After all my previous whining about the horrid online Web pages for getting access to Caltrain's schedule, I've now found a way of quickly accessing the schedule that I like (and no, it's not offered by Caltrain or transit511). Apparently someone on orkut is hosting an AIM chatbot called 'caltrainbot' that responds to simple requests. It's faster than the transit511 site, and it lets me get arbitrary station-to-station schedules based on the current time much faster. It's also a lot easier to access using my cellphone.

Here's a chat log:

me: next menlo park to mountain view
caltrainbot: Next train leaves menlo park at 4:04p and arrives mountain view at 4:18p
me: help
caltrainbot: Actions:
next (station) to (station): show the next train from station to station
remaining (station) to (station): show today's remaining trains from station to station
all (station) to (station): show all trains from station to station stations: show 'official' station names
fortune: display your fortune
about: show info about this bot
help: this message
me: remaining menlo park to mountain view
caltrainbot: Remaining trains from menlo park to mountain view:
Leaves 4:04p, arrives 4:18p
Leaves 4:34p, arrives 4:48p
Leaves 4:57p, arrives 5:11p
Leaves 5:18p, arrives 5:31p
Leaves 5:43p, arrives 5:57p
Leaves 5:55p, arrives 6:08p
Leaves 6:09p, arrives 6:23p
Leaves 6:41p, arrives 6:54p
Leaves 7:04p, arrives 7:18p
Leaves 7:35p, arrives 7:49p
Leaves 8:04p, arrives 8:18p
Leaves 8:34p, arrives 8:48p
Leaves 9:04p, arrives 9:18p
Leaves 10:04p, arrives 10:18p
Leaves 11:04p, arrives 11:18p

(via John R Chang: Blog: caltrainbot)