With that in mind, we recently added a new feature to Loco2′s train ticket search that shows you results for stations close to the destination you searched for in addition to the location you specified. This means that even if there aren’t convenient trains running all the way through to your final destination, you can see other options that go nearby.

Here are a couple of examples to show how it works (note that currently this feature is only available for French stations):

Paris to Alençon

When you search for trains from Paris to Alençon (a small town North of Le Mans), we show you four results that go all the way to Alencon (which take around two and a half hours, with one change), but we also let you know that we’ve found trains to the nearby town of Surdon:

When you click to show the trains, you’ll see that the Surdon trains go direct from Paris, and with a quicker overall journey time:

You can see the distance between Surdon and Alençon by selecting the Surdon result, and clicking ‘expand map’:

Paris to Paulhaguet

Sometimes we aren’t able to offer any trains to your ultimate destination. In this example we can’t sell tickets to Paulhaguet (a town South-West of Lyon), but we can sell tickets to the nearby town of Arvant:

Once you’ve clicked to show the trains to Arvant, you can check how close it is to Paulhaguet in exactly the same way as in the first example:

The geographical data we are using is not perfect, so the station may not located exactly where the marker on the map is (the marker should at least be in the right town). We are always looking at ways to improve this data, and as relevant data is opened up, this is becoming easier.

And that’s it. We hope you find this new feature useful, and as always we’d love to hear your feedback about how we can keep improving.