National Rail, the UK's Association of Train Operating Companies, has released an official "National Rail Enquiries" app for iOS and Android which allows passengers to get real-time information on train departures and arrivals. For the past few years, the sector has been served by a number of unofficial apps, including the award-winning UK Train Times app from Agant, which was recently forced to change its icon by National Rail. Unlike the £4.99 UK Train Times app (which was never released for Android), National Rail's effort is available for free as an ad-supported download, with an ad-free version going head-to-head with Agant's app at £4.99.

As well as offering the usual journey planning, station search, and live departure boards, National Rail Enquiries includes notifications to alert you of delays to your planned journey, as well as offline access to departure boards and journey planning (provided the data has already been cached). There's also a handy alert system which you can use to set reminders, for example, thirty minutes before your journey is set to begin, or five minutes before you reach your station on a late-night journey home. The app looks and functions almost identically on both Android and iOS, with notifications being displayed in the same manner on both. National Rail Enquiries is available now from the App Store and Google Play.