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Chicago HN'ers: I made an iPhone/Android version of Metra's train schedules
- Shamiq 17y agoThanks.
- tptacek 17y agoThanks!
- dschobel 17y agoExcellent. Thank you.
- lukesandberg 17y agoGreat Site, even looks good on my Blackberry Curve!
- kgermino 17y agoUmm either Metra has shut down the Southwest Service and Rock Island lines or there's something wrong with your script because neither of them are showing any trains from any of the stations or days that I checked. What works looks great though. Thanks.
- DougBarth 17y agoAwesome. This is so much better than Metra's own site. A nice addition would be cross reference their service updates for any delay information.
- wglb 17y agoMetra's site is much improved, but is a total pain on anything but a desktop.
- DougBarth 17y agoIt's visually improved, but functionally, it's not much better and in some ways, worse. Besides the lack of mobile support, looking at train schedules is not more difficult. My preferred stop is only in service on certain routes. Therefore, depending on the time, I may need to use a different station. Determining my options requires two tabs and mental comparing the departure times. A coworker who rides the express trains out of the city noted that there is no indication of which departures are express, leaving one to do the math to see if their ride will be 20 minutes or an hour.
- there 17y agoi will certainly be adding delay information soon. i just need to write something to poll metrarail.com periodically.
- sachinag 17y agoStellar. OT: How many of us Chicago HN'ers are here? We should do a meetup sometime.
- brandnewlow 17y agoI tried a few months back. Enjoyed a tasty 312 by myself at Hopleaf for my troubles. Perhaps someone with more clout needs to convene?
- sachinag 17y agoGoing all the way up to Hopleaf for a 312 that you can buy anywhere in the city is a big fail, Brad.
- brandnewlow 17y agoThat's where people wanted to meet up! It's ok. I brought my trusty WSJ with me to pass the hour in case anyone showed up. We should meet at Saluki.
- pasbesoin 17y agoHaven't been to the Hopleaf in a number of years, but seems like a nice choice. I'd be tempted, but things haven't been going so well recently. Maybe in a few months.
- antidaily 17y ago/raises hand
- wglb 17y agoCount me in.
- I_I 17y agoI'm down. Thursday evening, anyone?
- req2 17y agoI'm interested.
- brandnewlow 17y agoAwesome. Just this posted this to Windy Citizen. Vote it up: http://www.windycitizen.com/chicago/technology/2009/10/13/iphoneandroid-version-of-metras-train-schedules http://www.windycitizen.com/chicago/technology/2009/10/13/ip... Next time you or anyone else builds something cool and local, share it over there, please. On a related note, yesterday the WC hosted a discussion thread about Metra's new $3.9 M site. Our commenters sussed out that the shop that won the bidding process employs the son of a former Metra board member. http://www.windycitizen.com/chicago/business/2009/10/12/chicago-web-designer-american-eagle-says-politics-cost-them-metra-gig-me http://www.windycitizen.com/chicago/business/2009/10/12/chic...
- pasbesoin 17y agoI just cited your first link on Facebook (where I keep in touch with a number of Chicagoland friends). Doing so, I noticed that Facebook did not pick up a "Windy City" graphic suitable for use as a thumbnail. Maybe an opportunity for a branding optimization?
- brandnewlow 17y agoAwesome, thanks for the tip. Will look into that. And thanks for sharing the link. We're building the smartest, sharpest conversation about Chicago on the web over on the WC. Discussions like that are happening more and more.
- hikari17 17y agoNice... makes we want to spring for a smartphone just so I can see it in action!
- phatboyslim 17y agoAwesome!!! Just sent this link to quite a few people I know and posted to Facebook. Lots of people I know will be thankful you made this. Much appreciated.
- cubtastic71 17y agoThis rocks - was so upset at the new Metra site and its inablity to be used on any mobile phone platform! Thank you so much! So sad to see they spent 3.9m on a site that you really cant use unless your home on your computer.
- brandnewlow 17y agoRead link #2 in my comment up top for some insight into why Metra's new site sucks.
- durin42 17y agoThank you for saving me the trouble. Metra's new site is truly a disaster on mobile devices.
- wglb 17y agoWorks very nicely on my ancient blackberry. Thanks much. Later, will try it on my hp200lx.
- spanktheuser 17y agoNice work. I take the El myself, but passed this along to everyone at my company.
- truebosko 17y agoMind if I ask how you got the data? Was it just screen scraping of the Metra site or do they actually have an API?
- there 17y agoi extracted all of the station information by screen scraping the website, and then all of the per-station stop times and routes by writing some code to parse the pdf2html output from the tables in each of the pdf files.
- cpher 17y agoWorks great on my b-berry tour. I especially like the grayed-out stations when the train skips the stop--nice touch. On another note, a while back I started building an app for tracking the street cleaning schedule w/ respect to the location you parked your car (including SMS message reminders to move your car). Would any of you find use in that kind of app?