Mobile Gen
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For members that don't have mobile email, scot-rail.co.uk offers a mobile "gen" service. This allows users to send and receive gen in the form of a standard text message on their mobile phone.
To use the service, you must first register your mobile phone number in your User Info page. After submitting your phone number, you will be sent a text message with a validation code - this is so that we can confirm that the mobile phone is your own. This then has to be entered into your User Info.
To send a message, simply send a standard text message 07624 80 25 49. For scot-rail to process your message, you must start it with one of the following message tags. If you don't, the system won't know what to do with it! Note: If you have not already registered your number, your message will be ignored.
Message tags:
Your message should look something like this:
test this is a test message to make sure the system works
or:
gen 37401 on 6A30 passed Blackford on time
Notes:
scot-rail.co.uk is setup so that it can send the first 160 characters of each email from gen@scot-rail.co.uk to your mobile phone. To receive messages, you must first buy message credits. Message credits can be purchased in blocks of 70 for £5.00.
Once your message credits have been added to your account, you can activate outgoing mobile-gen. This can be done in one of two ways.
You can also filter messages so that you only receive mobile gen that contains content that you are interested in. You can add filter terms from your USer Info page and to turn on filtering, either do so from the same page or send the word filter to 07624 80 25 49.
Notes:
Setup
To use the service, you must first register your mobile phone number in your User Info page. After submitting your phone number, you will be sent a text message with a validation code - this is so that we can confirm that the mobile phone is your own. This then has to be entered into your User Info.
Sending messages
To send a message, simply send a standard text message 07624 80 25 49. For scot-rail to process your message, you must start it with one of the following message tags. If you don't, the system won't know what to do with it! Note: If you have not already registered your number, your message will be ignored.
Message tags:
- test: this will allow you to test that everything is setup correctly. When you send a message starting with this tag, you should get an email to your registered email address which will confirm that it has worked.
- gen: this will allow you to send a message to gen@scot-rail.co.uk.
Your message should look something like this:
test this is a test message to make sure the system works
or:
gen 37401 on 6A30 passed Blackford on time
Notes:
- Your message must not be longer than 160 characters (the standard length for a text message), otherwise it won't all get received
- The number for scot-rail.co.uk is based in the Isle of Man - most networks charge the same for sending text messages to this number as they would for any other UK network, but you might want to check your call plan.
Receiving messages
scot-rail.co.uk is setup so that it can send the first 160 characters of each email from gen@scot-rail.co.uk to your mobile phone. To receive messages, you must first buy message credits. Message credits can be purchased in blocks of 70 for £5.00.
Once your message credits have been added to your account, you can activate outgoing mobile-gen. This can be done in one of two ways.
- From your User Info page (where you will also see a note of your balance); or
- By sending a text message to 07624 80 25 49. If you send a message simply with the word start, your mobile-gen will be turned on. You will receive a confirmation email which details your current balance. If you send a message with the word stop, your mobile-gen will be turned off. This action is silent and you will not receive confirmation.
You can also filter messages so that you only receive mobile gen that contains content that you are interested in. You can add filter terms from your USer Info page and to turn on filtering, either do so from the same page or send the word filter to 07624 80 25 49.
Notes:
- The email to sms gateway will only forward the first 160 characters of any email
- The gateway also removes quoted text, where the line starts with ">".
- You only get the message body; not the subject line or sender.
- If you send gen to scot-rail.co.uk and your mobile gen account is turned on, you will receive the gen back as an sms.