National Rail
Special Notice
Our overhaul of the National Rail map and station finder is complete as at 30 June 2011. We are now in a good position to maintain this inline with the ongoing changes that will occur throughout the network.
Our thanks go to Chris Cook for the many hours he spent, giving his extensive expertise to this project. Not only did he re-design our map, he has also painstakingly checked our map and station finder to ensure a consistent standard has been applied throughout, and continues to check the maps and notify us of updates to their text as they need to be made. This also led to the correction of some errors which had lain undetected since Terry Robinson established the site in 2000.
For all this - Many Thanks!
Dedication
Chris Cook wishes to dedicate the 2011 National Rail map and station finder to the fond memory of Toby Fisher (April 1976-January 2006), who was a great friend and travelling companion on many railway jaunts.
Overview
There are three ways to access guides to National Rail stations within this section of our site:
Our National Rail Map
This is a text equivalent, not a graphic map of the National Rail network. It is not designed to be a journey planning tool, though some of our users track the sequence of stations to good effect. If you want accessible train time information, we suggest you try Accessible UK Timetables.
The front page includes a list of nodes which serve as entry points to the map. In general, if you follow one of the links from the front page of the map, you'll reach a page containing a list of lines served at the selected node. Many nodes, such as Derby, just address a single station, whilst others, including London, Birmingham and Manchester, address more than one station from which you can access information about the station and lines served.
Our original intention was to merely show the geography of the network, so our "lines" reflected where the rails went, rather than trying to show where actual services ran. Thanks to the valuable help we received from Chris Cook, our lines have been revised to provide a more useful and realistic representation of the services provided via the network.
Each line is established as a two column table, in which the left column is a list of stations in the stated direction and the right column contains links to other lines served by a station (if any).
The link from a station named in the first column will either lead to a text guide to that station, a network node page, or to further information about that station. In these cases, other lines serving the station are shown on the station front page rather than on the line itself. If there is no link on a station name, it means that we've yet to provide a guide to it.
Our National Rail Station Finder
The front page of our station finder includes a list of single letter links, each of which addresses a page listing the stations whose names begin with that letter.
The information in each page is set out in a three-column table:
- The first column lists the stations in alphabetic order together with their three letter unique alpha codes, which provide a quicker alternative to typing in the full station name and can be used in conjunction with the TrainTracker™ Text service as well as the Journey Planner, Live Departure Boards and Station Information services on the National Rail website or when using online journey planning and ticket purchasing facilities on other websites.
- The second column contains a series of links to the lines (in our National Rail Map) served by each station.
- The third column contains the Transport for London zone of the station (where appropriate). If the station is outside the Greater London area, this column is left blank.
Each station name is set up as either a level 5 or 6 heading to aid navigation through these large pages. The first instance of each second letter is established at level 5, whilst other names sharing that second letter are at level 6. This means that, on the complex "B" page, if you're looking for Burnley Central, via your screenreader, you can enter this page, move to the first name (Bache). You now hit the "5" key, which will bring you to Beaconsfield, Bicester North, Blackburn, Bodmin Parkway, Bracknell and Buckenham (Norfolk).
From here you can hit the "6" key until you reach Burnley Central. This is shown as being served by the Blackpool South-Colne line.
Note that we also have a London Underground station finder and a Transport for London Services front page. whilst stations in the London Overground network are included in the National Rail section as many of these are shared with National Rail routes.
Our Port Folio
This was originally set up to show our work to potential customers, however, as our site has grown, it now provides a useful alternative means of finding station guides.
The "Our Site" section includes links to National Rail and transport for London information.
The national Rail section has been divided into England/Wales and Scottish stations. Each section lists the stations for which we've published text guides, in alphabetical order. the second column of this list links to the website of the sponsor(s) of each guide.
Back Link
© 2011 Terry Robinson and Chris Cook.