In our car-free-dom we were out and about on the train at the weekend. I’ve blogged a few times on train travel including – reserving seats, on-board temperature, getting a refund for delays and booking ahead.

Something that can be really useful is live train information to know if things are running on time as well as finding out which platform you are arriving on or leaving from.

The complexities of the UK railways are not only that there lots of different train companies and websites to buy tickets, but also various places for live train information. Like National Rail or Trainline, as well as all the train companies websites.

We have discovered that the information from all these various live train information sources can differ! There was a train issue at the weekend and so we went to get some live information by checking a few sources.

My preferred source is Realtime Trains which has been generally reliable and if you really want there is a lot of detail available on such as the number of coaches and the signal boxes a train has passed en-route!

Anyway on this occasion there were some signalling issues delaying trains and based on the information on the platform and checking both Realtime Trains and National Rail we decided that a train was not coming for a while. So as I have mentioned before about the opportunties that being car-free offers we went for an impromptu beer in the station pub.

The issue was in the station pub there was a display with train information which contradicted everything we had found from our searching – it showed that a train was very soon to arrive. We ignored it – as it was three information sources against one – and ordered a beer. However, the pub train information was proved correct as a train arrived as it had suggested!

After a very quick beer and then jumping on the train we were left to wonder about what live train information to trust! Not a big drama but less train information options and more accuracy would be good for being a car-free-family.