Bring the joy of train delays home with your very own departure board
- Reference: 1727433068
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/09/27/departure_boards/
- Source link:
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Train departure board (pic: UK Departure Boards) – click to enlarge
The units come from [2]UK Departure Boards and were sent to The Register after we gave Govia Thameslink Railway a gentle ribbing over some [3]issues afflicting the signage at Brighton Station .
The hardware consists of panels refreshed with data pulled from various APIs published by transport organizations. Along with trains, the boards can be set to show bus and tram arrivals, as well as tube and heritage railway information. This is collated and transmitted via Wi-Fi to be displayed in a way that is nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.
There are three panels on offer: a tiny desktop version with an OLED panel that will only display in one color (so choose carefully), a version with LEDs – the Classic – that measures about 60cm across, and a behemoth – the Pro – a full meter in width.
All are slightly different. The Desktop, while only being able to show one color, features a clock and internal speaker. The Classic does not have the same clock but will show three lines of text in different colors and also has an internal speaker. The Pro is a scaled-up version of the Classic but lacks an internal speaker (although UK Departure Boards assured us that an updated version was on the way).
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And you'll need that speaker if you want to hear the dulcet tones of Elinor Hamilton or Matthew Streeton telling you when the trains or tubes are due to arrive or apologizing when the inevitable delays occur.
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Setting up the boards is simple. The devices need to be connected to Wi-Fi and a power source; there are no batteries here. After configuration via an account with UK Departure Boards, they will show departures based on the user's selection.
On time? Surely not (pic: UK Departure Boards)
The Classic board has a smooth acrylic panel on top of the LEDs, which is a bit reflective (as you can see in the image), while the Pro does not. UK Departure Boards told us that future versions of the Pro board would also come with a panel to protect the LEDs and add to the whole OEM-network-rail vibe, but were considering offering a version without for users concerned about glare.
Both Desktop and Classic will run on a micro USB connection, while the larger Pro needs its own power supply, although an extension cable is included. None of the units are suitable for outdoor use.
[7]Public Wi-Fi operator investigating cyberattack at UK's busiest train stations
[8]Domo arigato, Mr Roboto: Japan's bullet trains to ditch drivers
[9]The amber glow of bork illuminates Brighton Station
[10]San Francisco's light rail to upgrade from floppy disks
The boards themselves run from an AWS service. UK Departure Boards collates the various UK transport APIs out there (freight services are due to go into testing shortly) and sends what the user has chosen to see (in our case, trains from our local station) as a JSON response in response to polling from the board.
The basic service is free once you've bought the board. There are premium options with more settings and services, and you'll need a premium service if you decide to purchase the voice packs for Hamilton or Streeton.
As with any service that depends on a cloud, we had to ask what would happen if UK Departure Boards were to disappear. Would purchasers end up with a dumb board forever trying to contact the mothership?
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A spokesperson said: "We don't plan on going anywhere but if we were to close shop we would most likely just move all the server processing scripts onto the boards themselves. And as long as there are no API changes they should continue to run just fine. Users at that point could play around with the system if they wanted it.
"One of the main reasons it lives on our server and not the board at the moment is to protect our IP. An awful lot of work has gone into all the feed interactions, board processing scripts, and database data, and it's something we certainly would not want anyone getting hold of."
The boards are not cheap, starting at £184.99 ($248) for the desktop version and going to £384.99 ($515) for the Pro. [12]You could also roll your own – most of the APIs are publicly available with no charge, although Transport for London's data was offline at the time of writing due to a " [13]cyber incident ."
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But if you don't have the time, inclination, or skills to build one yourself, the boards are undoubtedly neat, easy to set up, and surprisingly appealing. This writer's partner, who has less than zero interest in transport infrastructure, declared them "the coolest thing ever."
And you know what? They really are. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/09/26/boards2.jpg
[2] https://ukdepartureboards.co.uk/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/04/bork/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZvbWrvIJtK6Z1C2LyfnQHwAAAYU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZvbWrvIJtK6Z1C2LyfnQHwAAAYU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZvbWrvIJtK6Z1C2LyfnQHwAAAYU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/26/public_wifi_operator_investigating_cyberattack/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/12/japan_automated_bullet_train/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/04/bork/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/san_francisco_muni_floppy_disks/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZvbWrvIJtK6Z1C2LyfnQHwAAAYU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/real-time-train-station-arrival-board/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/03/tfl_cyberattack/
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZvbWrvIJtK6Z1C2LyfnQHwAAAYU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Cool.
The last one is what every Nana said in the 70s for ever.
Re: Cool.
Mine used to ask "are you not stopping?" if we kept our coats on.
icon because it fits
Re: Cool.
Most annoying of all is "remember to take your stuff when you leave the train".
At least Avanti put an end to BeardieTrain's "we are arriving into $station" stupid announcements. Not that either train company is much good at arriving at a station.
Re: Cool.
I don't think I've ever been to a station where at least 'something' didn't look right.
Re: Cool.
I'm waiting for "Hold your Mummy's hand on the platform."
Let's hack this, in the hobby sense
Almost twenty years ago I thought about building my own single-color board and writing scripts to pull/scroll news headlines -- like watching the cable news bottom-ticker without the rest of the screen and the idiocy (and audio) therein. I could glance at it periodically during the day, or not.
But a professional-looking panel like this blows away my home-brew design entirely. I could make the middle-size fit with my WFH setup (though I wouldn't appreciate the glare-cover reflecting from the window behind me). With that much real estate, I could see the entire headline at once (scroll in, pause, scroll out), and use multiple colors for various bits: news, weather, sports. Flashing bits of contrasting color and sound FX for breaking news, weather alerts, and live score updates.
This company needs to broaden their offerings; surely others have the money I don't for such a device. Same display, just different software.
Re: Let's hack this, in the hobby sense
You can get nice looking LED panels like that, from the usual Chinese suppliers for very reasonable prices or just simulate them on a TV or wide monitor (suitable fonts are easily available).
Where there is an api, it is easy to grab and display the information. For these rail apis, I have done a widget version but the number of api calls for free is limited.
Delayed
This is great. Bringing train anxiety to your living room...
"a full meter in width."
If it's straight it's a metre, if it's a meter it's round.
It's a train meter
Shurely you mean a Train-O-Meter
The Little Green Dragon pub in Winchmore HIll has had something similar to this inside for a few years. You can see it in these photos photo https://maps.app.goo.gl/M9CkivkQCLhaDGgn6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/jkAs9YYijeonz7jD9
It's updated live with the local buses which run in both directions outside.
Also happens to be a great pub if you're in the area.
a very realistic product
AFAICT there's no signage for the replacement bus service. Just like in real life.
FWIW on this side of the Atlantic trains get cancelled , not canceled.
Re: a very realistic product
FWIW on this side of the Atlantic trains get cancelled, not canceled.
Spent three years as a young'un in Australia. Money was L/s/d and spelling had extra letters. Everything else was different as well. Unfortunately, I was an impressionable youngster, so some of this "stuck" in my neurons, which is why US m/d/y dates sometimes become d/m/y, and I always have to stop and think before writing.
Went back for a visit this year and discovered it takes about 2 weeks to acclimate to traffic (and people) coming towards you on the right instead of on the left, and somewhat longer to re-acclimate. I have been back in the US now for almost 8 months, and still look twice at some signs, wondering why there's no "u"
Re: a very realistic product
Acclimate ? I think you mean Acclimatise.
Re: a very realistic product
They appear on RealTimeTrains as departing from platform “bus”.
Re: a very realistic product
That site is really nice but I pissed off Greater Anglia recently by demanding some refund for a train that was 15 1/4 minutes late into Liverpool St. They nixed the refund swearing blind the delay was only 14 minutes. They did eventually cough up when I pursued it though. That makes me wonder about the accuracy of realtimetrains vis-a-vis the 'official' database.
The other excellent nerdy sites are traksy.uk and signalmaps.co.uk. The latter even shows points settings as well as signals. Try Ely for a complex junction with reversing trains etc. (e.g. Liverpool to Norwich).
Just like waiting for a train.
For the true geek.
https://tiger.worldline.global/home
Re: Just like waiting for a train.
@Hugo Rune
Though, unfortunately, quite a few stations are not on their information list (but some nice options for the stations it did have data for)
I rolled something in a similar vein but less geek cool for our kitchen from a spare Pi Zero and monitor and this really handy little service: https://digital-signage.live-departures.info/evocis/
TfW
If you are interested in stations in Wales the speaker is essential if you want all announcements in Both English and Welsh along with a list all stations that the train will stop at.
Re: TfW
Especially if the train stops at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
Hint
This is what I want for Christmas (please).
Cool.
These really are the coolest thing ever, and if I had a suitable den with pool table it would be near the top of the list.
As for the one with the speaker, not so much. I find being told every 15 minutes "If you see something that doesn't look right.... see it, say it, sorted" a teensy tiny bit annoying, as my brain is constantly telling me "Well that guy is wearing purple socks and blue trousers, that really doesn't look right, should I call them?".
Even worse "It's a bit rainy, careful you don't slip".
Even worse still, "There's a bit of hot weather you might want to think about drinking water".
I'm still waiting for "If you don't eat food for a few weeks you might starve to death" or "Don't stab yourself in the eye with a fork" or perhaps "Take off your coat when you go indoors or you won't feel the benefit". The last one is what every Nana said in the 70s, which I think they must have all learned together in Nana training school.