easier way to track consists and yard activity that never makes it onto official schedules.

If it helps you catch a loco — that's the whole point.