Great Western Coffee Shop

I'm off on some travels in a few days (will be back for the AGM in Taunton on Saturday 8th June (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=21641)) - a very long time since I did what's likely to be quite an extensive set of journeys on National Rail services.   In the past, I have carried a printed National Rail Timetable with me - and would (I suppose) have switched to Middleton Press - for planning.  Lots of very useful sites out there but nothing quite like having the tables available in a uniform format from a single source across Great Britain.

For my own convenience, I have added links to the National Rail Timetables, and to a Google Map of the station, to our station comparator pages, and I have started to pull critical data towards the top of the page - intending to do a live test as I go.  Members and guests are very welcome to click on "Station Comparator" on the top of these forum pages and explore / use too. 

Lots more to be added - links to fares site (brfares), selection of stations from a map, description of route for each timetable where there are several at a station, further alternative departure boards such as other Tiger outputs.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/BTT_info.jpg)

That looks useful - amazing what you* can do with a bit of code and a few links, isn't it?

But there's a problem with relying on the stations index provided with the NRT: it isn't at all clever (though there isn't really much choice without a huge effort). For example, for Falkirk Grahamston it lists tables 226, 228, 230, and 231.

T230 covers the Edinburgh-Dunblane service, and T231 the Falkirk-Glasgow locals through Cumbernauld, both of which do use Grahamston. But T228 is for the Edinburgh-Glasgow fast service via Falkirk High. It does have a footnote "Falkirk Grahamston" for the slower E-G trains, but as they are also in T230 you don't need T228 for services at Grahamston.

T226 is even more unnecessary, as the name "Grahamston" appears in it nowhere at all. The closest it gets is that some trains through Cumbernauld are on T231 as well - but so what?

One very odd feature of T226, that I've not seen before, is that it has a load of footnotes of the form "F  From Larkhall. Forms tight booked connection out of 2C48." I can only think these appear in error. Such train codes are not used to identify trains in the NRT (not now, and I suspect never), it doesn't say where this connection is, and in any case the train code cited is obviously wrong! The Milngavie-Motherwell service has "2C" codes, and connects at Glasgow Central, so looks a likely origin for this note, but 2C48 ran hours earlier. Moreover, the spacing of trains and codes doesn't fit, so while the previous occurrence (note E) does have a 10 minute connection, that's really just a coincidence.

*At least if you are G. Ellis...

Yes - but mark my words


Where there are multiple tables, providing there is description too (there's another file for that - just needs Lisa and me - not just me - to shake it out),  I think that might be a good solution.   Looking wider, I would not normally look up take 51 for Lostwithiel, for example ....

The tables and forms have the flavour of being automatically generated and then manually chewed a bit more, so great fun with inconsistencies.  Some really silly stuff like the format of the station to table mapping file has different tabbing from one page to the next which has been great fun to reverse engineer ...

Brilliant! Really like it and useful too.

Be careful how much you encourage me folks ... added links to nearby stations and fares.

Example:
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/smr/IVY.html

Note fares come up in a different tab or window and your browser may not jump there automatically.  This is work play in progress.