St Pancras Departure Boards

[modernrail]

Agree re:escalator & arrow comments, guess it wouldn't take too long for new graphics to be thrown onto the screen if this did cause trouble though

Yeah that clearly needs changing. The arrow should just point left or arguably left and up. Isn’t there some help from the new signing standard on this? No reason this board shouldn’t follow that design standard for consistency?

I also think it is worth them putting upper level east and west on otherwise it intimates your could get between the two parts of the upper level or that they are the same thing. They are not.

The up escalators to EMT have long needed a big sign above them to highlight their importance as the main route to a whole part of the station and that could read ‘Upper Level West - EMT services’ and have boards on the supporting columns showing the next services.

Then Thameslink and SE could add Lower Level and Upper Level East respectively.

That would give, without much effort, the station designated area names that form a double check for customers against the TOC names. That’s the key problem at the moment, tying the TOC into the area of the station in your mind if you don’t know the TOCS/layout.

Agree destinations that repeat from KX should be on the board and space can be created on the left hand side for an arrow to KX.

Hope the 1m to Thameslink platforms on the render is draft! That is 3 mins minimum. Which speaks to when the destinations should drop off the board. I think there is an argument that they do so at least a couple of minutes before departure time - no point showing you what you could have won and encouraging an Olympic sprint, which I have indulged in a few times and always failed.

100% agree with the person that said next trains for Thameslink are in the wrong place or need to be repeated the station sign of the gateline. Especially as you may not want to go through the gateline if there is disruption (as there often is on TL) and so might want to consider EMT or Kings Cross alternatives - or get a coffee instead of standing on the TL platforms for however long.

 

[zwk500]

Where is this new board in relation to the HS1 platforms

The new board is where the old landscape blue-and-white boards were, on the ground floor between the Thameslink Gateline and the SE escalators up. It depends which set of HS1 platforms you want and which entrance you're coming from, but if you're coming up from the King's cross entrance you'll have the SE escalators on your right and the new boards will be directly ahead of you on the left-hand wall. If you're coming up from Thameslink platforms, turn left and the new boards will be pretty much straight ahead of you.

 

[Trainguy34]

The new board is where the old landscape blue-and-white boards were, on the ground floor between the Thameslink Gateline and the SE escalators up. It depends which set of HS1 platforms you want and which entrance you're coming from, but if you're coming up from the King's cross entrance you'll have the SE escalators on your right and the new boards will be directly ahead of you on the left-hand wall. If you're coming up from Thameslink platforms, turn left and the new boards will be pretty much straight ahead of you.

Thanks for the info

 

[zwk500]

Thanks for the info

These are the boards in question: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.532...4!1sjLQuCBQYrw2TlAQ2HJUULA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

[Trainguy34]

These are the boards in question: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.532...4!1sjLQuCBQYrw2TlAQ2HJUULA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Oh that's annoying, I personally liked those ones

 

[zwk500]

Oh that's annoying, I personally liked those ones

I haven't seen the new ones in person yet, but the old ones were very poor functionally on the rare occasion I did look at them (I usually know which set of platforms I need first at St P so check the displays at the gateline) and the images posted upthread look miles better.

 

[skyhigh]

Oh that's annoying, I personally liked those ones

They were awful. Possibly some of the worst on the network - they should have gone years ago.

 

[Haywain]

They were awful. Possibly some of the worst on the network - they should have gone years ago.

Hear, hear. Especially the Thameslink ones, of which only half worked.

 

[TheLunaPark]

One thing that does bother me is how there doesn’t seem to be any kind of official standard for rail departure boards. Or if there is, no one seems to follow them. The older matrix ones of course all have a fairly uniform appearance and operate mostly in the same way. The newer LED/LCD screen-based ones all seem to follow different designs. They tend to go with naff that’ll do typefaces like Source Sans and Open Sans rather than implementing RA2. Colour coding is all over the place. Typesetting and spacing is generally rubbish. To me they look like cheap aftermarket jobs. Of course, stations around the country are different and often require unique features but surely there could be a set basic design for them rather than it being left up to TCO and individual station operators.

 

[Bletchleyite]

One thing that does bother me is how there doesn’t seem to be any kind of official standard for rail departure boards. Or if there is, no one seems to follow them. The older matrix ones of course all have a fairly uniform appearance and operate mostly in the same way. The newer LED/LCD screen-based ones all seem to follow different designs. They tend to go with naff that’ll do typefaces like Source Sans and Open Sans rather than implementing RA2. Colour coding is all over the place.

The ones for WMT use RA2, don't they? It certainly looks that way. They're dire in other ways, though, it's a messy layout and they are far too animated, presumably "because they can", despite the animation being incredibly jumpy (do they run via remote screen sharing or similar? It certainly looks like).

Best ones I've seen are LNER's.

 

[TheLunaPark]

The ones for WMT use RA2, don't they? It certainly looks that way. They're dire in other ways, though, it's a messy layout and they are far too animated, presumably "because they can", despite the animation being incredibly jumpy (do they run via remote screen sharing or similar? It certainly looks like).

Best ones I've seen are LNER's.

Oh really? Wasn’t aware of the ones at WMT to be honest. Glad to hear some effort has been made despite the other issues you mention. Thanks for the info.

 

[LLivery]

One thing that does bother me is how there doesn’t seem to be any kind of official standard for rail departure boards. Or if there is, no one seems to follow them. The older matrix ones of course all have a fairly uniform appearance and operate mostly in the same way. The newer LED/LCD screen-based ones all seem to follow different designs. They tend to go with naff that’ll do typefaces like Source Sans and Open Sans rather than implementing RA2. Colour coding is all over the place. Typesetting and spacing is generally rubbish. To me they look like cheap aftermarket jobs. Of course, stations around the country are different and often require unique features but surely there could be a set basic design for them rather than it being left up to TCO and individual station operators.

It felt like we were standardising throughout the 10s and now it's gone out of the window. First, it was an ungodly amount of different signage, now they seem to be doing the same for departure boards. Standardisation seems to be impossible for this country and then we wonder why we've got higher costs than needed.

 

[Basil Jet]

The St Pancras boards seemed to be working a few days ago, or looked like it from a distance... but they have been displaying nothing but round clock faces on Friday and Saturday.

 

[Hadders]

Working earlier when I passed through, and still working this evening.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not sure I'm a fan of showing Luton Airport Parkway as a destination when it isn't the end destination of the train. That'll confuse people.

It is however vastly better than the new junk at Euston.

 

[zwk500]

Not sure I'm a fan of showing Luton Airport Parkway as a destination when it isn't the end destination of the train. That'll confuse people.

It is however vastly better than the new junk at Euston.

I think the way they've done it is fine. Luton Airport is split out as a separate thing, the actual trains are still shown to Corby. It's not much different to a 'Next Fastest Train' board, and people seem to cope with that fine.

 

[Hadders]

Not sure I'm a fan of showing Luton Airport Parkway as a destination when it isn't the end destination of the train. That'll confuse people.

It is however vastly better than the new junk at Euston.

The departures for Luton Airport Parkway are also shown on the main body of the board, under their proper destination of Corby.

I don’t have a problem with that. Agree the boards are better than at Euston.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The departures for Luton Airport Parkway are also shown on the main body of the board, under their proper destination of Corby.

They are, but I still think the way it's shown it's inconsistent with how UK displays normally work, and as such it'd be better either to show the correct destination (as you read that there, then go and look for it on the platform) or just not show a destination on that bit, just time and status, as I think is what is done with GatEx at Victoria.

 

[SE%Traveller]

i think it's 'via Luton Parkway' rather than destination, grabbed a shot earlier today

 

[zwk500]

They are, but I still think the way it's shown it's inconsistent with how UK displays normally work, and as such it'd be better either to show the correct destination (as you read that there, then go and look for it on the platform) or just not show a destination on that bit, just time and status, as I think is what is done with GatEx at Victoria.

The only thing that might have been ever so slightly better is if they'd labelled that section 'Next train to Luton Airport Parkway' and then just had '12.15 - Platform -'. But then there might be a coding reason on the boards why that wasn't done.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Jun 2023 ==

i think it's 'via Luton Parkway' rather than destination, grabbed a shot earlier today

Thameslink are doing via 'Luton Airport Parkway' but the EMR board clearly has a separate section suggesting there's a 12.15 to Luton Airport Parkway only, which is just possible somebody may not board the 12.15 to Corby because they're expecting the train to say Luton on the destination boards. However I think the risk of that is fairly low, as people will see '12.15 Luton Airport Platform 3' and will board the train at Platform 3 shortly before 12.15.

 

[jon0844]

The best bit about the displays is that it can be tweaked in the coming months to show information differently. I'd also like to see how they might adapt things when there's major disruption etc.

 

[43066]

This morning (shortly after midnight) it was suggesting there was a 0045 EMR departure to St Albans…

Clearly a glitch of some sort!

 

[Bald Rick]

This morning (shortly after midnight) it was suggesting there was a 0045 EMR departure to St Albans…

Clearly a glitch of some sort!

Either that or a rail industry professional with good connections who lives in St Albans was calling in a favour to avoid the proletariat on the late night Thameslinks

 

[XAM2175]

Thameslink are doing via 'Luton Airport Parkway' but the EMR board clearly has a separate section suggesting there's a 12.15 to Luton Airport Parkway only, which is just possible somebody may not board the 12.15 to Corby because they're expecting the train to say Luton on the destination boards.

That's what I was picturing until I worked it out.

 

[JaJaWa]

Bit confusing how ▶ and ◀ are used as directional arrows, except for the EMR logo, which is shown as ◀ EMR Luton Airport Express ▶. The symbols on that one don't represent directions. I would have them removed from that logo as they're not even a standard part of it.

 

[Hadders]

When Thameslink is the fastest train to the airport (eg when an EMR is cancelled, or late night/early morning) I’d link to think Thameslink would show as the next train to the airport.

It won’t of course, because this would be too helpful to passengers…

 

[Western Sunset]

Probably just me, but I misread the clock as 10.05. I think the minute hand needs to be a tad longer and the hour hand slightly shorter.

 

[nlogax]

Those TOC wayfinding arrows; are they static or part of the active display?

 

[43066]

Either that or a rail industry professional with good connections who lives in St Albans was calling in a favour to avoid the proletariat on the late night Thameslinks

You’ve already been warned about doing that. It must have been @bramling.

 

[Recessio]

Probably just me, but I misread the clock as 10.05. I think the minute hand needs to be a tad longer and the hour hand slightly shorter.

To be fair, it does have a big digital clock too...