Station Arrival And Departure Boards

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by solicitr, Jun 19, 2021.

  1. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    In other words, these:

    [​IMG]

    IRL these boards, found in every main station, would list by time and platform all the arriving and departing trains for the next n time. In-game, though, they say unhelpfully "Please read the timetable."

    The thing is, I don't believe it would take anything more than a slightly different implementation of the existing platform PIS system to make these functional. It's exactly the same information, read from the same datafiles, just put into one common display. And this would be both a huge improvement in immersion, and a practical upgrade as well since if in foot mode one is trying to catch a particular train, one would like to be able to know when and what platform!
     
    Last edited: Jun 19, 2021
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  2. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    I know in the UK, especially in London (but I'm, sure the same is true for other major terminal cities) the platform is only shown on the board when the train is pulling into the platform, which is a safety measure to stop loads of people being on the platform when the things's moving and people are getting OFF

    The other thing is that the picture you've posted shows 12 displays, all of which would be populated whenever that tile is loaded, so even if you're not looking at it (ie you're driving a train about a quarter mile away) those screens would be checking and loading information, displaying it, scrolling it etc. So the "cost" of those screens is actually quite a lot.
    IRL you've have one computer feeding the info to the computer in each of those screens which then displays that until told otherwise. In game your machine is doing all of the work all of the time...
     
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  3. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    Yes. It would be a very good addition.
     
  4. synthetic.angel

    synthetic.angel Well-Known Member

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    I think that this is a fabulous idea, and would be a great addition, far far into the future..... after everything else that is currently a bit broken gets fixed, and after the core has been updated to improve the optimisation.

    NB: IIRC, one of the Cathcart streams showed the main destination board at Glasgow as a blank group of screens, and someone explained why they were particularly expensive to implement. I am not sure the "summary" arrivals/departure screen would be any less expensive.
     
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  5. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    Except that that is already being done on ~12 individual platform PIS screens. These would be, in effect, just repeaters.
     
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  6. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    If the format was the same, I agree, but it would depend on if the working out is being done once then pasted into display in two, three four locations, or if each board is worked out separately. I know DTG's "big station boards" don't scroll for instance, so they're not optimised as yet
     
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  7. driverwoods#1787

    driverwoods#1787 Well-Known Member

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    Excellent idea and this will come handy to Germany UK and United States routes thay terminate at major city stations. For the LIRR both destination boards and station announcements are used for departing Trains. Destination boards are color coded. Like Track 3 Port Jefferson Branch Train to Huntington stopping at Woodside Forest Hills Kew Gardens Jamaica New Hyde Park merillon Avenue Mineola Carle Place Westbury Hicksville. Reason for this is very simple is that Ronkonkoma Branch Trains stop Woodside Jamaica Mineola Hicksville then Farmingdale Bethpage.
    Video is by Honor kids preschool Long Island Railroad
     
  8. trainsimplayer

    trainsimplayer Well-Known Member

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    I believe (In the case of Glasgow Central) these were excluded because of the implementation side.
    At Glasgow Central the boards display all services Left > Right in order of departure, after a train leaves, they all slide along.
    Then there are the Subsequent Departures (out-with the so-many on the main board) and Low Levels.
    So as you can tell this would be quite complicated.
    Well firstly you can quickly rule out the Low Level Screens.
    Then all of the departures would have to be tapping into the timetable for information, and a timer set for when the platform should show up.

    Now considering how GCC is this would just be <Neilston>, Newton & Glasgow Central appearing on repeat, and would quite quickly feel dead.

    However, as stations with more services (London Victoria, BML) for example you would get all represented Southern Services and - potentially, if included - the Southeastern AIs that have been requested many times.

    So it would be a handle feature but I think it would take a good while to get to for DTG.
     
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  9. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    Perhaps the best station to start with would be Munchen, which (with all layers active) gets a pretty good assortment of ICE, IC, RE, RB and S-Bahn.
     
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  10. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    Not necessarily. The platform PIS already display "2nd train" and sometimes "3rd train" data, so, again, the station arrival board would just be a repeater
     
  11. trainsimplayer

    trainsimplayer Well-Known Member

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    Those are the horizontal PIS screens. I'm talking about the Vertical/Concourse ones - which thanks to the fact there are multiple - makes it different than normal.
     
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  12. kiyoko91

    kiyoko91 Well-Known Member

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    IMG_20210704_093631_027.jpg
    From Seventh Ave-53rd St in Midtown Manhattan.
     
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  13. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    THEY DID IT!

    The Voralberg platforms, at least in Austria, have a complete Abfahrt display! At last!
     
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  14. TSW Nathan

    TSW Nathan Well-Known Member

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    Glasgow Central 20230819_220736.jpg
     
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