Blog

Unit allocations and improved planner performance

Robert Topolowski - Sept. 19, 2025, 6 p.m.

RailChecker is pleased to announce that unit allocations from the GEMINI system are now available through both the app and website! This covers most operators across the UK and will greatly improve the level of information provided you in the short term as well as the long term. As some of you may be aware, there is a major project underway to replace the back-end system behind RailChecker. This has made significant progress, and is expected to roll out in the coming weeks. This does mean that for the time being, the only improvements that will be immediately visible to you will be the “Allocations” line in the app and on the website - additional features on the existing system are not viable as it is already operating at a high level of utilisation and it is set to be retired soon. This data will not affect the unit illustrations currently shown, as these are powered by a different system, but once the new system goes live it is expected that these will be mostly based off of data coming from GEMINI. Whilst the data is slowly populating on the RailChecker database, there may be some formatting issues with how the allocation information is shown. This is expected to clear by tomorrow (20th September). Another improvement that many of you will be happy to see is changes to the journey planner. In recent months the performance of the journey planner has declined to unacceptable levels. This is now being addressed by temporarily withdrawing the in-house planner engine from use and replacing it with the National Rail Online Journey Planner (OJP) system. This will provide multiple benefits, such as improved reliability and accuracy of proposed itineraries but also improved stability of RailChecker as a whole and quicker query times (now down to about one second on average). It is hoped that this bump in performance will bridge the gap between now and when the new system goes live, by which point it is anticipated that RailChecker will switch back to an improved, more powerful in-house planning engine. Thank you for your patience over the last few months, I understand that some of you are frustrated by the lack of updates - there is only one of me and the revenue from RailChecker just about covers the operational costs. This means that I cannot work on this as much as I would like to. In terms of a progress update, the back end system for managing long term schedules is now done and work is now moving over to the real-time data feed. The current plan is for the back-end switchover to happen within the next few weeks. More info will be posted closer to the time. -Robert No guarantee is made with respect to the accuracy of information shown on RailChecker, the accuracy of data entered into GEMINI is the responsibility of the train operating company (and they do not provide any guarantees either). Not all train operating companies use GEMINI (e.g. London Overground) and some services may be excluded. This service may be withdrawn at any time.

[Resolved] Journey Planner issues

Robert Topolowski - Feb. 26, 2025, 2 p.m.

UPDATE 07/03/2025 | The relevant fixes have been applied (except for the 8 hour limit, which is in place due to infrastructure limitations). The arrive by option isn't always returning the most optimal results, particularly involving services going through the Thameslink "core" section between St Pancras and London Blackfriars, but it is working - if the returned results are too early, you can tap the "Later" button on the results page. This will eventually be addressed as part of a larger project. Thank you for your patience during this time. In recent weeks it has become apparent that the RailChecker journey planner is becoming less and less stable with erratic results or nothing being shown. The investigations into this are ongoing, however the current view is that it will not be a quick fix. RailChecker uses a custom journey planning engine, hence why only RailChecker is affected by this. Most users should not be affected. If you are using the journey planner, please note: The "arrive by" option does not work. Journeys exceeding 8 hours will not show results. If you experience any issues outside of the parameters described above, it would be greatly appreciated if you could please fill out this contact form or send an email to contact [at] topolowski [dot] com with the entered origin/destination as well as the time of the query if possible. I apologise for any inconvenience caused by this ongoing issue.

RailChecker app 1.1.4 changelog

Robert Topolowski - Feb. 3, 2025, 12:01 p.m.

This update primarily serves to address some outstanding bugs and to make minor tweaks based on suggestions received. The "What's New" page is showing the app release date as 24/01/2025 - testing has delayed the release somewhat. Changelog Bugs fixed [Android] Edge case where it was possible to “back” into the initial loading screen indefinitely has been patched. Constant notifications reminding about rejected notification permissions have been removed. Notification bells next to locations on service pages now show correctly when no estimated times are available. It’s now possible to insert brackets into the departures search box without the app crashing. Splitting/joining trains are now rendered correctly. “No report” no longer shows if an actual departure time is received. App no longer crashes when looking at station details for certain stations such as Chesterfield. "undefined" times should no longer show for pinned services where no report is received. Trains that have terminated short no longer show the blue tracking dot indefinitely, and are not shown as "live" under pinned services. Fixed other bugs based on crash reports. Journey planner calendar replaced, time selection spinner changed to 5 minute intervals. Train lengths are now shown in simple mode on the station departures page. Rail Replacement Buses can now be pinned. National Rail have advised that live rail replacement bus tracking is now supported on their systems (and is therefore reflected in RailChecker), however it hasn't been fully rolled out yet. In-app messages have been moved below the search bar on the departures page. Platform alterations are now highlighted on the station departures page. "Last Updated" text added for disruptions page. Various stability improvements. Swipe to delete is now Hold to delete - due to stability issues on iOS which were unfixable. There is currently a large project underway to replace the entire back end infrastructure with something that better fits the level of traffic being experienced on RailChecker and which will deliver significant improvements for both myself (maintainability, scalability, efficiency) and end users (speed, reliability, features), hence the lack of updates. This project will pave the way for many new features and improvements to be added to both the app and the website. More info will be shared over the coming months about the major changes coming.

RailChecker 1.1.3 rolling out now!

Robert Topolowski - Oct. 14, 2024, noon

It's been a while since the last update, but RailChecker version 1.1.3 is finally hitting the app stores! Not a lot has changed from what you, the user, can see - most changes were to address bugs and make minor improvements to the smooth experience of using the app. Refreshed service details page The service details page has received a minor refresh to its layout to simplify the design and data being presented into a more logical format. The scheduled service timings have now moved to the left of the journey line (the red line), with estimated and actual timings staying on the right. Estimated times will also be differentiated in a stronger manner through the use of italics and darker text. Average crowding information has also been moved to its own line. The intention of these changes is to present the information in such a way that it can be read a lot more quickly/at a glance - everything now has a permanent place. Additionally, on CrossCountry services, unit allocations are now available. These will replace the “Pathed for” line where this data is available, as a result this information will only show in detailed mode. Allocations are not accompanied by formation diagrams at this time. Swipe to delete You can now swipe left to delete pinned stations, services and journeys. Hold to see departures When looking at a specific service, you can now do a long press/hold on a calling point to bring up the departures from that stop at the time of the calling point. Other changes Critical bug where the journey planner crashed if an itinerary contained a train with a destination station which had multiple TIPLOCs has been fixed. Pinning journey plans but not being able to unpin them has been fixed. Journey planner times now do not reset unless the time set is in the past. Certain very specific scenarios where the app could crash have been patched. A new “Share” button has been added that shares a link to the RailChecker website page for the specific service being shared. Where no “actual time” message is received for a given location, “No Report” will show instead of the expected delay. Formation search page works again. Platform alterations (defined as advertised platforms which differ from the booked platform, where available) are now shown with a black border in light mode, and a white background in dark mode. Formation diagrams now have a text field above the diagram concerned indicating the train type (detailed mode only). Lots of other bug fixes. You may be surprised or disappointed by the lack of progress/updates recently. I was on an internship abroad over the summer which severely limited my ability to work on RailChecker, and I have been extremely busy over the past month. Priority has been given to fixing bugs with the app rather than adding new features.

[Delayed] Changes to sign in for RailChecker

Robert Topolowski - Sept. 14, 2024, 2 p.m.

UPDATE 02/10/2024 - Due to the scale and scope of work being much higher than initially anticipated, the roll-out of this feature has been pushed back to allow for a greater focus on delivering more critical updates quicker. As part of improvements being made to RailChecker, the way you sign in to RailChecker will be changing. A website update will take place within the next week or so, incorporating the following changes to sign in for RailChecker: New sign in options will be introduced. Most notably, you will be able to log in by using a Google or Apple account. The intention of this is to make signing in easier as part of future improvements being made to RailChecker. You will be able to link existing accounts to Google and Apple accounts and use those social accounts to sign in to your existing account. It is not currently possible to use Google or Apple authentication in the app. You will still need a username and password to sign in to the app, until the app is updated (this will be happening soon). You will still be able to sign in using your existing details. You will be able to sign in to the website using your email address as well as your username. Once again, this will not be possible in the app until a future update is rolled out. The URLs to sign in/up will be changing. The old URLs will redirect to the new ones once the change is live. The sign in page will also be redesigned slightly. If you have an existing account and you attempt to log in to RailChecker using a Google/Apple account with the same email address, you will see an error. This is a security feature - you must first log in using your username and password, go to Account Settings, and link your account there. Do I have to do anything? No, this is just a heads up that certain parts of RailChecker will be changing and that there will be a brief period where the methods of signing in on the website and app will differ. Does this affect RailChecker Pro subscriptions in any way? No. - If you have any further questions, feel free to get in touch at topolowski.com/contact.

What information does RailChecker have?

Robert Topolowski - May 19, 2024, 2 p.m.

Last Updated: 19/09/2025 As RailChecker has expanded, more information has been added to the app. There is a brief overview of the information RailChecker holds about rail services on the “Status” page of the RailChecker website, however it doesn’t cover in detail what information is available. This post lists detailed information about what information is held per operator. It will be updated whenever anything changes. * Orientations not known. All operators Scheduled times. Forecast times. Actual times, where these are reported. Disruption information. Delay and cancellation reasons. Passing locations, where provided (not provided if service is a last minute addition). Train operating characteristics, where the train is scheduled more than 24 hours in advance: Schedule date. Operation method, where specified – with or without guard/conductor/train manager/on board supervisor. Available accommodation. Availability of reservations and advance fares. Pathing characteristics (detailed mode only). On board catering. Previous and next services worked by a train, except for c2c. Train length alterations. “Service full and standing” reports, where this is reported by the operator’s service controller. First class declassification, where this is made by the operator’s service controller. Catering provision alterations. Avanti West Coast NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 390 Class 221 Formation information is not currently being sent through. c2c Unit allocations. Unit numbers are not in order, and are updated every two hours. Formation information. Class 357* Class 720* Train length. Caledonian Sleeper No additional information available. Chiltern Railways NEW Unit allocations Formation information for services on the Birmingham route only. Class 68 Loco-hauled (No diagrams shown) Class 168* Train length. CrossCountry Unit allocations. Formation information, usually only for services originating or calling at Birmingham New Street. Class 220 Class 221 Class 170 East Midlands Railway NEW Unit allocations Elizabeth Line NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 345 Average crowding Live crowding Gatwick Express NEW Unit allocations Average crowding. Train length. Grand Central NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 180 Great Northern NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 387/379 Due to limitations in the data source used, it is not currently possible to differentiate between these classes of train. The positioning of the first class section within the carriage may be different than indicated on RailChecker. Class 700 Class 717 Average crowding. Train length. Great Western Railway NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 158 Class 165 Class 166 Class 387 Class 80x Greater Anglia NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 720 Class 745 Class 755 Live crowding. Only on some services operated by class 745 and class 755 trains. Heathrow Express NEW Unit allocations Hull Trains NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 802 Island Line No additional information available. London North Eastern Railway NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 91 Loco-hauled (No diagrams available) Class 80x London Overground Average crowding. Train length (sometimes). London Underground No additional information available. London Underground is not officially included (yet), only services that run alongside National Rail services (e.g. Bakerloo line north of Queens Park, District line on Wimbledon branch) will show. Merseyrail NEW Unit allocations Northern NEW Unit allocations Train length. ScotRail NEW Unit allocations South Western Railway NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 158 Class 159 Class 444 Class 450 Class 458 Class 701 Southeastern NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 375/377 Class 465 Class 466 Class 707 Other formations are shown, however their unit type cannot be determined. Average crowding. Live crowding. Only on services operated by class 375, 376, 377 and 707 trains. Train length. Southern NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 377. Class 387 (the livery shown may not represent the actual livery of the train). Average crowding. Train length. Thameslink NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 700 Average crowding. Train length. TransPennine Express NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 185 Class 397 Class 802 Transport for Wales NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 158, only via Birmingham New Street. West Midlands Trains NEW Unit allocations Formation information. Class 350 Class 196/1 Other formations are shown, however their unit type cannot be determined. Class 730 formed trains do not currently relay formation information through industry systems - it isn't known when this will be fixed. Update log 19/09/2025 Added expanded unit allocation info coverage. 26/04/2025 Added Southern formation information. 16/03/2025 Added Elizabeth Line live and average crowding information, removed formation info for Avanti West Coast. 09/12/2024 Added unit allocation info for c2c, updated XC allocation info to mention data issue, 05/10/2024 Updated XC allocation info to include Monday-Friday restriction. 02/10/2024 Added unit allocation info for CrossCountry. 26/06/2024 Added clarification to WMT section to clarify current situation with class 730 formations.

RailChecker Website Update

Robert Topolowski - March 1, 2024, 6 p.m.

RailChecker Web (which will now be referred to as just RailChecker or the RailChecker website from here on) has had a significant facelift to coincide with the general release of the website to all users free of charge. Some locations of certain pages and menus have changed, hence this blog post detailing the changes. Refreshed UI The home page has been given a touch up, especially around the top of the page to reflect that you now don’t need to log in to access RailChecker – so a search field is now provided right on the landing page. The landing page also has a new animation going on in the background, you can think of it as trains arriving and departing. The website runs on Bootstrap for its styling, and that has been updated to the latest version which provides some design improvements. This also means that some of the colours have changed. Some pages have also been changed to look nicer (including page layouts for services – see below). New Simple/Detailed modes The simple mode has been simplified further, and the detailed mode is now more detailed. This should help with making RailChecker as accessible as possible to as many people as possible and provide as much detail as the user wants. Simple mode reflects the popular and easy to use UI from the app, including the well regarded “traffic light” delay indicators and line diagrams. Detailed mode largely retains the style and layout from the pre-existing version of RailChecker Web, with some tweaks and improvements. Journey Planner Following the efficiency updates made a while back, it’s now possible to provide a journey planner on the RailChecker website. It doesn’t provide any additional functionality over what is available in the app. Note: The journey planner is rate limited! Server capacity is finite and recently some users have recently been abusing the journey planning system – RailChecker uses it’s own journey planner, not NRE’s planning engine and as the RailChecker server is much smaller it can’t handle a stream of requests made one after another within a short space of time. Repeated attempts to overwhelm the server will result in action being taken in accordance with the terms of service. Page changes The following pages have changed: Home: now called Search Journey Planner: now called Planner Departures: revised layout, simple and detailed modes now separated into different pages, filtering options now persist when changing time parameters. Other changes Dark mode now available – press the moon icon button in the top right corner (or in the menu option if on a smaller screen) More frequent use of CRS codes. Improved algorithm for autocomplete (e.g. if you enter “York” it will take you to York departures and not Bentley (South Yorkshire)). TIPLOC now shown where location description not available (previously showed “None”). Formations now shown as centred on the screen where it doesn’t overflow. Where no actual arrival/departure/pass time has been reported, “N/R” will show. The code connecting to and processing messages from the Knowledgebase Disruptions service has been updated to correctly delete cleared incidents. Website now uses new API. A note about advertising You may have noticed that there is no advertising on the RailChecker website. It was initially hoped that this would be sorted prior to launch, however unfortunately Adsense require that the website meets minimum levels of content quality – which can’t be done if the site is not open/free. Alternative providers have been explored but they are of very low quality and would not be appropriate for this website. As a result, the decision has been taken to not show advertising on railchecker.app for the short term. This may come as a disappointment to some Pro users who may question the value of their subscription, however on mobile the RailChecker app is far superior when compared to the RailChecker website. The RailChecker app also has notifications for Pro users, and Pro users still have access to per-carriage crowding information on select Southeastern and Greater Anglia services (this exclusivity carries through to the website). To others, it may be a relief – however servers are not free, and RailChecker takes up a lot of my time. As a result, as things stand the website does not have a long term future. It will survive in the short term though, and during this time options will be explored to ensure the long term sustainability of the website. Advertising will at some point be implemented – it’s a question of when, not if. Future plans The RailChecker website provides many opportunities for the development of features for both the app and the website. In particular, the following features are being looked at: Synced pinned stations, services and journeys across all logged in sessions. A customisable dashboard to present information that you want at a glance (to be featured on the Search page, which before this update was the Home page). More utilities: Things that maybe don’t have a place in the app but could be useful to a limited number of people – for example, timetables or analytics. Cross-integration with the RailChecker app, for example deep linking railchecker.app links to the RailChecker app. There are also plans to radically overhaul the system holding service schedules to be able to improve the current 7 day data retention period to something far more useful. Having said all of that though, as a third-year university student I will not have a lot of time to work on this in the coming months.

RailChecker 1.1 updates

Robert Topolowski - Jan. 31, 2024, 4 p.m.

RailChecker 1.1 is about to begin roll-out across all platforms (pending testing and review processes), bringing with it several improvements and changes. The changes being made have been documented in this blog post. Visual improvements Some parts of the app have been improved from a visual point of view. These include: Nicer text inputs More consistent rounding Clearer error messages On iOS devices with notches, an issue where the screen would “jump” to adjust to the notch at the top of the screen has been rectified. New on-boarding screens Following user feedback, if you download the app as a new user you will automatically be shown a tutorial on how to use the app. This tutorial can also be accessed from Settings. Improved journey planner The in-app journey planner has had some minor tweaks to it’s UI to make it look nicer across all platforms. It also runs on a new algorithm (detailed below), which should mean significantly improved reliability. Additionally, “Earlier” and “Later” buttons have been added, and you can now pin frequent journeys! Improved formation search The formation search algorithm (server-side) and the way in which formation search results are presented on the users’ device has been improved – it should now run much faster and should also reduce resource use on devices (it previously tried to render the entire list at once, which could cause the device to heat up). Formation search now covers more types of train and is also split into two hour sections when listed. New server communication system The way in which the RailChecker app interacts with the main server has changed. A new “API” has been created which is significantly more reliable and more efficient. Additionally, the app now handles communication between itself and the server a lot better than before – errors are better handled and are more informative, which should stop the app from just hanging. Furthermore, the changes server-side mean that there should be significantly less instances of the server failing to respond (there has been a spike in the number of crashes recently) – this was due to excessive resource use by the journey planner, which itself has now been made significantly more efficient and is much better, for example it now provides up to 5 journey options instead of 4. The new journey planning engine will also now be able to accommodate additional features in the future, such as via/avoid points. FAO developers out there: If you are interested, the journey planning engine has now been made open source as a Python package that you can download and run yourself! Find out more at https://github.com/RTopolowski/pytinerary – at the time of posting, the version in the repository is out of date and will be updated soon. The old API will be unsupported effective immediately. Following 28th February 2024, the journey planner will not work on app versions 1.0 and below as it is causing server stability issues. Other features may still work but if they fail, they will not be fixed. To avoid these issues, please make sure you update your app. An in-app message will be shown to users on older versions to remind them to update. Other minor fixes/improvements Associations are now shown correctly, where these occur at non-passenger stops and where there are multiple associations for one location. Links on the Settings page have been updated to point to the correct pages. Long term schedule updates have now been increased to lag two days behind instead of three, which was creating several ghost/duplicated services. SWR service formations now shown where the service is operated by Class 444, 450 or 458/5 (only some services for the latter). Changes made to comply with Google Play’s policy changes regarding account deletion. New Settings options for choosing a default option for pinning services (“Today only” or “Every day”). Pinned services can now be ordered by departure time, operator or “pinned order”. Headcodes are now shown for pinned services when detailed mode is on. Booked platforms now shown where actual platform information isn’t available at the time of search – note: booked platforms will not show where platform information is suppressed by station control. To summarise, most of these changes are minor from the point of view of the user. However, these changes will make your experience of using the app significantly better (and it’s a damn sight better than National Rail’s app!). Most of these changes have been made based on user feedback – if you’d like to see a feature in RailChecker, do send a message. Changes to RailChecker Pro and RailChecker Web RailChecker Web will be made free from 1st March 2024*. This means that RailChecker Web will not be a feature of RailChecker Pro (although RailChecker Web will have advertising for non-Pro users). The reason for this change is the limited use of RailChecker Web, and additionally capacity constraints have changed sufficiently to allow open access to the website. The Pro subscription still represents great value for money in comparison to many similar subscriptions in different transport-related apps. If you do not wish to continue with your subscription due to this change, you have the opportunity to cancel your subscription over the next month. More “Pro” features are planned to replace this feature (see below). * This date is subject to alteration, but this change will not happen before this date. What’s next? The focus of development will be to refactor and re-engineer how the server communicates with and receives data from National Rail to improve reliability and scalability. This is largely "invisible" development to most users, but it's important to do and so you may not see many updates for a while. Having said that, the following features are on the list of things to implement: Pro feature - A new “Journeys” concept which wraps multiple existing and new features together – receive notifications about your planned journey, “Live Activities” (dynamic island)/persistent notifications with progress updates and more Pro feature - Past service punctuality Widgets Integration with wearable devices (such as Apple Watch) Extend data retention period from 7 days to something longer Additionally, commitments outside of RailChecker (I am a full time university student) mean that I may not be able to dedicate as much time as you expect. I’ll be monitoring changes to the data available through various open data platforms to improve existing features, such as formation information for more services, as well as implementing new features. Again, if you’d like to see a feature in RailChecker, please let me know! One more thing – RailChecker has recently received a few negative reviews so if you haven’t already, please leave a review through your app store! - Robert Topolowski P.S. If you are good at drawing train diagrams and are willing to draw them for RailChecker on a commission basis, then please get in touch! Send an email to contact /at/ topolowski /dot/ com, preferably with an example of your work, rates and availability.

Data issues 28/10/2023

Robert Topolowski - Oct. 29, 2023, 1:25 p.m.

As some of you may have noticed, the RailChecker app was unable to show live information for most of the day on Saturday 28th October 2023. This was due to the National Rail data feeds being shut down twice. CACI (who provide the open data service that RailChecker uses on behalf of National Rail) have since issued updates to explain the issues, and I have put them down here. On Friday 27th October, a major security vulnerability was found with the software that CACI use to allow open data users (like RailChecker) to connect and receive data from National Rail. CACI therefore decided to shut down the server with immediate effect without telling anyone at 08:23 on Saturday 28th October to undertake remedial work - the reason behind this was not known until 12:06. CACI restored the data connection at about 13:30, and apart from an issue with the RailChecker server (possibly caused by the thousands of update messages backlogged coming at the same time) causing an unusually long emergency restart at about 15:00, there were no issues until 17:20. Unfortunately, the National Rail server then stopped working again, due to another security breach. Normal service was restored at 01:04 29/10/2023. On behalf of National Rail, I can only apologise for any difficulties you experienced in using the app on Saturday. A history of updates from National Rail is available below. Status information is available on the Status page. UPDATE 29/10/2023 01:33 Incident resolved - from National Rail: CIS Pushports down due to critical vulnerability Resolution Details: New servers built and patched to address the vulnerability Incident Start Date / Time: 19:37hrs Incident Resolution Date / Time: 01:04hrs UPDATE 29/10/2023 01:05 From National Rail: Testing with public connectivity is taking place and looking positive Who Is Impacted: CIS Incident Reference: [redacted] Incident Start Date / Time: 9:40 hrs Next Update Due: 02:00 hrs UPDATE 29/10/2023 00:57 Messages are being received again. UPDATE 29/10/2023 00:09 From National Rail: Primary server is under going final testing, with no issues being experienced, Services connectivity is currently being assesses whilst secondary server is currently being patched and configured. Who Is Impacted: CIS Incident Reference: [redacted] Incident Start Date / Time: 9:40 hrs Next Update Due: 01:00 hrs UPDATE 28/10/2023 23:14 From National Rail: New servers are in being built and currently undergoing testing before deployment Who Is Impacted: CIS Incident Reference: [redacted] Incident Start Date / Time: 9:40 hrs Next Update Due: 00:01 hrs UPDATE 28/10/2023 22:04 From National Rail: Please be aware that all Push Ports are currently down due to a Security breach on active MQ Please note, Live Departure boards are not affected, only CIS Push ports Who Is Impacted: CIS Incident Reference: [redacted] Incident Start Date / Time: 9:40 hrs Next Update Due: 22:00 hrs

RailChecker v1.0.0 - New features and changes

Robert Topolowski - Sept. 20, 2023, 6 p.m.

Hello, and welcome to the new RailChecker website! A lot of new features and changes have been added and made to the RailChecker app, and this blog post serves to give you a bit of guidance about how to use the new features to your advantage. The first half of this post will cover RailChecker Pro, with the second half covering the other features and changes made. RailChecker Pro This is a new premium subscription for users who want additional features and/or no in-app advertising, priced at £1.99. The current feature set includes: Mobile push notifications Access to RailChecker Web (this website) Per-carriage crowding information on select SouthEastern and Greater Anglia services Removal of all in-app advertising Subscribing There are multiple ways to subscribe to RailChecker Pro. The first option is to subscribe via the app. Go to Settings, then RailChecker Pro and press "Buy monthly subscription". You'll then receive a prompt from your app store, either Google Play or App Store, to confirm your purchase. iOS users: This prompt may take up to 30 seconds to show! This method does not require the creation of an account, but without it you will not have access to RailChecker Pro. If you'd like to link your account to your subscription, there are multiple ways to go about doing this. One is to subscribe after signing up and logging in (which you can do both via the app or via this website). If you have subscribed before doing this, don't worry! Just log in with your account into the device with the subscription and your subscription will be automatically linked to your account! Once you are subscribed, you should receive an email from your subscription processor - this will be one of Google Play, App Store or Stripe (for web purchases). In-app notifications You can set notifications for both individual services and general operator disruption. Services Go to the service for which you wish to receive notifications, then press the bell icon on the top right of the screen. This will change the page to show various notification-related settings. Notifications are set on a per-location basis - tap the bell icon next to the location you are interested in to bring up the notification options for that location. You can set notifications for changes in forecast arrival times (these are rate limited to one every 2 minutes), actual arrival and departure times, platform changes/confirmations and formation changes. If any of these are selected for a given location, cancellation notifications will also be sent. Select your notification preferences and then press "Save". Once you have set all your notifications for a service (you can set them for multiple locations), remember to press the "Save notification settings" button! If you do not do this, the server will not be notified about your notification preferences. If you'd like to receive notifications for a given service on certain days of the week, scroll to the top of the locations list and set the "Receive notifications for this service on multiple days" checkbox. Then, you can choose on which days you wish to receive notifications - this works on the same principle as pinned services. If you select notifications, then save notification settings, then toggle the multiple days checkbox, you may receive duplicate notifications. Operators To set disruption notifications for a given operator, find your operator on the Disruption page, then press the bell icon in the top right. Tick the "Get notifications for unplanned disruption affecting [operator name] disruption" box and then select which days you wish to receive notifications for it (it isn't possible to select just today). Finally, press "Save" and you are done! If notifications are active for a given service/location/operator, the bell icon will have a badge on it. You can also check your set notifications in Settings, by going to the Notifications tab there. RailChecker Web RailChecker Web is the all-new website version of the RailChecker app. To use RailChecker Web, you will need to be subscribed to RailChecker Pro - you do not need to subscribe twice. RailChecker Web also provides additional details in detailed mode, but is largely the same as the app, features wise. The only exceptions to this are the formation search and journey planner - they are coming to RailChecker Web soon. Per-carriage crowding On some SouthEastern and Greater Anglia/Stansted Express services, live crowding information is available. Up until now, this has been shown as an average on the service page. However, now with a RailChecker Pro subscription, you can view this on a per carriage basis to find quieter carriages. The per-carriage crowding is shown below each carriage. Additional features/changes for all users There are also some changes for everyone: Some icons have been changed to indicate more clearly/obviously their intended purpose. Advertising has been amended to better reflect operating costs. Pinned stations can now be re-arranged in the renamed Pinned Stations section of Settings. Previous and next services operated by a given service are now shown. Where a train reverses along its route (and this is indicated in the timetable data), this will now be shown, alongside carriages that are detached/attached at a certain location which do not form part of a dividing/joining passenger service. The "traffic light" delay dots have been changed to make them clearer. Saved services now no longer auto delete unless they are no longer in the database. New header designs on some pages (see below) Rearranged data shown in detailed mode (see above) All operators are now listed on the Disruptions page by default, under "Other operators". New Terms of Service have been introduced. If you have any questions, comments etc. then please let me know! You can get in touch via Twitter or by using the contact form on my website. - Robert Topolowski