# RailBreaker: a local, open-source AI planner for breaking a long Indian train journey into confirmed-seat hops > Source: > Published: 2026-10-18 17:14:53+00:00 ## What I built I live in Mumbai. Home is Lucknow, about 24 hours away by train. A flight is out of budget and the direct train is almost always waitlisted. So I end up trying combinations by hand: "Mumbai → Bhopal tonight, then Bhopal → Lucknow tomorrow?" IRCTC only searches direct trains, and nothing lists the break-journey options for you. **RailBreaker** lists every schedule-feasible way to make the trip in 1 to 3 separate sittings. It ranks them by extra time over the fastest direct train, estimated fare, class and layover risk. Each plan ends in a copy-paste IRCTC checklist, so I only check seats on a short list instead of guessing. It covers combinations I could never enumerate by hand: - different break stations (Nagpur, Bhopal, Itarsi, Jhansi, Kanpur...) - the *same train booked as two tickets* , which adds zero extra time and often fixes a waitlisted full journey - switching between stations of one city (Dadar ↔ LTT) and nearby destinations with a road leg ## Demo Code: [https://github.com/heyujjwal/p5y-pathify](https://github.com/heyujjwal/p5y-pathify) ## The open-source stack | Piece | What it does | | **Gemma 3 via Ollama** (open weights, runs on my laptop) | understands trips typed in English, Hindi or Hinglish, turns "via MP, no night layovers, 3AC or better" into filters, explains trade-offs, and reads availability screenshots | | **DataMeet railways dataset** (open data) | stations, trains and schedules | | **Python + Streamlit** | the engine and the UI | The routing is deterministic Python (a pruned search over a timetable graph). The model only handles language and reading. It never does the routing or the arithmetic, so it can't invent a train. ## Why open innovation mattered here - **Private and offline.** My trips and my IRCTC screenshots never leave my laptop. Gemma runs locally through Ollama. - **Free to run.** There is no per-query API bill, so the tool can stay free for students and people on a tight budget. A closed API would charge per request, which breaks the business for exactly the people who need this. - **Swappable and tunable.** I can change the model (Gemma, Qwen, Llama) with one environment variable. I can also fine-tune a small model on Hinglish travel phrasing, which a general API handles poorly. - **No lock-in on data.** Open timetable data means I can fix a wrong train or add days-of-run myself, instead of waiting for a vendor. - **Honest split of work.** Using a small local model only where language is involved kept it fast on a laptop and kept the numbers trustworthy. ## Would anyone pay for this? Possible ways to charge (these are ideas I haven't tested with customers): - a small yearly pass for students and migrants who travel home during festival season - a version for relocation companies and PG operators to give newcomers - a "waitlist predictor" add-on trained on user-reported outcomes ## What it does not do (read this) - It plans *possible* journeys. It does**not** know live seat availability and never touches IRCTC. You check the listed legs yourself, or paste the screenshot back so the local model marks plans Verified or Blocked. - The free dataset is an old snapshot (around 2016) with no days-of-run, so trains default to daily. I added a days-file override and a validator that prints direct trains to compare with IRCTC. - Fares are estimates. - Separate tickets are not protected if the first train runs late. ## Try it The README has a step-by-step build guide and a one-page use-case doc.