Please review the Frequently Asked questions below. If these don’t answer your question, or if you have a different bug or behaviour, please send me feedback via the Contact link above.

March 2, 2026

Why did the privacy policy change?

The privacy policy needed to change because of the release of push notifications functionality for the app. Previously all of the app functionality was local to the device (iPhone, iPad or Mac) and the only information that was sent from the phone was the pair of station codes that went to the National Rail API to load your next three trains.

With the introduction of push notifications, there is now cloud infrastructure that runs 24/7 that needs to know some details about your app setup in order to deliver push notifications. This infrastructure is only used if you have notifications enabled, and any data I hold is automatically deleted if you disable notifications.

December 12, 2025

Why isn't Siri working?

Siri requires your permission before it will allow Next3Trains to return your trains this way. This should happen the first time you try and use Siri to have Next3Trains return anything. Once this is done, you can ask Siri for your next trains even if the app is not running (ie ask via voice when you’re in the car, pulling into the railway station parking).

If you’ve dismissed that prompt, or you later change your mind, you can always ask Siri while the app is open in the foregound - ask Siri to “Check my trains in Next3Trains”. This should also pop up the system prompt for permissions. If that doesn’t work, you can enable this via the Shortcuts app: from the Library view, scroll down to Next3Trains in the list of apps and click on it, press the (i) button, and ensure the Siri permission is enabled.

September 3, 2025

Why doesn't my train show up?

Next3Trains uses the publicly available departure board data to source the data in the app. This is a free resource that has a number of limitations:

The app only shows direct trains - ie trains that leave from the station you specify, and either stop or terminate at the station you want to get to. It doesn’t show connections - if you need to connect you can put each of the legs you need into the app as its own route.
The app only shows departures that leave in the next 2 hours. If there aren’t any matching direct trains in the next 2 hours, the app won’t show any trains.

What’s covered

The app covers Great Britain National Rail only - the standard set of around 2,578 CRS stations. That includes the train operators that appear on National Rail departure boards, so London Overground, the Elizabeth line and Merseyrail are all there.

September 3, 2025

Why is my widget showing the wrong station?

The iOS widget doesn’t let you pick a route when you add it - it chooses one for you, and which one depends on whether Auto-select Nearest Route is switched on:

Auto-select Nearest Route on, with “Always” location permission - the widget shows the route with the closest departure station. If you’ve got multiple routes with the same departure station, the first one you added is shown.
Auto-select Nearest Route on, with “While Using the App” permission - the widget can’t check your location on its own, so it shows the nearest route as worked out the last time you had the app open.
Auto-select Nearest Route off - the widget shows the route you were last looking at in the app, falling back to your first route.

So if the widget is showing a station you weren’t expecting, it’s usually one of those doing exactly what it was asked to do.

September 3, 2025

Why aren't my widgets updating?

Widgets can’t be updated in real time by the app, so these will usually show data that is recent but not totally up to date. This is normal - to conserve battery life, iOS only allows widgets to update about 40 to 70 times a day.

There are a couple of things you can do to get fresher data:

Turn on the Optimize for Commuting Hours setting and set the times you really care about having up to date train times. The app will then concentrate its limited number of widget updates into those windows rather than spreading them across the whole day.
Turn on notifications. When the app’s backend spots a cancellation, a delay or a platform change on one of your routes, it sends your phone a silent nudge to refresh the widget as well as the alert itself. That means the widget can update at the moment something actually changes, instead of waiting for its next scheduled slot. This only happens if you have notifications switched on - see What notifications will I get?.

Note that the app still can’t really control when widgets update - iOS has the final say. If you need train data that is right up to date, you can always tap the widget to open the app. On iOS 17 and later you can also tap the small circular arrow icon in the widget’s header to refresh it in place, without leaving your Home Screen.

September 3, 2025

What about Android?

Next3Trains is a hobby project, and I intend to keep this as a free app with no ads or subscriptions. As such, I don’t have the bandwidth to maintain anything beyond the Apple platforms. Sorry.

September 3, 2025

What about feature X?

Next3Trains is a hobby project I do in my spare time, and the design is deliberately limited in what it tries to do: present high level details on your train status, fast. There are a number of more fully featured apps released by both the train companies and other developers, and this app is not intended to compete with them.

In particular, Next3Trains is not a journey planner. It doesn’t do connections, it won’t route you around a closure, and it has no maps or ticketing. If you have a string of cancelled trains, you’ll want one of those fuller apps to work out what to do instead.