The next train's gone

Thanks to John Orton (Will Hay’s scriptwriter) for this week’s apt title. Just one website again, but there’s quite a lot to say about it.


I wouldn’t start from here

Does your blood run cold when you read the words National Rail Enquiries? Do you remember queuing at the station for the chance to question a pimply youth with a dog-eared timetable clutched to his bosom? Or waiting for hours for a reply from an understaffed call centre? No? Maybe you are too young for these golden experiences. But surely you remember the appalling excuse for an enquiries website foisted upon us by the ill-fated Railtrack. Has it, I wondered, improved under Network Rail?

Yes, it has, beyond all recognition. It’s not perfect – you start with a graphics nightmare, and as you penetrate the site the flashing ads can get very irksome. But in terms of its functionality, I think it’s worth the hassle. Finding train times is relatively straightforward, with a standard journey-planner format which differs little from the Transport for London version. But that’s just the beginning.


First class towards the rear

Having got some train times, how about working out whether you can actually afford the trip? It’s important, if you have any sort of discount railcard, to register the fact before you hit the “check fares” button. Nothing, not even this website, can save you from the nightmare of rail ticket pricing, recently “simplified” (ha ha). But with a bit of clicking and weaving you can maybe find a not-too-ruinous fare. You can’t actually book the tickets on this site, but you can be linked through to the online seller of your choice.

Other dinky features include a season ticket calculator (particularly useful if you have to make a claim on your employer before buying the ticket), travel alerts and live travel information (by text or phone), a widget which compiles a personalised timetable for your chosen journey, and a search option to find the cheapest fare for a journey. Oh, and there’s Lisa.

Lisa is a “virtual assistant”, in reality a picture of a very pleasant-looking woman fronting up a database of frequently asked questions. Throw Lisa a question and she will politely try to interpret your query in terms she’s got answers for. I asked “can I still get a cheap day return?” (The answer’s no.) Lisa recognised that it was a fares enquiry – no flies on Lisa – and offered me info on fares categories and how they have recently changed, which is fair enough.

Lisa’s pals at Network Rail have made some progress in improving train services, but the National Rail Enquiries website has made even more progress. So focus your eyes on the meaty stuff, avert your gaze from the flashing stuff, and your journey will not be in vain.

(From the Gateway to websites, select “Transport & tourism”. National Rail Enquiries is under “Rail”.)

Bonfire of the lists!

“I’ll just look in the box for a list. Here we are – oh, no, this one’s from 1998… there must be a more recent one than that. Here’s another one. Damn – that’s even older, and the box has fallen apart! Hang on, I’ll look in the workroom.”

Do I exaggerate about ageing lists of local services on curly paper in scruffy boxes. Perhaps I do – sometimes the boxes are quite neat. But why pre-print a list, which is out of date as soon as it’s printed, when you can get up-to-date information on demand?


Doctor Where

NHS Choices, as a title, invites cynicism. Is it just Big Brother-speak for a lack of choice? Actually, it isn’t. This website really can help you find a local doctor, dentist, chemist, optician or hospital (including emergency hospital), providing you with much of the information you need to make a choice.

Take doctors, for instance. I put my postcode in the box, and what I got for all this effort was a list of doctors starting with the closest to my front door. But more than that, I was told whether each surgery had provision for early (before 8.30am) or late (after 6pm) appointments, and whether the surgery was accepting new patients. This is crucial – there was nothing more depressing for a new arrival than the ring-round of doctors’ surgeries – “are you taking patients or, if not, have you heard any rumours about who might be?”

Of course, circumstances change from second to second, and I don’t suppose that NHS Choices is updated quite that often. But it’s a good starting-point.


What seems to be the trouble?

There’s much more to NHS Choices than a database of local services. If you think you might have caught something nasty, you can click through to NHS Direct, with its symptom-checker, its common health questions (and answers!), and its telephone number. There is, of course, a lot here about Swine Flu, including the dedicated phone line.

Back at NHS Choices, there is a huge amount to read, watch and listen to, on keeping healthy and taking action when you or a loved one is under the weather.

I’ve seen the NHS’s internal ICT systems in action, and I was less than impressed, which makes it pretty ironic that this public face of the NHS should be both so useful and so attractive.

(From the Gateway to websites, select “Health and medicine”. NHS Choices is a Key Link.)

Clipart from Clipartheaven.com

Beware: poet at work!

Poetry is all the rage:
They’ve recently had it on telly.
So where should you go to find out more?
Look below: feed your mind (and your belly)!

Not the wasteland

The Poetry Society
Has all the latest news
Of poets meek and poets fierce
And poets with radical views.

Discover the Poetry Café
And buy a new volume or two.
Attend their frequent readings
And feast on their veggie ragout.

This website’s tone is friendly:
Nothing snooty or precious here.
So if you need any encouragement,
Seek their help with a smile, not a sneer.

(From the Gateway to websites, select “Books”. The Poetry Society is under “Poetry”.)

South Bank scribblers

The shelves of the Poetry Library
Groan with books and CDs, also mags
Full of poems from 1912 onwards
By beginners and old also “old lags”.

The library’s a physical entity
In the bowels of the Festival Hall,
But the Poetry Magazines Archive
Is a database open to all.

They invite you to write your own poem,
Using words they had left on the shelf.
But unless you’re as good as what I am,
You should not write a poem yourself!

(From the Gateway to websites, select “Books”. The Poetry Library is under “Poetry”.)