Focus Train
A focus timer for 25, 50 or 90 minutes — every Pomodoro is a train journey
Pick 25, 50 or 90 minutes — or any length that fits the time you actually have — and Focus Train turns that block into a train journey. You board, you concentrate, and the longer you stay on track, the farther your train travels. Concentration becomes a place you actually want to go.
Download on the App StoreFor iPhone, iPad, Mac & Apple Watch
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ride one right now in your browser. Free, no sign-up.
Try it now — no install, no sign-up
Set 25, 50 or 90 minutes and ride one right here in your browser. The app adds the real rail map, twenty cabin soundscapes, app blocking, your lock-screen ticket, widgets, streaks and postcard collection — but the focusing part works on this page, free, and nothing you do here leaves your device. Prefer it full-screen? Open the standalone timer →
See It in Motion
The Story
Momentum, Not Guilt
Most focus apps feel like a productivity spreadsheet with a countdown bolted on — and then guilt-trip you the moment you look away. Focus Train is different. Apps that grow a tree motivate through guilt; plain timers are just countdowns. Focus Train motivates with momentum: every minute of concentration carries you forward, and there's always a new station up ahead.
How Focus Train Works
Board
Pick your focus length — 25, 45, 60 or 90 minutes, or a custom duration — choose a destination on the rail map, pick your car and seat, and tap to depart. A live ticket appears on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island.
Focus
Stay on task and your train rolls along a real rail line as the scenery passes. Turn on Baggage and your chosen apps stay shielded for the ride. Look away and the train simply waits at the platform — no streak broken, no shame.
Arrive
Finish the session to print a ticket, ink a station stamp, collect a postcard and extend your streak. Write a note and a rating on the back of the ticket, and watch the line join your Journey Map.
What's Inside
Focus as a Journey
Start the timer and your train departs. 25, 45, 60 or 90 minutes — 120-minute Expedition rides on Premium — or any length you set. Stay focused and the scenery rolls past; look away and the train simply waits.
A Real Rail Map, Not Stock Art
118 countries, 2,257 cities and 2,939 actual lines, plus 150 cross-border corridors like the Eurostar. Setup finds the real station nearest you and makes it your home stop; add your own for your desk, your library, your café.
Sit by the Window
Choose Window during a ride and the real line rolls past outside in 3D. Pick a simple, porthole or carriage frame; where there's no satellite imagery, the window shows photographed scenery instead. On iPad, the window opens wider in landscape.
Choose Your Locomotive
Electric, Intercity, Diesel and Steam join the Classic, in your own livery. And for a short hop from a big city, the major stations have 25-minute commuter rides too.
20 Cabin Soundscapes
Rain, thunderstorm, ocean, stream, forest, summer night, wind, fireplace, café, brown noise, pink noise, a fan, the platform, the cabin, and four ambient beds. Layer up to three at once — rain on the roof over the wheels underneath. Or ride the Quiet Car in silence.
Baggage — Leave the Apps Behind
Pick the apps, categories and websites that derail you and Focus Train shields them through Screen Time for the length of the ride. The shield lifts by itself at arrival, even if your phone stayed locked past it.
Collect Every Trip
Every arrival prints a ticket on one of eight real railway stocks — Edmondson, JR, China Rail, National Rail, Korail, DB, SNCF, Classic — plus a station stamp, a souvenir postcard, a passport page, and progress toward twelve medals and the streak wall.
A Note on Every Ticket
At each arrival, write down how it actually went and rate the ride. The note lives on the back of the ticket, so your history is a journal you can turn over — not just a count of sessions.
Journey Map & Trends
Every line you have ridden on one map, replayed ride by ride. Alongside it, a service report for the day, week, month and year — and any stretch of the map prints as a card or a short video you can keep or share.
Lock Screen, Island & Wrist
A live ticket runs on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, Home Screen widgets board you in one tap, and watch face complications show the ride at a glance. The Apple Watch app mirrors the train, today's minutes and your streak — read-only on purpose, so nothing gets pressed by accident.
Make It Yours
Themes, train liveries with any custom HEX, alternate app icons, arrival chimes, your car and seat, focus tags for each project, and quiet hours that mute reminders when you are off the clock.
Beautifully Native — iPhone, iPad, Mac & Watch
A true native app — not a web wrapper. 120Hz smooth scrolling, haptics, full Dark Mode, and complete Dynamic Type support on every screen, in 13 languages.
Privacy First, iCloud Sync
No account, ever. Your trips, notes and records stay on your device, and sync between your iPhone, iPad, Mac and Watch through your own private iCloud — not our server. Location is used only once, during setup, to suggest your nearest station.
What’s free, and what Premium adds
Focus Train is free to download and free to ride. The free tier is a real allowance, not a trial that expires — three rides every week, refilled at the start of your week, with no account and nothing to cancel. Here is the line, printed plainly.
| Free | Premium | |
|---|---|---|
| Rides per week | 3, refilled weekly | Unlimited |
| Longest session | 90 minutes | 120-minute Expedition |
| Routes | Your country’s network | 150 cross-border corridors |
| Cabin soundscapes | The train | All 20, mixed 3 at a time |
| Baggage app blocking | Included | Included |
| Tickets, stamps & postcards | Kept forever | Kept forever, on 8 ticket stocks |
| Trends history | This month | All time |
| Devices | One | iPhone, iPad, Mac & Watch via iCloud |
| Account required | None | None |
Who Focus Train Is For
Different riders, same platform. Here's how people actually use Focus Train.
Students & exam-takers
If you're grinding through exam season or a certification, Focus Train turns long study blocks into a route you want to finish. One reviewer studying for a national exam switched from tree-growing apps because the train waits at the platform instead of punishing a slip — so they come back without guilt.
People with ADHD
When starting is the hardest part, boarding a small train can be a gentler on-ramp than a sterile countdown. Readers with ADHD have told us they find the forward momentum — and collecting the boarding passes — easier to start with than a ticking clock. That is what people have reported to us about a design choice, not a clinical claim: Focus Train is a timer, not a treatment for attention difficulties, and whether the framing helps you is a question of personal fit.
Deep-work professionals
Engineers, writers, and makers who live in 50- and 90-minute blocks tag each ride by project, shield the apps that derail them with Baggage, and either ride the Quiet Car in silence or mix brown noise under the wheels. 120-minute Expedition rides exist for the days a single problem needs the whole morning. It's a deep-work timer that respects craft — native, fully private, no account.
Morning-routine & habit builders
Anyone building a morning ritual or a daily focus habit can keep a streak alive day after day. The numbers are there if you want them — a service report for the day, week, month and year — but the thing you actually come back for is the map of every station your concentration has reached, and the postcard waiting at each one.
When Focus Train fits — and when it doesn’t
A timer can give a block of work a beginning and an end. That is the whole of what it does, so it is worth being plain about where that helps and where it doesn’t.
Good fits
- One task that can take a single clear boundary. 25 minutes to start something, 50 for a real work interval, 90 for a long piece of writing, analysis or code — or a custom length when the gap in your day is an odd shape.
- Anyone who has bounced off streak-punishment. Look away and the train waits at the platform instead of dying, so a broken session costs you nothing and coming back is cheap.
- Wanting progress visible without it becoming a scoreboard. Stamps, postcards and medals accumulate for you alone — there is no leaderboard, nobody else to be ranked against, and no account for anyone to compare.
- Sessions you want kept private. Everything stays on device, and nothing here needs a sign-up to work.
Poor fits
- Work that has to stay interruptible — on-call, live support, active meetings, or a queue of unrelated two-minute tasks. A timed block cannot create attention when the job requires you to remain available.
- Billing and time reporting. Your history here is a map and a passport, not a timesheet; if you need exportable hours per client or project, use a time tracker and keep this for the focusing part.
- Android and Windows. The app is iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch only. If that is you, the browser timer above is the whole of what we can offer today, and it is free.
- Anything clinical. Focus Train is not a treatment for attention difficulties, and it is not a substitute for a workspace you can actually think in.
One thing we would rather say outright: the train is a product-design choice, not a claim that railway imagery changes how attention works. What it reliably does is give an interval a departure, a middle and an arrival, so a session ends somewhere instead of dissolving into the next thing. Whether that framing suits you is a question of fit, and it is a fair one to answer by running one block in your browser before installing anything.
Loved by Early Riders
Averaging 4.9 across the US and Japan App Store — from a small number of ratings, because the app is new. A few words from real reviews:
"Absolute game changer for my ADHD brain. Boarding this little Focus Train actually gives me the dopamine hit I need to initiate tasks… a time management tool that actually understands neurodivergent brains."— Ella Murphic, App Store review
"If I pick up my phone, the train just waits at the platform. It doesn't shame me… It's the first concentration app that doesn't give me anxiety."— Niki, App Store review
"As a software engineer who lives in 50-minute focus blocks… a beautifully designed, native iOS app. No mandatory account, no creepy data collection. 10/10."— Olivia Martinez Thompson, App Store review
Looking for a Forest Alternative?
If you love the idea of a focus app but the "kill your tree" guilt isn't for you, here's how Focus Train compares to tree-growing apps and plain Pomodoro timers.
| Focus Train | Tree-growing apps (e.g. Forest) | Plain Pomodoro timers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motivation | Momentum — every minute carries you to the next station | Guilt — stay or your tree dies | None — just a number ticking down |
| If you look away | The train waits at the platform; nothing is lost | Your tree withers / session fails | Timer keeps running or resets |
| Your history | A map you can replay, tickets, stamps, postcards & a note on every ride | A forest of trees | A bar chart, if any |
| Customization | Themes, liveries with custom HEX, app icons, 20 soundscapes, your own stations, Quiet Car | Tree species, limited themes | Usually minimal |
| Blocking distractions | Screen Time shield on your chosen apps & sites, lifted at arrival | Usually yes | Rarely |
| Sound | 20 cabin soundscapes, layered 3 at a time, or the Quiet Car | A few ambient tracks | Usually none |
| Privacy | On-device, no account, no data collection | Often account-based | Varies |
| Platform | Native iPhone, iPad, Mac & Apple Watch — 120Hz, haptics, Live Activities, Dynamic Island, widgets, iCloud sync with no account | Cross-platform, often web-wrapped | Varies |
| Price | Free: 3 rides a week, refilled weekly. Premium removes the limit | Paid or freemium | Free–paid |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Focus Train?
A native focus timer for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch that turns each session into a train journey across a real railway map. You board, the train rolls while you work, and the longer you stay on track the farther it travels along an actual line between real cities. Twenty cabin soundscapes, Screen Time app blocking, a live ticket on the Lock Screen, and a ticket, stamp and postcard kept at every arrival.
Is Focus Train free?
Free to download, and the free tier gives you 3 full rides every week, refilled at the start of your week — not a trial that expires. Free rides run up to 90 minutes and keep your tickets, stamps and streak, with no account. Premium removes the weekly limit and adds 120-minute Expedition rides, cross-border routes, all 20 soundscapes, iCloud sync and the full cosmetic set. The table above prints the whole line.
How does the Pomodoro timer work?
Pick a focus length — 25, 45, 60 or 90 minutes, 120 on Premium, or any custom duration — choose a destination, pick your car and seat, and tap to board. While you concentrate, your train rolls along a real rail line; look away and it simply waits at the platform. Each arrival prints a ticket, inks a stamp, adds a postcard, and lets you write a note and a rating on the back.
How is it different from Forest?
Apps like Forest motivate through guilt — look away and your tree dies. Focus Train motivates with momentum: every minute of concentration carries you forward toward the next station, and nothing is destroyed if you step away.
Does it need an account or collect data?
No account, no data collection. Your trips, notes and records stay on your device, and Premium syncs them between your devices through your own private iCloud rather than a server of ours. Location is used only once, during setup, to suggest your nearest station as a home stop.
Is there a Lock Screen ticket and widget?
Yes. A live ticket runs on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island via Live Activities, Home Screen widgets board you in one tap, and Lock Screen and watch face complications show the ride at a glance. There is also an Apple Watch app that mirrors the train, today’s minutes and your streak — read-only, because the phone owns the journey.
Is there an Apple Watch app?
Yes. It mirrors the ride in progress — remaining time, destination, and whether the train is holding at the platform — plus today’s focused minutes and your streak. It is deliberately read-only: the phone owns the journey, so there is nothing on your wrist to press by accident mid-session.
Does it sync across my devices?
With Premium, your map, tickets and stamps sync across every device signed in to the same iCloud account — iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch — with no Focus Train account to create. It is your private iCloud, not a server of ours. The free tier runs on one device.
What sounds does it have?
Twenty cabin soundscapes across five families: onboard (train, cabin, station platform, airplane white noise), nature (rain, thunderstorm, ocean, stream, forest, summer night, wind), indoors (fireplace, café), pure noise (brown noise, pink noise, fan) and four tonal ambient beds. Layer up to three at once. The train is free; Premium unlocks the other nineteen and the mixer. Or ride the Quiet Car and hear nothing at all.
Are the routes real?
Yes — a curated network of 118 countries, 2,257 cities and 2,939 real lines, plus 150 cross-border corridors like the Eurostar. Setup finds the actual station nearest you and makes it your home stop, and you can add your own for your desk, your library, your café.
Can it block distracting apps?
Yes. Baggage uses Apple’s Screen Time framework to shield the apps, categories and websites you pick for the length of a ride. The shield lifts by itself at arrival, and a backstop clears it on time even if your phone stays locked past it. Your selection never leaves the device.
What languages does it support?
Thirteen: English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Turkish, Vietnamese and Indonesian. Built as a true native iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch app with 120Hz scrolling, haptics, full Dark Mode, and Dynamic Type.
All aboard.
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