Poor guy's server is receiving the HN 'hug-o-death'.
The Man in Seat Sixty-One
51–60 of 124 posts
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#52I wonder how/where the author gets connection time information. Each country, and sometimes each public transport company, seems to have their own system, sometimes hard to access digitally. I've been building a mobile app for quick and convenient public transport departure lookup in Switzerland[0], which is doable because there's a free, well-documented public API[1]. Since it's fairly popular, I thought about exten…
The European schedules are published centrally, and you can search them on many websites; the one of the German railways is generally seen as the best. Live data is more of a mess, but you don't need that for a site like this.
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's trending the other way. We're left depending on the few people who have the time/energy/money to produce labors of love and charities like this. Beyond that, we're left with centralized superplatforms.
I have the same feeling. But, my guess it that it’s not that those sites don’t exist. It’s more about finding these gems. Content-free sales pages have been search engine optimized the last years. So the SERPs are full of commercial shit. We need better exploration possibilities. That’s one of the reasons I love HN.
It doesn't index the whole internet, but google scholar often reminds me of how the internet felt a decade and a half ago...
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#54He's not kidding about the joy of traveling by rail. The train from London to Edinburgh was by far the most pleasant travel experience I've had. The low stress boarding, the spacious, comfortable seats, and lack of turbulence made for a relaxing and peaceful trip. It's a shame the options for traveling by rain in the US are so limited.
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#55Amazing resource. And such a depth of info... we wanted to go from London to Vienna by train, and there is a page on that specifically, and three different options for the journey depending on whether you want a sleeper or want to go through Switzerland or want to go the fastest route. And then specific instructions for booking each trip on the various country's railway websites, and connection info for the train stations. Ridiculous.
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#56This guy posts some really unique information -- I used his site back in 2012 when I first visited Myanmar after the end of sanctions. His site had a full train timetable, cabin descriptions and a guide for buying tickets (accurate, none the less) when there was basically zero other information out there. Took the train from Yangon to Mandalay, and it was definitely an experience! Also, more recently, the Norther Exp…
I like that New Zeland trains feature in the same category as ones in Myanmar. Over here in New Zealand we have gone to quite a lot of effort to make a system this bad.
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's trending the other way. We're left depending on the few people who have the time/energy/money to produce labors of love and charities like this. Beyond that, we're left with centralized superplatforms.
I have the same feeling. But, my guess it that it’s not that those sites don’t exist. It’s more about finding these gems. Content-free sales pages have been search engine optimized the last years. So the SERPs are full of commercial shit. We need better exploration possibilities. That’s one of the reasons I love HN.
To be fair, based on my searches, "Get from x to y by train"-type searches tend to feature this site on the first page of results -- that's how I found it originally. So something in the Google algorithm clearly values this type of content-rich, no-frills site.
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have the same feeling. But, my guess it that it’s not that those sites don’t exist. It’s more about finding these gems. Content-free sales pages have been search engine optimized the last years. So the SERPs are full of commercial shit. We need better exploration possibilities. That’s one of the reasons I love HN.
To be fair, based on my searches, "Get from x to y by train"-type searches tend to feature this site on the first page of results -- that's how I found it originally. So something in the Google algorithm clearly values this type of content-rich, no-frills site.
You’re right, it’s not completely useless yet
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#59I wonder how/where the author gets connection time information. Each country, and sometimes each public transport company, seems to have their own system, sometimes hard to access digitally. I've been building a mobile app for quick and convenient public transport departure lookup in Switzerland[0], which is doable because there's a free, well-documented public API[1]. Since it's fairly popular, I thought about exten…
I'm sure he also benefits a lot from feedback. Someone goes to book a route he suggests, and the connection now doesn't work, they are going to tell him, and he can update his page on it.
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#60I wonder how/where the author gets connection time information. Each country, and sometimes each public transport company, seems to have their own system, sometimes hard to access digitally. I've been building a mobile app for quick and convenient public transport departure lookup in Switzerland[0], which is doable because there's a free, well-documented public API[1]. Since it's fairly popular, I thought about exten…
Given that he actually travels the routes in question, I imagine he gets the information in the same way he books his tickets - online if its there, in the station if its not.