Hello. I was abroad two weeks ago and wanted to check train times for after I landed back in the UK.
But..... I wasn't allowed to!!
NRE said that it wasn't available in the country I was in.
Why???
What possible reason could there be for not allowing people to look at train times when they are abroad???
NRE does have some country based blocks in effect. It depends on which country they 'think' the connection originated from (IP address geo-location).
A few months ago, NRE stopped working from my employer's office in central London (same error as you saw). After several attempts, we eventually got somebody from ATOC to admit that they had my work IP address listed as allocated to Romania. They did put in some kind of work-around, but I still often see the same error message, it takes a browser refresh (CTRL-F5) to fix it.
The reasons for the block could be many. It could include sources of exploit (hack) or denial-of-service attempts. Cynically, they may not want potential visitors to see all the delays and disruption
The running of NRE will be outsourced to some external IT company, so it will likely be them making the decisions/mistakes.
We could still access the Live Departure Boards through a TOC's own site however (e.g. Southern).
Hope this helps, although an industry insider may be able to give a more accurate response.
