Last updated: 2 November 2026
Wig-Wag shows whether the barriers at a level crossing are down, or due down soon, at wig-wag.uk. It works this out from train times (Realtime Trains, using Network Rail's timetable and train-running reports), from Network Rail's live signalling where that's followed (Adelaide Road and Mount Pleasant, Southampton), and at Adelaide Road from a camera that watches the crossing's lights. It is a guide only: always obey the crossing's lights, alarms and barriers.
If you allow it, the app uses your phone's location to find the crossings nearest you. Your location is compared with the crossings' positions on your phone and is never sent to us or anyone else, and never stored.
Logging keys and reports. When you press a logging key (Barriers closing, Train passed, Barriers up, Unlisted train) or the LAMPS CORRECT? ✓ / ✕ switch, we store the time, the crossing, which key, and what the app was showing at that moment. This is used to measure and improve accuracy; where the camera watches the crossing, reports are checked against it.
A random phone code. Each of these also carries a random code the app makes up the first time it runs and keeps on your phone, so taps from the same phone can be recognised and their reliability measured (careful loggers count for more), and so spotter rankings can be worked out. The code isn't linked to your name, your phone's own identifiers, your number or your location; clearing the site's data makes a new one. The same code is sent when you check a crossing, so we can count how many phones use the site: we only note that the code was seen that day (not when or where), and that note is deleted after 8 days.
Spotter mode. When you press CONFIRM, we store the train's headcode (e.g. 1N45) with your tap, as above. Rankings (your place among phones at that crossing over 30 days) are worked out from these, by phone code only: no names are shown. Unit or locomotive numbers you add are shared publicly: anyone using spotter mode sees them on the board for the rest of that day, and they're deleted after 2 days. Your own spotting log, stats and exported file stay on your phone and are never sent to us.
How long. Logging taps, reports and confirms are kept to measure accuracy over time; they contain no personal information. Email us if you'd like the taps from your phone's code removed.
No accounts, advertising, analytics or tracking are used.
A home camera, pointed at the crossing from a nearby house, watches the crossing's lights and barrier. Passers-by and vehicles near the crossing may appear in its picture, and its microphone measures how loud passing trains are. The pictures and sound are processed on a computer in that house and are never published or sent to this website: only whether the lights are on and the barrier is down, and when, reaches the app. Small still pictures of the lights and short clips around closures are kept on that computer to tune the detection, and deleted after 3 days. No one is identified or tracked.
The app's server runs on Cloudflare, which processes your device's IP address to deliver each request, under Cloudflare's privacy policy. Train data comes from Realtime Trains and Network Rail's open data feeds (contains information of Network Rail Infrastructure Limited licensed under the Network Rail data feeds licence); no information about you is sent to them.
The app is not aimed at children and collects no personal information from anyone.
Questions, or to ask for data from your phone's code to be removed: support@wig-wag.uk