Innovative solution to timepieces getting out of sync

At Reading railway station, in common with many other stations, there are three ways of telling the time: The old mechanical 7-segment digital clocks (good clicking noise), the newer CRT information displays, and the newest LED platform-specific information displays.

Exhibit A:

The LED displays have shitty type (the people who invented the dot-matrix LED displays clearly just wished lower-case letters away) and, although they helpfully show the next couple of trains and have a clock at the bottom, they are very hard to read in direct sunlight (i.e. peak travel times in the winter) and very hard to read from more than a few metres away, even for people with very good eyesight.

Exhibit B:

They also don't tell the same time as either the CRTs or the old clocks.

It's not much, but it's enough to really confuse you, or lull you into a false sense of train-catching security.

First Great Western have an innovative design solution to this problem. Sync the clocks from the same source? No. Spray paint over the displays of the old mechanical digital clocks.

Yes, I know they're the only ones you could actually read well enough to tell the time, but you've got to admire the striking simplicity of the solution.

• 13.1.2004, 22.51
• File under: Reading station, user experience ``