This week's journey along the broken rails of British rail websites starts with Railtrack, the company all the others want to blame for this winter's chaos.

Railtrack
Saying sorry for the current inconvenience, according to Railtrack, just isn't enough. Hard to disagree with that one. The good news is that the re-railing programme is now one-third complete, and Railtrack has posted a detailed FAQ page which explains exactly what "gauge corner cracking" is and why speed restrictions were introduced as a result. Indeed, so thorough is the coverage here that you find out exactly what the restrictions are on every stretch of British track - although some of the figures have a question mark next to them. Happily, the entire timetable is online at 212.87.65.227/bin/query.exe/en. For details of the emergency timetable, however, we must move on to...

National Rail
A summary of each company's changes can be found in the "today's train running information" section. In better times, the train company promotions section is worth a visit - it lists all the special offers each company is running. These include offers such as WAGN's Mum2B special, under which pregnant season ticket holders are entitled to an upgrade to first class if there are no seats in standard carriages. However, as National Rail points out, "this site does not sell tickets, but provides links to sites that can sell tickets". Such as...

The Trainline.com
This is by no means the only online source of tickets. GNER and other companies are happy to sell them on their own sites. But the great advantage of the trainline.com is that it allows you to compare prices before buying, and thus track down the cheapest time to travel - which is not to say that companies may not offer their own exclusive deals. Next stop . . .

GNER
More emergency timetables and special offers.

Connex Download a speed restrictions map for your journey and claim compensation for the disruption.

First Great Western
Have just launched traindirect.com, which offers "exclusive savings" on some tickets. Not to be confused with thetrainline.com.

Anglia Railways
Anglia would like to be able to offer online booking, too, but unfortunately the company has been trying to upload its winter timetable since September 24.