A thin, read-only HTTP interface over the v1 corpus bundles.
Every object in the Open Rail Corpus is already a static file at a stable URL — a JSON bundle, a CSV, a schema. The API is a convenience layer over those files: it lets you filter, subset, and discover without downloading the whole bundle. It does not give you anything the static files do not already give you.
If you prefer files, they are at
bundle.json,
bundle.csv, and
schema.json. You do not need this page.
https://kerne.systems/corpus/transport/rail/v1/api.phpThe path /corpus/transport/rail/v1/ is the version commitment. Any
breaking change will be released as /v2/. Non-breaking additions
arrive in place.
Discovery document. Returns the list of scenarios, their status, links to static bundles, and the full endpoint catalogue. Start here when you first meet the API.
curl https://kerne.systems/corpus/transport/rail/v1/api.phpReturns the full bundle for a scenario. Equivalent to curl-ing
{slug}/bundle.json directly. Scenarios are a, b, c.
curl https://kerne.systems/corpus/transport/rail/v1/api.php?scenario=aStreams the bundle as CSV. Excel-safe UTF-8. Useful for spreadsheet users and
for piping to awk, mlr, or jq -r equivalents.
curl "https://kerne.systems/corpus/transport/rail/v1/api.php?scenario=a&format=csv" > scenario-a.csvExtracts one sub-structure from the bundle. entity gives the asset
record. regulatory gives the chapter anchors with bilingual section titles.
failure_modes gives the list. meta gives a lightweight summary with
title, version, catalog citations, counts.
curl "https://kerne.systems/corpus/transport/rail/v1/api.php?scenario=a§ion=meta"Fetches a single failure-mode record by its stable fm_uid. Returns 404 if
not present in that scenario's bundle.
curl "https://kerne.systems/corpus/transport/rail/v1/api.php?scenario=a&fm=FM-a75edc98ea12"Filters Scenario A's failure modes by BAV chapter — Laufwerk (1),
Federung (2), Bremse (3), Wagenuntergestell und
Drehgestellrahmen (4), Zug- und Stosseinrichtungen (5),
Wagenkasten (6), Ladungen und Ladeeinheiten (7),
Verschiedene Fehler (10).
curl "https://kerne.systems/corpus/transport/rail/v1/api.php?scenario=a&chapter=3"Filters by the risk_index assigned during enrichment. May be combined with
chapter — they AND together.
curl "https://kerne.systems/corpus/transport/rail/v1/api.php?scenario=a&chapter=3&risk=Critical"Health indicator. Confirms each scenario bundle is readable on disk, returns file sizes and modification times. Suitable for uptime monitors.
curl https://kerne.systems/corpus/transport/rail/v1/api.php?healthEvery object in the bundle carries two identifiers. The kerne.systems identifier is permanent — it does not change when hosting, versioning, or organisational structure changes. The resolver URL is where the object can currently be fetched; resolvers may migrate.
| Kind | Pattern |
|---|---|
| Entity (asset) | kerne.systems/earth/entity/ASSET-{12hex} |
| Failure mode | kerne.systems/earth/fm/FM-{12hex} |
| Current resolver host | kerne.systems (canonical); openrxm.org (legacy) |
Responses are served with Cache-Control: public, max-age=300. CORS is
open (Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *). There is no rate limit today; be
courteous. If you want to walk the corpus at scale, pull the static
bundle.json files directly and filter client-side rather than
hammering api.php with thousands of requests.
The regulatory citation carries both the edition the failure modes were
structured against (BAV-FK-V12-2021) and the currently in-force
edition (BAV-FK-V18-2026). Neither claim supersedes the Swiss Federal
Office of Transport's own publication at
bav.admin.ch.
When the two are in tension, trust the source.
The broader question of failure-mode identity across regulatory editions is tracked as WI-163 and scheduled for v1.1. Feedback welcome at the Rail SIG.
api.php?health.