New clock unveiled

[TRAX]

Neither iOS nor Android support widgets that update as frequently as would be required for a clock.

Apple Watches (watchOS) don't support custom watch faces at all.

The Android smartwatch equivalent (WearOS) does, and that has been the only thing announced as under development.

iOS does have a clock widget on the system that the mobile Rail Clock would use

 

[MrJeeves]

iOS does have a clock widget on the system that the mobile Rail Clock would use

The native clock app's widgets use features only made available to applications developed directly by Apple to function.

Third party apps which attempt to use this feature, and other features across iOS, are regularly rejected from the App Store or taken down when discovered.

The alternative is by using horrifying workarounds by creating custom fonts, which wouldn't work in this example due to the differing behaviour at 12:00 and 00:00, as well as the idea of the arrows gliding, and is presumably why noone is bothering with anything other than a WearOS watch face.

 

[TRAX]

The native clock app's widgets use features only made available to applications developed directly by Apple to function.

Third party apps which attempt to use this feature, and other features across iOS, are regularly rejected from the App Store or taken down when discovered.

The alternative is by using horrifying workarounds by creating custom fonts, which wouldn't work in this example due to the differing behaviour at 12:00 and 00:00, as well as the idea of the arrows gliding, and is presumably why noone is bothering with anything other than a WearOS watch face.

Interesting, thank you.

 

[jon0844]

I don't think it does particularly. How many clocks have two second hands?

They're not second hands. It's an animation that operates within a 60 second timeframe. You can work out the seconds from their position though!

 

[KevinBrum12]

It makes a lot more sense - now if the previous train can just arrive on time to make that possible.....

Or Network Rail stops the practice of a "Platform Alteration" at Birmingham New Street just before a service is about to depart....

 

[Jim the Jim]

Looks pretty good, will have to see how it works in practice. I find six-digit digital clocks a bit overwhelming so keeping the seconds to the outer ring works for me. I imagine it won't take long for regular travellers to get used to that bit. The important thing in this context is not the number of seconds themselves but what proportion of the minute has elapsed - young passengers don't need to be able to work out "it's 0800 and 45 seconds" or whatever, they just need to see that the minute is three-quarters done.

 

[DelW]

I don't think it does particularly. How many clocks have two second hands?

Probably very few, but of course early station clocks often had two minute hands, which (presumably) passengers got used to. One showed local time and the other showed London time aka "railway time". They did both go the same way round though

 

[jon0844]

The native clock app's widgets use features only made available to applications developed directly by Apple to function.

Third party apps which attempt to use this feature, and other features across iOS, are regularly rejected from the App Store or taken down when discovered.

The alternative is by using horrifying workarounds by creating custom fonts, which wouldn't work in this example due to the differing behaviour at 12:00 and 00:00, as well as the idea of the arrows gliding, and is presumably why noone is bothering with anything other than a WearOS watch face.

I can put a widget on my Android phone (Honor) that has an animated second hand - but ironically, not one that has a digital display with seconds. It's also ironic that power management means that many widgets don't update properly at any time, when a system widget works fine and updates continuously.

Some phones also allow you to turn seconds on for the status bar, but that's also quite rare. I think it's devices made by BBK (Oppo, OnePlus, Realme, Vivo, IQOO etc) that often have this option (but not always!).

 

[DelW]

I can put a widget on my Android phone (Honor) that has an animated second hand - but ironically, not one that has a digital display with seconds. It's also ironic that power management means that many widgets don't update properly at any time, when a system widget works fine and updates continuously.

I think that all the ones I've had, had second hands that move in one second jumps though (like most quartz watches). The two arrows really need a smooth sweep, like Mr Jeeves' version in post 48 has.

 

[jon0844]

I think that all the ones I've had, had second hands that move in one second jumps though (like most quartz watches). The two arrows really need a smooth sweep, like Mr Jeeves' version in post 48 has.

I hadn't used the widget for ages (or on my current phone) but thought it was a smooth sweeping animation but looking on my phone now it is just a 1 second update, so maybe it wouldn't work.

I don't know if that's just the watch face design. There are fewer choices than before.

 

[BayPaul]

For what it's worth, I love it. Not just as a piece of design but also as a usable clock. Hopefully it'll lead to a standard where doors start to close 30 seconds before departure, which is very clearly visible without a seconds display!

More importantly, it shows that GBR are taking branding seriously. It would be so easy to just use the awful coming soon branding and say that they're concentrating on running trains on time. In reality, they could concentrate on that for 20 years and never really succeed! As Network Southeast recognised, getting it to look good is so important too, and is fairly cheap and actually achievable. A few more iconic designs like this will really start to show off the new brand.

 

[AlterEgo]

I accept I can be glum about things, but all every average person wants to be able to use the railway is a reliable, frequent and well connected service, none of which the current UK rail network does. Normal passengers do not think about what the clock looks like

Indeed they might not, but what the clock looks like - and how stations and the environment look and feel - really matter. One of the more frustrating opinions to have to contend with is the idea that branding doesn't matter and it's all some sort of hoax or conspiracy theory funnelling money into evil graphic designers. London Overground destaffed all its trains and rebranded all its assets from Silverlink, massively improved the station and on train environments and the way passengers interpret the same journeys now is a lot more positive.

Good branding will offset a lot of bad experiences and will make people think more positively about the railway, sometimes in spite of actual bad experiences.

No amount of advertising about "the train will get you there" or "national timepieces" will change the reality that the network outside of London is horrible and in fact in most cases does not get you there. The message needs to be coupled with the genuine investment, not some expensive worse clock disguised as something "amazing and futuristic".

"You can't announce a new clock unless the clock comes with £5bn of investment" sorry it's just ridiculous.

I take your point that the railway is often very poor but that is precisely why it could do with a better and stronger brand identity. This is not coming at the expense of anything else; it's not like they've rolled this out and now we can't afford ERTMS rollout is it?

 

[edwin_m]

One of the worst things about the railway for many "normals" is how confusing it all is with a plethora of different operators. With some exceptions, and no doubt I'll be flamed for saying this, once someone understands the service it's often quite good.

That's the sort of situation where more effective promotion and a consistent brand might actually start to make a difference.

 

[nilvaj395]

Indeed they might not, but what the clock looks like - and how stations and the environment look and feel - really matter. One of the more frustrating opinions to have to contend with is the idea that branding doesn't matter and it's all some sort of hoax or conspiracy theory funnelling money into evil graphic designers. London Overground destaffed all its trains and rebranded all its assets from Silverlink, massively improved the station and on train environments and the way passengers interpret the same journeys now is a lot more positive.

Good branding will offset a lot of bad experiences and will make people think more positively about the railway, sometimes in spite of actual bad experiences.


"You can't announce a new clock unless the clock comes with £5bn of investment" sorry it's just ridiculous.

I take your point that the railway is often very poor but that is precisely why it could do with a better and stronger brand identity. This is not coming at the expense of anything else; it's not like they've rolled this out and now we can't afford ERTMS rollout is it?

I do not think brand identity is an expensive, bespoke, and worse clock or 'timepiece'.

The Overground scenario and really any scenario where this works is one where it comes with other genuine improvements to the service. At least with the Overground there was new and refurbished trains and Oyster for two, and this has now continued with them now getting the 710s and new modern really nice looking stations and large investment.

People will argue things like this 'but we designed new things for NSE or Overground etc' but they fail to account for the fact that these things came with genuine change. It was not just giving something widely regarded to be poor a lick of metophorical paint (poorly), which to most people just screams 'same poor service, new brand'.

If the whole goal was "inspiring unity" like the PR speak for this implies, actually invest that money where it will have that goal, not in a clock. Sink it into some local community rail groups or something to get them involved with the railways again, or maybe even use that to design station signage and design guidelines that are not so bland and boring to go alongside any future 'new clock'.

I dont think the people on the Brigg line or anywhere else with poor service will be fussed or not if their station has a new clock if they get near to no train services per day. They literally have never been given the incentive in the first place to go near the rail network. Regardless, this was clearly designed without having any station outside of an urban area in mind.

It is obvious that this is a very split opinion between people at the minute though. Some people like it and some people don't.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Oct 2025 ==

One of the worst things about the railway for many "normals" is how confusing it all is with a plethora of different operators. With some exceptions, and no doubt I'll be flamed for saying this, once someone understands the service it's often quite good.

That's the sort of situation where more effective promotion and a consistent brand might actually start to make a difference.

Absolutely, I agree with you. While privitisation was a mess of companies , the one thing they did right was consistent branding.

 

[takno]

One of the worst things about the railway for many "normals" is how confusing it all is with a plethora of different operators. With some exceptions, and no doubt I'll be flamed for saying this, once someone understands the service it's often quite good.

That's the sort of situation where more effective promotion and a consistent brand might actually start to make a difference.

I'm not sure anybody is disputing the value of a strong brand, or even of a standard clock being a key part of that. The issues are more about readability, conformance with the brand standards that already exist, and whether the thing has a timeless appeal or just looks like a bit of a hackneyed gimmick.

 

[Davester50]

They're not second hands. It's an animation that operates within a 60 second timeframe. You can work out the seconds from their position though!

A pointer that points to the sixtieth of a clock position once a second and moves on to the next isn't a second hand?
Hmmmm.

 

[DelW]

One of the more frustrating opinions to have to contend with is the idea that branding doesn't matter and it's all some sort of hoax or conspiracy theory funnelling money into evil graphic designers. London Overground destaffed all its trains and rebranded all its assets from Silverlink, massively improved the station and on train environments and the way passengers interpret the same journeys now is a lot more positive.

Good branding will offset a lot of bad experiences and will make people think more positively about the railway, sometimes in spite of actual bad experiences.

Indeed, and many years earlier, London Underground under Frank Pick was an exemplar of top quality design, architecture, graphics and typography applied to the public realm. That greatly improved the public image of transport in London, and left a legacy still widely visible 90 years later.

 

[BlueLeanie]

Watching the video of the clock, my head is filling in the clock music from ITV schools in Channel 4 from 1987 onwards.

(YouTube video of the break music from ITV schools).

 

[nilvaj395]

I'm not sure anybody is disputing the value of a strong brand, or even of a standard clock being a key part of that. The issues are more about readability, conformance with the brand standards that already exist, and whether the thing has a timeless appeal or just looks like a bit of a hackneyed gimmick.

This absolutely. Standard clock is absolutely fine but I don't see this lasting at all, it screams cheap and tacky gimmick and the marketing speak used to justify it leans into that.

A wider issue with GBR and where it differs to the likes of TfW's rebrand is how it the 'brand' is being rolled out. On paper there is some level of new standards, but no effort is being put into implementing them and then things like this only detract from that even more.

In Northern's case, GBR has actually made things look worse , as now as the signage and other station furniture is now all non cohesive and ugly when compared to the original Northern colour that is still around or even underneath the new stickers . And knowing this nature of constrained budgets in the rail industry and how it's in the North, thats likely to be more permanent than temporary. This is in addition to the hodge podge of GBR signage stickers being slapped ontop of existing signage with no effort or signage styles being mixed and matched across the network.

It would be nice to have a unified clock, but I would much rather we get the basics down first.

 

[enginedin]

it screams cheap and tacky gimmick

maybe to you, but plenty of people in this thread have said the exact opposite ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Bletchleyite]

It would be nice to have a unified clock, but I would much rather we get the basics down first.

Agree. TfW's branding package is excellent, as is ScotRail's, whereas GBR's just appears to be doing a bad impression of 1970s BR but with a big fancy clock.

 

[Farang]

Having just paid a visit to London Bridge, I can report I really like it. I can imagine arranging to meet someone underneath it at such-and-such a time.

Tempted by the £15 red on black socks from the Design Museum shop too.

 

[YorksLad12]

Having just paid a visit to London Bridge, I can report I really like it. I can imagine arranging to meet someone underneath it at such-and-such a time.

Tempted by the £15 red on black socks from the Design Museum shop too.

Good point. If it's being rolled out to all stations, shouldn't it also replace the clock at Waterloo? And Carnforth? Or... am I just being my usual, silly self?

 

[snail]

I can put a widget on my Android phone (Honor) that has an animated second hand - but ironically, not one that has a digital display with seconds.

It's pretty easy to do on a Wear watchface with Watch Face Studio. My watch has analogue hands including seconds and a digital readout without seconds.

 

[MrJeeves]

It's pretty easy to do on a Wear watchface with Watch Face Studio. My watch has analogue hands including seconds and a digital readout without seconds.

Indeed, because a WearOS watch face without accurate timing info is pretty useless. Android widgets, on the other hand, are entirely different.

In any case, I've made a watch face with this clock design which is just pending review from Google before actually being downloadable onto WearOS watches:

GB Rail Clock - Apps on Google Play

Unofficial widget and Wear OS watch face for Great Britain's Rail Clock

play.google.com

 

[Dr Hoo]

Good point. If it's being rolled out to all stations, shouldn't it also replace the clock at Waterloo? And Carnforth? Or... am I just being my usual, silly self?

Of course it’s silly. There is no longer a clock at Carnforth to replace.

 

[Wychwood93]

Of course it’s silly. There is no longer a clock at Carnforth to replace.

I agree with silly. The clock at Waterloo is somewhat iconic for those of us who have lived within the compass of the SW Division of the former Southern Region for our entire life. Other station clocks - Paddington platform 1, are equally iconic. I quite like the style of the 'new clock' - just leave the iconic ones alone.

 

[AndrewE]

Of course it’s silly. There is no longer a clock at Carnforth to replace.

when were you last there? I'm sure it was restored and going when I saw it within the last couple of years, but maybe it has packed up again since then. That clock, that is. I imagine that the platform departure boards show the time.

 

[edwin_m]

Many older clocks will be protected by listed status, and others just by sentiment. I expect a common installation of Rail Clock will just be putting it on a screen next to the departures, with other clocks often left in situ elsewhere.

 

[enginedin]

I expect a common installation of Rail Clock will just be putting it on a screen next to the departures, with other clocks often left in situ elsewhere.

exactly like it has already been done at Cardiff: https://x.com/KeithIles/status/1979463650680447366