French
DeutschStation clock
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[edit]
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[edit]
- Older European station clocks
-
King's Cross, London -
-
Gare de Lyon, Paris -
Waterloo, London
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- Modern European station clocks
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Round face, with curved pointers. -
Square face, with straight edged pointers. -
Modern German station clock next to split-flap display board. -
Customised design (Heidelberg Hbf) -
Aarau station clock with a 9 m diameter
- Modern European standard station clock designs
-
Swiss railway clock, the "mother" of the modern railway clocks -
Belgium -
Classic German DB station clock -
Dutch NS station clock -
Jakarta MRT station clock
,_Bahnsteiguhr_2007.jpg)
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ^ "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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Mobatime – Swiss Time Systems: References". Sumiswald, Bern, Switzerland: MOSER-BAER SA. Retrieved 2014-10-19.
Bibliography[edit]
- Lyman, Ian P (2004). Railway Clocks. Mayfield, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, England: Mayfield Books. ISBN 0954052560.
External links[edit]
Media related to Station clocks at Wikimedia Commons