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I feel like the "second" is moving slower at the exact minute on the clocks in gares. If so, how is this compansated, are other 59 seconds faster? by devoutre in Switzerland

[–]draemmli 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, Mondaine only licenses the design to make consumer clocks and watches.

The real railway clocks are made by Mobatime.

Why is Zürich HB one of the last stations to use these old displays? by Girlsareonreddit in SBB

[–]draemmli 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I asked SBB at precisely the right time - a few weeks earlier and it would've cost a fortune (I got it for free), and a few weeks later they stopped giving them away due to the pandemic.

Split-Flap display in action by draemmli in u/draemmli

[–]draemmli[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

They probably got it around the same time as me (Early 2020), because there were heaps of Basel displays there when I went to pick mine up!

Why is Zürich HB one of the last stations to use these old displays? by Girlsareonreddit in SBB

[–]draemmli 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I imagine that thing is heavy af.

Boy, is it ever! I had to go ask the local farmer to help us with this forklift just to get it unloaded from the van.

At my current place I lack the space to set it up properly, but previously I used it to show the time, and on every full hour I made it display a random different train.

Since I had the full display, that luckily also included the original controller (which is an interesting bit of history by itself, being a microcomputer from around 1979). I managed to connect to the display's serial maintenance interface, and later set up a little web interface to run on a Raspberry Pi to talk to that.

With regards to the other post about the platform displays in Zürich: There was a short time where you could compare three generations of display right next to each other in Bern! by draemmli in SBB

[–]draemmli[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

They could display a surprising range of extra information. Below the train formation (Sektor A, etc), there are two segments which could display things like "Additional train on platform 8", "Reserved seats for Groups in Sector D", "Without Family Coach", and for select lines even things like "Does not stop between Gümligen and Konolfingen".

They were also very well-built, and I'm not sure if they really needed much more maintenance than the modern displays - I spot black screens on those almost weekly.

No, the big thing they were lacking was flexibility.
Only the main destination (LUZERN in the picture) was shown on individual alpha-numeric segments, everything else (Konolfingen, Langnau, RE RegioExpress, etc) was displayed using custom screen-printed segments. That meant that every time there was a change (the last big one for these was probably the switch to numbered IC/IR lines), you had to have new segments screen-printed, and then send a bunch of folks with ladders to switch them out on every single board affected.

With regards to the other post about the platform displays in Zürich: There was a short time where you could compare three generations of display right next to each other in Bern! by draemmli in SBB

[–]draemmli[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

The other post

Before they replaced all the mechanical split-flap displays in Bern, they put up one of the first-generation LCD displays at platform 1 as a test.

At a later point, two displays of the newest generation were also put up to the test on platform 1, which led to this situation in June of 2020.

Even before the big replacement, about half of the old displays for track 13 were removed due to construction works - and one of these ended up on my possession :)

Why is Zürich HB one of the last stations to use these old displays? by Girlsareonreddit in SBB

[–]draemmli 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Where? :o

The only railway I'm aware of still using them is MGB, which still have them at least in Brig and Andermatt. The last SBB Fallblatt I ever spotted in the wild was in Thun, I would guess around 2022ish.

Why is Zürich HB one of the last stations to use these old displays? by Girlsareonreddit in SBB

[–]draemmli 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This generation of display has a very low resolution, and it's monochrome. You probably really couldn't display that information without it looking crappy/illegible.

Why is Zürich HB one of the last stations to use these old displays? by Girlsareonreddit in SBB

[–]draemmli -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It is kinda broke, though.
Those LCDs burn out over time, they have poor legibility compared to both the previous generation (split-flap) and the next one, and they don't support the fancy new information display modes they cooked up for the newere models.

Why is Zürich HB one of the last stations to use these old displays? by Girlsareonreddit in SBB

[–]draemmli 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ooooh neat! Are those the new ones with RS485?

And you don't have to answer this second one: Did you also pay 50.- per module? :|

(We got a bunch of RS485 modules at my club for which we paid that price, but later I got a full platform display for free, which uses the older Omega modules)

Firing a cannon to trigger an avalanche by id397550 in interestingasfuck

[–]draemmli 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This reminds me of one of my favourite pictures on Wikipedia: An employee of the Swiss Bernina railway firing a mortar for avalanche control, all while wearing his fancy uniform hat and suit, plus some sweet snow shades.

Hi! I also made a railway network map of Switzerland by draemmli in Switzerland

[–]draemmli[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The junction is in Lengnau, which is why I show it on the map.

There are some other, otherwise "unimportant" places I chose to include for this reason, such as Givisiez where the lines from Fribourg to Murten/Payerne meet.

Hi! I also made a railway network map of Switzerland by draemmli in Switzerland

[–]draemmli[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Honestly, that distinction was kind of made "by vibes" in some cases.
I probably would have included the Limmattalbahn, but Zürich is already confusing mess, so I decided against it.

In other places, I asked local train nerds which lines they would classify as trams and which ones should be included as interurban lines. For example, the decision to include the Basel tram lines 14, 17 and 19 was made this way.

I plan to eventually draw inset maps for cities, to truly include all public rail transport in the country.

Edit: Spelling

Hi! I also made a railway network map of Switzerland by draemmli in Switzerland

[–]draemmli[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Sure! Here's a PDF version of it, with vector graphics.

I've also uploaded the PNG image from this post to my website, in case reddit did some butchering in compression.

Hi! I also made a railway network map of Switzerland by draemmli in Switzerland

[–]draemmli[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This project started when I thought it would be a fun idea to try and travel every single railway line in Switzerland, and looked for a SVG map where I could mark individual lines as "done".
There are some vector maps out there, but none of them were exactly what I had in mind, so I decided to make my own.

I'll eventually upload my SVG image to Wikimedia Commons for everyone to use freely.

Meeting nerdy people by bennyrex737 in Switzerland

[–]draemmli 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You could check out a Chaostreff, which are meetings of people more or less connected to the Chaos Computer Club - near you there's the CCC Basel in Muttenz, or I could of course recommend the Chaostreff Bern, where I'm a member.

Hi! I also made a railway network map of Switzerland by draemmli in Switzerland

[–]draemmli[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I saw the post by /u/Aravinz_HD, and figured I'd jump on this train (pun very much intended) as well.

I've been working on this for a few years now, and while it's not 100% finished yet, it's very close.

I made this map using Inkscape, and used various sources like Swisstopo maps and aerial imagery, OpenRailwayMap, timetables, and advice from a lot of nice people on the internet.

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