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Station clock

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clock tower with station clock, Waterbury Union Station, Waterbury, Connecticut, USA.

A station clock is a clock at a railway station that provides a standard indication of time to both passengers and railway staff.

A railway station will often have several station clocks. They can be found in a clock tower, in the booking hall or office, on the concourse, inside a train shed, on or facing the station platforms, or elsewhere.

Design

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The design of station clocks in Europe was formerly quite diverse. Today, the majority of them are derived from the Swiss railway clock designed by Hans Hilfiker, a Swiss engineer, in 1944 when he was an employee of the Swiss Federal Railways.[1] In 1953, Hilfiker added a red second hand to its design in the shape of a railway guard's signaling disc. The technical implementation of the railway clock, the central synchronization by a master clock, was engineered together with Mobatime, a clock manufacturer still producing the Swiss railway clock as well as the German railway clock besides many others.[2][3]

Modern European station standard station clock designs have a white clock face that is illuminated in the dark, bar shaped black coloured marks or scales, but no numbers, at the periphery of the clock face dial, and bar-shaped hour and minute hands, also coloured black. The second hand on these standard designs is a thin bar, thickened or fitted with a disc at the peripheral end, and often coloured red. Such clock designs are easily legible from a distance.[2]

Examples

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See also

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References

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Notes

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  1. ^ "Remarkable clocks and watches: the Swiss railway clock". swissworld.org. Berne, Switzerland: Presence Switzerland, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs FDFA. Retrieved 2014-12-11.
  2. ^ a b Köbi Gantenbein, ed. (2013). Die Bahnhofsuhr – Ein Mythos des Designs aus der Schweiz (in German). Zurich, Switzerland: Edition Hochparterre. Archived from the original on 2014-11-04. Retrieved 2014-10-19.
  3. ^ "Mobatime – Swiss Time Systems: References". Sumiswald, Bern, Switzerland: MOSER-BAER SA. Retrieved 2014-10-19.

Bibliography

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  • Lyman, Ian P (2004). Railway Clocks. Mayfield, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, England: Mayfield Books. ISBN 0954052560.
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Media related to Station clocks at Wikimedia Commons