Vanishing Solari Boards

[bill937ca]

Time to say good bye to another icon of recent times. Solari boards are being removed from major railway stations in New York and Philadelphia prompting a Smithsonian article. The New York Times has contributed an article on Penn Station loosing its Solari boards.  

 

From Wikipeida comes an incomplete list of Solari boards in transportation terminals. 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2016 by bill937ca

[cteno4]

A www, the age old tension of watching the flaps fly wondering if your train would show up delayed or on the lirr waiting for the track your train was (along with 500 twitchie passengers) going to board on and trying to beat the rush!

 

Cheers

Jeff

[kvp]

It's one thing to update the technology and add some smaller screens, but these large analog boards have to be replaced with new boards of equal size, like modern led matrix boards.

[westfalen]

They were more fun to watch than the new LED or LCD displays.

[bikkuri bahn]

They're being replaced in Japan too, most of the bigger ones are gone. There is one still in operation at Nankai Nanba Station, on the Koya Line side of the terminal. The Nankai main line board has already been replaced.

[bill937ca]

Going back to 2014 at Nankai Main Line Namba Station.  Video by マイテ492/maite492

 

 

 

And the digital replacement in 2017.

 

Edited April 29, 2019 by bill937ca

[bikkuri bahn]

I forgot to check if the ones on the Koya Line side of the station were still there this past week.  But at least in the Tokyo area, you can see (albeit smaller) ones operating at Keikyu Kawasaki station, on both the up and down line platforms.  

[ben_issacs]

Folks,

Something similar, which we called 'flip-flops', were used on Melbourne's Z class tram's destination indicators, but are now long gone.

Regards, 

Bill,

Melbourne.

 

[bill937ca]

Another Solari video. Paged Solari di Udine display at the Eastern Railway Station in 2008  Video by hamsterhamster2002

 

 

Edited January 23, 2020 by bill937ca

[cteno4]

I miss the old chattery one in penn station ny, It was like watching the slot machine dials clink into place, then the mad dash for the track that came up! At least the chattering gave you warning something was happening — the electronic ones you have to keep staring at or keep an eye on the crowd for jumps, especially with the lirr board.

 

jeff

[disturbman]

I loved those too, I remember them well from Paris main stations. There sound was impressive. I wonder if they have been replaced...

 

The geek in me would like to have one. There is a beautiful art piece that used one of those boards to tell random and somewhat useless messages.