Gadgets and gizmos

Being a country bloke I have always found arranging train journeys (especially to London) pretty stressful. First of all you have to buy your tickets, then you have to plan your journey which sometimes means making changes/connections in stations you have never been to before only to find out there is a delay and you have to start all over again.

Before any major project I like to see if there is a tool or in this case app that can help me out, thankfully Rail Easy now has an updated version available for the iPhone, Android and Symbian handsets that really does make train journeys a whole lot better.

First of the entire app let’s you plan your journey giving detailed timings. If there is more than one leg/change needed each journey gives timing details such as departure times and duration, you are also given the overall travel time and arrival estimate. I found this very useful, on a journey to London Gatwick I had a forty minute stop over at Reading, and the app gave me the precise time of departure meaning less stress between changes.

If you are in a hurry you can also purchase tickets directly through the app through a secure gateway, once purchased you simply punch in your code at the stations automated kiosk to collect your tickets? It’s way better than standing in queues and saves time – a real bonus.

The best aspect of this app is that it is completely free and is constantly being updated. I would love future updates to include details on platforms at specific stations, I reckon the app would already have this feature if stations were more modern – so I can’t really blame Rail easy. Great app.