[Loadstone] Greetings and train stations

[Marcus Pöpping (DF1DV)]

Dear Sean,
Dear Geetha,
it is also very useful for me. I will be in Birmingham in august and 
traveling in an other country always brings some suprises.

Regards Marcus from germany
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sean Randall" <seanr at randylaptop.com>
To: <loadstone at loadstone-gps.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 4:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Loadstone] Greetings and train stations


> Geetha,
>
> It contains train stations only, as far as I am aware.  I have not yet 
> left
> home to see how accurate the coordinates are, though they were from an
> official source so should be relatively useful.  I've not used the  tube 
> so
> have no wisdom to offer there.
>
> My database can be found at
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1436494/UK_train_stations.ldb
>
> I cannot guarantee completeness, accuracy or anything else, but am trying 
> it
> on the weekend while Wayfinder still works as a backup.
>
> Sean.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: loadstone-bounces at loadstone-gps.com
> [mailto:loadstone-bounces at loadstone-gps.com] On Behalf Of Geetha Shamanna
> Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010. 03:06 PM
> To: loadstone at loadstone-gps.com
> Subject: Re: [Loadstone] Greetings and train stations
>
> Hello Sean,
>
> I currently live in Harrow, Middlesex, and mostly travel by tube on slow
> trains (the metropolitan line) without automatic announcements. I board 
> from
> a small station which all the fast trains skip by. If your database 
> contains
> checkpoints for all the tube stations in the UK, I would be greatly
> interested in having it. I try counting stops, but am sometimes distracted
> by a friendly passenger wanting to have a chat or by my own thoughts, and
> easily lose count of stops.
>
> Many thanks.
> Geetha
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sean Randall" <seanr at randylaptop.com>
> To: <loadstone at loadstone-gps.com>
> Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 2:48 PM
> Subject: [Loadstone] Greetings and train stations
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> I haven't been on this list for many many months - in fact I only popped 
> on
> for a little while to see what was going on and had no real use for GPS in
> my life until recently.
>
> I used wayfinder mainly as an in-car navigation tool, but on my first
> business trip I had another use for it: train stations.  Using wayfinder's
> "find" option and the "select category" item, I was able to get a
> refreshable list of railway stations, relative to my current location.
> Naturally this changed as I zoomed around the country on the train, but 
> for
> the local routes where the name of the upcoming station isn't announced 
> (of
> which I had to travel several) this was an invaluable tool for me.
>
> I'm sure you all know of wayfinder's eventual demise by now, I must 
> remember
> that I'm a newcomer here after all.  My question to myself, really, was 
> how
> to replicate this station thing with Loadstone, before my next trip (which
> is on Saturday).
>
> Well, I had a quick look at the point share exchange - gave it my lat and
> long, and there were quite a few results.  Garages, service stations, 
> shops
> and fast food joints for the most part.  The odd train station, but not 
> the
> ones I was travelling to.  Of course if I'd been there already I could add
> them, but first I needed to get there, which is the whole point.
>
> I had a brief look at Open Street map, but without spending more time, I
> couldn't figure a way to find and add more than one station at once.  They
> aren't like bus stops, where you can work on a local radius, because the
> whole idea is you're going from one place to another, those 2 being
> potentially quite a distance apart.
>
> My solution  was to zip through all (or most, at least) of the stations on
> the national rail site, and get the latitude and longitude for each.  Once 
> I
> had those, I was able to simply run them through the POI converter to
> generate the database file.   A quick bluetooth and database import later,
> and I can explore them.
>
> I don't know how much interest this will be to anybody, because there are
> several issues.  There are about 2,400 stations in the database: I worked 
> on
> the assumption that I may never know where I am travelling next.  The
> national rail webssite lets you see calling points for your journey, my 
> plan
> was to checkpoint each of the stations   before I depart, thus cutting out
> the ones I don't want.
>
> For example, I am travelling from Leominster (my local) to WolverHampton 
> on
> Saturday, and to get there    I have to change trains at Shrewsbury.  My
> plan is to checkpoint all the calling stations between Leominster and
> Wolverhampton, and  5 minutes whilst checking the times on the web tells 
> me
> the Calling points between Leominster and Shrewsbury are Ludlow, Craven 
> Arms
> and  Church Stretton, then the Calling points between Shrewsbury and
> Wolverhampton are Wellington,  Telford Central and Cosford.  I could 
> simply
> isolate my target station each trip, but because I am using an internal 
> gps
> and it's my first time with this access method, I'd prefer to know where I
> am, as well as where I'm going.
>
> Many of my associates report that most if not all the trains they use
> announce the stops, so I can only assume that some of my more national
> journeys will be easier.  Still, knowing where you are is a great 
> confidence
> boost, and if there's interest, I shall report back on the success of my
> journey next week.
>
> Sean.
>
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