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About This Site

Who we are

The site nationalrail.co.uk is the definitive source of customer information for National Rail passenger services in England, Scotland and Wales. It provides journey planning, real-time information, ticket and fares information, and a range of rail-related information.

We handle an average of 2.5 million journey planning enquiries every weekday through our website, apps and contact centre, and through information services supplied to third parties (such as open access data feeds).

We are part of the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which provides business services to Train Operating Companies, open access operators, freight operating companies and Network Rail.

Management of the site is shared by Train Operating Companies and RDG. Train Companies are responsible for all content that relates to their organisation, including station information, products, promotions and ticket Restriction Codes. Information on topics that apply to all companies and that affect the railway on a national scale is managed by RDG.

Planning your journey

As more and more people choose to travel by train, the need for the railway industry to provide fast, accurate and impartial information has never been so important. We are leading the way in maximising communications technology to provide access to information, both in advance of travel and during journeys.

With customer demand for up-to-the-minute information it’s vital that we continue to improve the delivery of our service – however, whenever and by whatever media required.

Online Journey Planner

Our Journey Planner allows users to find the best journey options between any 2 National Rail locations. Using complex rules to find suitable journeys, the latest release of the Journey Planner allows users to:

  • Plan a journey to or from a National Rail Station to, and via, any other National Rail station or stations in a group

  • Plan a journey to or from London Zone 1 or DLR station

  • Quickly see if a journey is being disrupted (in real time) and choose to see suitable alternative journeys

  • Register to receive SMS text message alerts about delays to trains – either as a one-off request or for the same trains over a longer period of time

  • View availability of quota controlled fares, so the customer knows exactly what tickets are available at the time of the enquiry

  • Find the cheapest fare (direct from A to B) over a range of dates, across different operators.

  • Find comprehensive ticket terms and conditions, as well as ticket route information – the customer knows when and where the ticket can be used

  • Discover special offers that may be associated with the requested journey

  • See the range of add-on fares – such as London Travelcards – that may be available

  • Produce their own personalised timetable which they can print out and carry with them           

  • Find the prices of Season tickets for appropriate journeys for 7 days and any period between 1 month and 1 year

  • See Oyster and most contactless pay as you go fares, as well as National Rail fares

Alerting

For information on alerts for your journey, visit our Alerts and Notifications page.

Live Trains

Our Live Departures and Arrivals service is a web-based representation of the departure and arrival line up for every station on the National Rail network. Using information from Darwin, it provides scheduled, expected and actual train times.

Additionally, if bus or boat services are included in the timetable system for the station, the scheduled departures are also shown within the Live Trains display.

National Rail Knowledgebase

Our online knowledgebase offers user a wealth of useful information about travelling by rail.

Some of the features include:

  • Information about planned engineering work 12 weeks in advance 

  • Information about train service disruption   

  • Train Company details   

  • A calendar of events affecting the National Rail network and retailing 

  • Comprehensive information regarding the services and facilities at every National Rail station. Using maps and photographs, you can research the layout and facilities of every National Rail station   

  • Onward travel information from stations and information about to how to reach non-rail served locations   

  • Information to help you choose the right ticket for your journey, including the ticket type terms and conditions and any restriction codes applicable to your journey   

  • Maps of the overall National Rail network with more detailed maps for specific urban areas

  • Detailed information about Special Offers, Railcards, and Ranger tickets and Rover tickets   

  • A Season Ticket Calculator which allows you to calculate the exact price of your Season Ticket

The National Rail Knowledgebase is available as an open access data feed. See the Developers page for more information on how National Rail live information can benefit your website or app.

Real-time information

Darwin

Hidden away but critical to everything we deliver is Darwin, our real-time train prediction application. It powers all of our real-time services, providing train movements and predictions for the whole National Rail network.

Darwin is a complex application that takes in data from a variety of sources and uses predictive and heuristic technology to convert that data into useful predictions of train running.

As well as the scheduled timetable and movement data, Darwin receives real-time operational changes made by the train company and the National Rail Communication Centre. Darwin powers all of our customer-facing real-time services as below, plus a growing number of third party services:

  • Journey Planner

  • Alerts – sent to customers who have subscribed to receive them

  • TrainTracker – our real-time automated voice recognition service

  • TrainTracker Text – an SMS version of the Journey Planner

  • Live Trains – a web-based station departure board

  • Contact Centre Journey Planner – the journey planner used by our Contact Centre Advisors

In addition to providing real-time information to our services, Darwin also provides real-time train running information to some stations’ Customer Information Systems (CIS); currently stations operated by Avanti West Coast and Chiltern Railways.

To learn more about Darwin, and the other open access data feeds provided by National Rail, visit the Developers page.

Advertising

Visit the Advertising on National Rail page.

Complete Savings

Visit the Complete Savings page.

Contact Policy

Visit the Contact Policy page.

Developers

Visit the Developers page.

Customer Information Pledges

Visit the Customer Information Pledges page.

Careers

Visit the Careers page.

Feedback

If you notice any inaccuracies on the site, please either report them directly to the Train Company or visit the Contact Us page. Please include the URL of the page when reporting any errors or issues.

Modern Slavery Statement

The National Rail website and app is managed by the Rail Delivery Group who has published a Modern Slavery Statement

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