What does the ⓘ next to a station show?

Justin Clarke-Salt

Since version 1.9 there’s a small ⓘ button beside each station code on a route card - one for where you’re leaving from, one for where you’re going. Tap it and you get a sheet of information about that station, so you can check whether the lifts are working or whether there’s a ticket office before you set off.

What’s in it

  • Alerts - anything the station is currently publishing about access: lift and escalator closures, changes to step-free routes, and so on. This is live. Bear in mind that an alert can describe work that’s weeks away, or one that has been “current” for months with no end date, so read the text rather than assuming it means right now.
  • Accessibility - the station’s step-free notes and category, how many lifts it has, whether staff help is available and when, whether there are wheelchairs to borrow or a ramp for boarding, induction loops, tactile paving and an accessible toilet.
  • At the station - who manages the station, whether it’s staffed, ticket office hours or ticket machines, toilets (including baby changing and Changing Places where they exist), waiting room and shelter, Wi-Fi, refreshments and a cash machine.
  • Getting there - car parking (including accessible spaces) and cycle storage.

If a station publishes nothing at all, the sheet says so rather than showing an empty page.

Where the information comes from

It comes from National Rail’s Knowledgebase, the same source that feeds the station pages on the National Rail website. The app displays it as published and doesn’t edit it.

Most of the sheet is a snapshot that ships inside the app and is refreshed when the app is updated, which is why it opens instantly and works with no signal. Only the Alerts section and the lift status are fetched live when you open the sheet. So if a ticket office has changed its hours since the last app update, the sheet may be a little behind - the station’s own website or National Rail’s will have the latest.

Where it isn’t

Station information is on iPhone, iPad and Mac only.

A note on closed stations

Very occasionally the station list includes a station that has closed. The feed the app uses has no reliable “closed” marker, so a station stays listed until National Rail removes it. If you spot one, please let me know via the Contact form.