If you're a gambler, live in a suburb and need to commute by train, just blindly follow whatever train schedule is available without leaving some wiggle room. Murphy's Law will come into effect directly.
At the beginning of every month using my cell phone camera I would take a photo of the new train schedules leaving in both directions from my local station then print a hard copy in order to post it on my kitchen wall but ink cartridges for my old Brother printer aren't cheap and between Mrs. T and I we are pretty hard on office supplies. So not finding any domestic train schedule phone Apps which are available for other forms of transportation (Stops Riga is an example) and as a measure of economy I went directly to the Train website thinking that they would keep that schedule current and then saved the screenshot to my photo-editor where I cleaned the image up a bit and sent it my Docs to Go Desktop and synced my phone. That solved my printer supplies problem but it still doesn't explain the odd missing train! What usually works fairly well if your Russian or Latvian language skills are up to the task is calling information at 1188 who will then re-direct your call if necessary and you can confirm a particular trains departure/arrival time. But it costs between 50 centimes and 1 lvl per call and I wonder what schedule they are using! The same one I have? And it still doesn't help you if there is no train.
It all sounds very minor since most residents use very specific trains at the same time every day as they are doing something repetitive like going to work if you are so lucky as to have a job. But if one's schedule is not set in stone but still involves being punctual a missed train can mean a missed trolly or bus connection in Riga and a missed appointment. And unless you are a tourist this is generally a bad deal.
Granted there are many reasons for a schedule to get messed up. People do fall on the tracks occasionally, by accident or design. And there is a definite increase in maintenance or freight traffic which has to be accommodated on a line which changes from a double to single line at various points. I can't imagine how a slow freighter from Ventspils complicates things.
But the bottom line is that in the summer with increased traffic you are just bound to have a train do the Twi-Light Zone on you.
It's still cheaper than owning and maintaining a vehicle tho.
At the beginning of every month using my cell phone camera I would take a photo of the new train schedules leaving in both directions from my local station then print a hard copy in order to post it on my kitchen wall but ink cartridges for my old Brother printer aren't cheap and between Mrs. T and I we are pretty hard on office supplies. So not finding any domestic train schedule phone Apps which are available for other forms of transportation (Stops Riga is an example) and as a measure of economy I went directly to the Train website thinking that they would keep that schedule current and then saved the screenshot to my photo-editor where I cleaned the image up a bit and sent it my Docs to Go Desktop and synced my phone. That solved my printer supplies problem but it still doesn't explain the odd missing train! What usually works fairly well if your Russian or Latvian language skills are up to the task is calling information at 1188 who will then re-direct your call if necessary and you can confirm a particular trains departure/arrival time. But it costs between 50 centimes and 1 lvl per call and I wonder what schedule they are using! The same one I have? And it still doesn't help you if there is no train.
It all sounds very minor since most residents use very specific trains at the same time every day as they are doing something repetitive like going to work if you are so lucky as to have a job. But if one's schedule is not set in stone but still involves being punctual a missed train can mean a missed trolly or bus connection in Riga and a missed appointment. And unless you are a tourist this is generally a bad deal.
Granted there are many reasons for a schedule to get messed up. People do fall on the tracks occasionally, by accident or design. And there is a definite increase in maintenance or freight traffic which has to be accommodated on a line which changes from a double to single line at various points. I can't imagine how a slow freighter from Ventspils complicates things.
But the bottom line is that in the summer with increased traffic you are just bound to have a train do the Twi-Light Zone on you.
It's still cheaper than owning and maintaining a vehicle tho.
The Grim Reaper forgot his scythe.
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