National Train Hunter (NTH)
Background
National Rail Enquires App
My experience
The National Rail Enquires Android app has been a great asset to me for a number of years. It provides a very basic and easy to use experience for the common use case (checking train ETA times). But since I started using the app in late 2013, it hasn’t really changed.
Changing trends
Google announced Material Design in 2014, which they implemented across Android and their respective apps. Other apps followed, but the National Rail app failed to follow the trend.
As I write this in late 2020, the app still looks the same as it did back when I first downloaded it on to my Nexus 4. Over the years, as with any mainstream app, it has seen a number of issues and bugs. Having dived into Android development, I can tell that the developers at National Rail have tried to support the oldest devices (probably back to Android 2.3!), but continuing to do this only detriments the experience of users using newer (much newer) devices.
Other apps
I have tried using other available apps out there which have a more modern, more material look and feel. After all, why should I try to reinvent the wheel?
Unfortunately, none have really delivered the functionality I look for the same way the NRE app does. So I decided to utilise my Software Engineering skills to solve this unique issue of mine.
Why build National Train Hunter?
The main purpose of NTH is to offer a simple and modern National Rail train journey app with a material look and feel.
The transport enthusiast in me also wants to develop a tool to track individual train coaches. Sadly, there is no feed available to retrieve this type of information from National Rail (not that I know of at least).
Early Stages
Some basic functionality has been created thus far as seen below.
Live Trains
The app can show ETA times between two stations, and related travel warnings.
Service Information
The app can also show ETA times for a particular train journey, as well as actual departure times.
