Enhanced departure boards on top of these pages

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Standing, freezing, on the footbridge at Chippenham at lunchtime today ... counting passengers into the station as part of a survey.  OK - I admit it - I got bored just standing and got my laptop out ... the experimental work I was doing yesterday for onward trains has been expanded a bit and you'll find a departure board for around 20 key stations on the top of each page on the forum.

Next departures • Bristol Temple Meads • Bath Spa • Chippenham • Swindon • Didcot Parkway • Reading • London Paddington •

Melksham • Exeter St Davids • Taunton • Westbury • Trowbridge • Bristol Parkway • Cardiff Central • Oxford • Cheltenham Spa • Birmingham New Street

It's using public, dynamic information but I've tuned it to let you select a destination station, and I've also added in the expected arrival time there so that (for example) passengers from Bristol Temple Meads to Taunton can see whether to catch the local train or wait for a Cross Country service.  A few gaps in times / data combing just yet - but it is giving forecast and day to day times not just timetables so it should be as good as the station screens even at times of disruption.

Personally, I expect I'll use "next train to Bath" quite a bit rather than be going down lists looking at Paddington (not all of which will call at Bath, expecally in the future), Westbury, Fromes, Warminsters Wesymouths and Portsmouths!  Just tell me the next train to Bath!

[Surrey 455]

Isn't it dangerous to allow boars on trains?
 

[MVR S&T]

Think the fingers may have frozen up.

[grahame]

Isn't it dangerous to allow boars on trains?
 

Times have changed ... it used to be pretty standard to transport livestock by train, but you try and take your pony these days ...

[grahame]

Think the fingers may have frozen up.

Fingers foured out now ... titles corrected

[broadgage]

Isn't it dangerous to allow boars on trains?
 

In passenger coaches, yes potentially dangerous. Should be safe as freight in suitable wagons.

[plymothian]

Incidentally if you type

gwr.to/[3 letter station code]

in to any browser, you will get the staff departure board for that station.  It only works for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) stations though.

[Thatcham Crossing]

Very good addition  - any chance Newbury could be added? (accepting that Thatcham is not a key Station, although Newbury might be  )

[ellendune]

Incidentally if you type

gwr.to/[3 letter station code]

in to any browser, you will get the staff departure board for that station.  It only works for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) stations though.

That's amazing - to think that gwr that provides this service to its people. 

A couple of questions though.

1. Are GWR thinking of starting services in Tonga* - according to Wikipedia there are no operations railways or trams there so it would be a big investment.
2. Also why would the people of Tonga need information on GWR's services in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)? 

* .to is the domain name for Tonga

[ray951]

Incidentally if you type

gwr.to/[3 letter station code]

in to any browser, you will get the staff departure board for that station.  It only works for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) stations though.

Although it appears that you can't use capitals so 'did' instead of 'DID^» (Didcot Parkway - next trains)'.

[grahame]

Very good addition  - any chance Newbury could be added? (accepting that Thatcham is not a key Station, although Newbury might be  )

I've added it to the pulldown menu list on all the other stations - and it's also under http://www.mrug.org.uk/nby.html .. we could end up with a  very long and cluttered list at the top of the Coffee Shop page.  There are others I wondered about adding too ... I may move to a pulldown menu, and I'm wondering about geolocation too.

[eightonedee]

Incidentally if you type

gwr.to/[3 letter station code]

in to any browser, you will get the staff departure board for that station.  It only works for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) stations though.
 

...so not much use to most members of the travelling public then (unlike Grahame's attempts here, I might add)!

[rogerpatenall]

This gwr.to site looks useful. Mind you, I just typed clc into it, and the narrative said that the first train is currently between Pewsey and Bruton. Now I know why the information on the station is sometimes a bit vague. . .

[stuving]

Of course a gwr.to request stays in Tonga for barely a millisecond before coming back expanded into "http://iris2.rail.co.uk/tiger/renderstaffsoad.asp?file=" and a specific XML file number. I note that the underlying Tiger service (http://iris2.rail.co.uk/tiger/) has acquired a few more customers - on the basis of a quick look at the names, it seems that stations managed by Overground, NIR, LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about), NIR, WMR, and at least the Thameslink bit of GTR are available. (However, I'm not convinced listing is governed 100% by which TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) operates the station.)

[Bmblbzzz]

The Station comparator has links to live departure boards for all stations, not just GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).