Route Timetable PDFs returning? (2021-2022)

[RebelRider]

Throughout the 90s and early 2000s, there was a volunteer effort that put Amtrak's timetables online. It ended about 15 years ago. They just used a simple formatted text version that was very lightweight and loaded quickly. The last copy released is still available here.

 

[jebr]

Greyhound is slowly but surely going bankrupt. Frankly, I'm quite sure that concealing the timetables and hiding the map is part of why, though at least they can be found if you know who to ask.

At the same time, there's a fair amount of bus companies that run without published timetables (at least without a point-to-point search.) From personal experience, both Megabus and Jefferson Lines do not publish timetables, though both do have route maps (and Jefferson Lines also shows "prime connection points" on that map, so someone could use the online booking system to piece together routes fairly easily.

Having taken Greyhound a few times, I think "not having timetables easily publicly accessible" is quite far down on the list of things that's causing them to fail. Their much larger issues are a poor reputation, worn-out buses, terrible stations, and poor reliability. I've basically sworn off Greyhound because my last two trips on them both had broken and worn seats, were quite late, and the stations are almost universally quite unkept.

 

[Bob Dylan]

At the same time, there's a fair amount of bus companies that run without published timetables (at least without a point-to-point search.) From personal experience, both Megabus and Jefferson Lines do not publish timetables, though both do have route maps (and Jefferson Lines also shows "prime connection points" on that map, so someone could use the online booking system to piece together routes fairly easily.

Having taken Greyhound a few times, I think "not having timetables easily publicly accessible" is quite far down on the list of things that's causing them to fail. Their much larger issues are a poor reputation, worn-out buses, terrible stations, and poor reliability. I've basically sworn off Greyhound because my last two trips on them both had broken and worn seats, were quite late, and the stations are almost universally quite unkept.

Greyhound will soon just be a memory as it fades away to Nothing.

 

[Palmland]

Greyhound will soon just be a memory as it fades away to Nothing.

Perhaps Amtrak should reach out to Greyhound and make a deal to have them as partners and eligible for some of the funding Amtrak will receive.

In return Greyhound would have all their routes feed into Amtrak’s LD network and eliminate their routes that duplicate Amtrak routes, except perhaps high density areas like NEC. Would complement Amtrak service rather compete with it.

 

[WWW]

Shoulda coulda woulda grabbed more than the one I did when these were available

"THE AMTRAK *BIBLE* SYSTEM TIMETABLE"
140 pages of color graphics sectioned into areas of the country

Train numbers times stations pretty staying the same - minor tweaks here and there -
Best part is not having to depend on that internet thingy to be up and running to display a timetable.
Could do route planning the old fashion way (if only the darn trains would run on time) !

 

[willem]

[...] won't have a chance to practice to perfect as I retire TODAY (After 30 years with Big Blue) Off training next week.

Congratulations on retirement. Enjoy! But how does one retire today and be off training next week?

 

[Way2Kewl]

Giving retirement notice several months ago was easy.
Finding a decent bucket price on Amtrak a bit more effort.

 

[joelkfla]

Congratulations on retirement. Enjoy! But how does one retire today and be off training next week?

I had the same reaction, but upon further reflection, I suspect "training" meant riding trains, not learning how to do a job.

 

[Way2Kewl]

I had the same reaction, but upon further reflection, I suspect "training" meant riding trains, not learning how to do a job.

well duh!
Perhaps "railing" would have been less ambiguous ... Didn't see it until joelkfla pointed it out.

So happy to expect Steak!

 

[Willbridge]

Greyhound is slowly but surely going bankrupt. Frankly, I'm quite sure that concealing the timetables and hiding the map is part of why, though at least they can be found if you know who to ask.

Actually they were headed in that direction long before they stopped printing paper schedules.

 

[neroden]

At the same time, there's a fair amount of bus companies that run without published timetables (at least without a point-to-point search.)

I don't think any intercity bus company in the US is doing well.

From personal experience, both Megabus and Jefferson Lines do not publish timetables, though both do have route maps (and Jefferson Lines also shows "prime connection points" on that map, so someone could use the online booking system to piece together routes fairly easily.

Yeah, Jefferson Lines has extensive and high-quality route maps, which are front and center on their website, which show every station and specify which ones are the transfer points, which makes it relatively easy to assemble a complete timetable from the website.

Megabus has a list of point-to-point routes which they officially offer. They may run other routes, but those other routes effectively don't exist; nobody knows that they exist and nobody takes them. Top bus routes and customer favorites | megabus

Greyhound has that well-hidden employees website, only.

Adirondack Trailways doesn't even have that, with the result that it's impossible to figure out what routes they run. That is definitely not a smart business move, and many people, including me, have confirmed for years that there is no bus from Ithaca to Syracuse (there actually is, but with no evidence of its existence on the web, it might as well not exist).

But, I mean, yeah, if you want to drive your customers into cars, then not publishing a timetable is definitely the way to do it. It's highly effective. Most of the intercity bus companies are pushing people into cars very effectively; if Amtrak management is also interested in making sure people drive, they're going about it the right way.

 

[Siegmund]

I was rather surprised to see that Salt Lake Express - which started out running buses and vans between southeast Idaho and Salt Lake City - has a) expanded so much since I last checked, and b) quit displaying a traditional style timetable sometime in the past two years or so. (Last time I had a reason to go to their website was a previous thread on this forum about why Boise-SLC or Idaho Falls-SLC Amtrak service was not going to succeed.)

Apparently it has not hurt them... but I sure wish they still had a timetable card, rather than making me rely on the trip-finder web tool. In that respect I guess they are right on par with Amtrak (well, at least Amtrak still has individual route timetable cards if you dig deep enough.)

 

[jis]

I thought I'd give it a shot to see how much time it takes to spin out a usable PDF timetable incorporating the times from the Amtrak.com Schedule tab. Here is the Atlantic Coast Service Timetable in all its glory, including all Silver Service Thurways (but not North Carolina ones). The train times for the four trains are upto date. The connecting trains from Boston are not fully verified, and the Thruway times are half verified, and they have not generally changed from a year back either. Have fun. It took me a day or so (6 hours).

 

[Brian Battuello]

Very nice! Are there any important notes missing?

 

[jis]

Very nice! Are there any important notes missing?

Of I ignored all the notes for now. There potentially numerous as usual about accommodation and station facilities etc. I was just focusing on the times. Notes can always bee added. An Amtrak Timetable specific Icon Library would possibly need to be put together for common use. I am also not sure that they would be easy to maintain currency of, given how quickly some of those things change these days. It will be hard enough keeping the times upto date.

The graphics is also rough at the edges, which can be improved considerably with relatively little effort.

In integrating the Thruway timetable, even I discovered some itineraries that I was not aware of as possibilities. The intra-Florida service with the Thruways is actually remarkably rich.

 

[Brian Battuello]

Just notes about changes in schedules on certain days. Don't care if dogs are allowed or whatever.

 

[jis]

Just notes about changes in schedules on certain days. Don't care if dogs are allowed or whatever.

Someone will have to track schedule changes announced on the fly by Amtrak. Apparently even Amtrak seems to be unable to do that consistently as they do unfortunately change more dynamically than most are willing to admit. I have a little bit of time to get the general schedule, but I don't care to be Amtrak's Time Table Department. Sorry

Coming to think of it, maybe that is why they don't want to do PDF timetables The only way to do that and keep it upto date, is by putting together a script in ones favorite scripting language to use the JSON (or other suitable available) interface to pick up relevant chunks of the timetable database and then use it to populate the template for a timetable like this example. Then this script can either be event triggered or run every so often on a regular schedule. I have forsworn doing that sort of stuff in retirement after 40 years of it. So some younger whippersnapper with appropriate experience will have to take that on, until perhaps I am sufficiently bored with life to get back to that.

My interest is mostly in understanding what presentation makes it more ready to hand, and PDF is not necessarily the best in general my opinion,though it may have a place within a broader scheme of things. But I guess I would be crucified to say so here.

It is really hard to do a timetable that serves all possible purposes for all possible users. As @neroden had pointed out, the most useful thing about a PDF/printable timetable is that it gives a particular view that helps in understanding what routes are possible. To achieve these absolutely precise times are not necessary but the general interlinkages is what matter with a sense of possible connections. Armed with that one can then go and verify the exact times on the specific dates of interest. To aid this, at most non-daily services need to be identified, but one can do without occasional variations in times. Those will get sorted out when verifying a potential itinerary. My interest is in understanding how to present the data for this purpose and so absolute precision in presented times on a daily basis is not part of that agenda.

Because of the dynamic nature of actual schedules these days, a printed time table will never be the last authoritative source of information for finalizing plans. Even the printed employee timetables are routinely over-ridden by date and time window specific orders.

 

[joelkfla]

Coming to think of it, maybe that is why they don't want to do PDF timetables The only way to do that and keep it upto date, is by putting together a script in ones favorite scripting language to use the JSON (or other suitable available) interface to pick up relevant chunks of the timetable database and then use it to populate the template for a timetable like this example. Then this script can either be event triggered or run every so often on a regular schedule.

It is a possibility that that's what they meant when they said "automated timetables" would be available in September. They've said "traditional PDF timetables" are being abandoned, which doesn't explicitly rule out some form of automatically generated printable timetable, or even automatically generated PDF timetables.

But it also could have meant any number of other things.

 

[jis]

It is a possibility that that's what they meant when they said "automated timetables" would be available in September. They've said "traditional PDF timetables" are being abandoned, which doesn't explicitly rule out some form of automatically generated printable timetable, or even automatically generated PDF timetables.

I am most certainly hoping that that is the case, since it is very much within the realm of technical feasibility. Whatever happens will I am sure be presented through the "Schedule" tab on the web page.

 

[TheTuck]

PDF's can easily be created from Excel spreadsheets. When Amtrak needs to make a minor schedule adjustment to a single train or pair of trains, it could effect multiple timetable pages. IE changing the times of the Palmetto could affect the NEC, Virginia and Silver Service PDF pages. Couldn't a single Excel document house every single route schedule and be automatically corrolated so a single change would automatically update on the related sheets? I'm not very saavy with Excel but I'm sure I could figure it out.

 

[zephyr17]

There are "industrial strength" commercial applications that can render nicely formatted PDFs from a template and structured data (JSON, XML, database tables, even CSV). The template and process can be developed codelessly with these tools. There does not have to be a lot of IT involvement once the tools are set up aside from marshalling required data, the tools should be in the hands of graphic design folks.

I was part of a team that evaluated and selected such a tool for my former employer before I retired.

The solution is both straightforward and easy.

 

[jis]

PDF's can easily be created from Excel spreadsheets. When Amtrak needs to make a minor schedule adjustment to a single train or pair of trains, it could effect multiple timetable pages. IE changing the times of the Palmetto could affect the NEC, Virginia and Silver Service PDF pages. Couldn't a single Excel document house every single route schedule and be automatically corrolated so a single change would automatically update on the related sheets? I'm not very saavy with Excel but I'm sure I could figure it out.

The example that I posted is an Excel spreadsheet. It is not hard to do those, but to do by hand is tedious. Once the template is done, it ideally should be populated from the database by an appropriate script.

There are "industrial strength" commercial applications that can render nicely formatted PDFs from a template and structured data (JSON, XML, database tables, even CSV). The template and process can be developed codelessly with these tools.

I was part of a team that evaluated and selected such a tool for my former employer before I retired.

The solution is both straightforward and easy.

Which App did you use @zephyr17 ? If it does not cost a zillion dollars, and if I can figure out a clean of of scraping Amtrak notwithstanding their continuing attempts to thwart such effort, I might take a crack at it when I am otherwise bored, as I said earlier.

Meanwhile here is an enhanced "Atlantic Coast Service at a glance" that I built using the previous example that I posted earlier. It really needs to be split into two pages for the printed form. However on a Screen it is actually quite usable. There is an HTML version of it too which looks exactly the same, but distributing it is a pain because of multiple files involved.

 

[zephyr17]

It's been about 3 years ago and I don't remember the name, and no longer have access to the materials at my former employer. I remember the function points, though.

Like most software intended for commercial clients it was not cheap. It also did a lot more than render PDFs, it was a document management solution. A major appeal was the codeless nature of solution. It put control in directly in the hands of the graphics people, who were both more skilled in pleasing designs and less highly paid than developers.

 

[Way2Kewl]

Yes, A PDF template can be created dynamically retrieving field input using JSON or a RESTful API. They may need their Adobe I/O component for PDF Writer.

Adobe Developers — Automate Document Generation | Contract Generation | Adobe

Maintaining PDF brochures can be done with small project efforts if done correctly. I’ve drawn the conclusion that they have an underfunded IT department.

 

[zephyr17]

I’ve drawn the conclusion that they have an underfunded IT department.

And understaffed, with 25 current openings. With that many openings, it makes me think that they are not offering competitive salaries for the desired skillsets.

Also, you choose to view source on the Schedule page, you can see that the schedule information is already contained in JSON objects, so they are most of the way there as far as the data is concerned.