In the course of learning how to use the Journey Planner facility at
Traveline Scotland
http://www.travelinescotland.com/cgi-bin/jpclient.exe?newQuery=newQuery
I'm trying Glasgow to London by train. But as shown in the screenshot,
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/TravelineFlaw1.gif
when I open the drop-down list of London options, it doesn't go beyond
Fenchurch St. So how do I get Kings Cross, Victoria, etc?!

BTW, my ultimate aim was to see if it can do better than National
Rail's Journey Planner, which failed to find *any* trains journeys
from Pitlochry to East Grinstead on 24th Sep.

-- 
Terry, West Sussex, UK

On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 16:22:02 +0100 someone who may be Terry Pinnell
 wrote this:-


>I'm trying Glasgow to London by train. But as shown in the screenshot,
>http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/TravelineFlaw1.gif
>when I open the drop-down list of London options, it doesn't go beyond
>Fenchurch St. So how do I get Kings Cross, Victoria, etc?!


Just type Euston Station into the "Stop or Street" box.


-- 
 David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
 I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
 prevents me by using the RIP Act 2000.

"Terry Pinnell"  wrote in message
news:937bi1dot7tpbfrt51mnh1a32ang5cv9hc@4ax.com...

> In the course of learning how to use the Journey Planner facility at
> Traveline Scotland
> http://www.travelinescotland.com/cgi-bin/jpclient.exe?newQuery=newQuery
> I'm trying Glasgow to London by train. But as shown in the screenshot,
> http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/TravelineFlaw1.gif
> when I open the drop-down list of London options, it doesn't go beyond
> Fenchurch St. So how do I get Kings Cross, Victoria, etc?!



Type London into the Town/Village selection box and then the station name
into the Stop or Street selection box, i.e.:

Town/Village          London
Stop or Street         Kings Cross


If there are both bus and rail stations for a particular location then you
may be required to add the suffix "(trains)" to the station name. TBH I do
it as a matter of course.

It can be a bit picky (and inconsistent) in formats sometimes but will
usually offer you a drop-down list to help. Getting used to some of the
abbreviations and other peculiarities can take some time - like remembering
to remove apostrophes from names etc.

Once you get used to it, it's great - but I have e-mailed them on occasions
to highlight inconsistencies, which they have responded to and dealt with
very efficiently, IME.

"Jack Taylor"  wrote:


>
>"Terry Pinnell"  wrote in message
>news:937bi1dot7tpbfrt51mnh1a32ang5cv9hc@4ax.com...
>> In the course of learning how to use the Journey Planner facility at
>> Traveline Scotland
>> http://www.travelinescotland.com/cgi-bin/jpclient.exe?newQuery=newQuery
>> I'm trying Glasgow to London by train. But as shown in the screenshot,
>> http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/TravelineFlaw1.gif
>> when I open the drop-down list of London options, it doesn't go beyond
>> Fenchurch St. So how do I get Kings Cross, Victoria, etc?!
>
>
>Type London into the Town/Village selection box and then the station name
>into the Stop or Street selection box, i.e.:
>
>Town/Village          London
>Stop or Street         Kings Cross
>
>
>If there are both bus and rail stations for a particular location then you
>may be required to add the suffix "(trains)" to the station name. TBH I do
>it as a matter of course.
>
>It can be a bit picky (and inconsistent) in formats sometimes but will
>usually offer you a drop-down list to help. Getting used to some of the
>abbreviations and other peculiarities can take some time - like remembering
>to remove apostrophes from names etc.
>
>Once you get used to it, it's great - but I have e-mailed them on occasions
>to highlight inconsistencies, which they have responded to and dealt with
>very efficiently, IME.
>


Thanks, that's very helpful. I'm beginning to get the hang of it now.

Re my earlier posts, one obvious reason for the different results must
be the 'Vias'. I can't yet claim a rigorous test, but it seems that if
Vias are left unspecified, while the respective planners vary, I've
not found one yet that offered me *all* relevant routes (as fast as
possible) from East Grinstead to Pitlochry on 17th Sep. The options
include bypassing London (Clapham Junction to Watford) and Kings Cross
or Euston mainline stations. So it's a fairly complex task for an
impatient human trying to book a holiday! But I'd have thought it a
piece of cake for a well-designed web site <g>.

It also occurs to me that there may be differences in how
well-informed each facility is about engineering work, of the sort
David Thornhill mentioned (leading to bus alternatives). Users need to
be able to rely 100% on that data being up-to-the-minute. Maybe
National Rail should have the edge there on say GermanTravelService?

-- 
Terry, West Sussex, UK