Solari board replacement at South Station and Back Bay

[shadyjay]

One good thing about the boards I imagine is that you can put in any destination you want, and are not limited to what's on the panels.
Case in point... Westerly, for the roundtrip that ran Westerly-BOS last week during the Thames River Bridge outage. I doubt that one was on the old solari Amtrak side.

[danib62]

So I was at Back Bay this morning to catch a train to DC and in my opinion the new boards are heinous. They are terribly designed. Showing only 3 trains is way too few and whatever idiot designed them didn't even put on a spot to display the departure time of the trains listed. The best part was that the old monitors were still on today but they were displaying a weekday schedule so the two sets of info didn't match. This confused quite a few people.

[jamesinclair]

Someone asked about these earlier. Did they ever work? Do they work? The information for track 13 seems a little bit accurate, but it might be a coincidence. Id never really noticed them before. I want one for my room.






Someone also posted a picture of a new machine with an error. Looks like a software problem, not hardware. I dont like how they put the track 13 display near track 13 - which is far away from everything else.

[diburning]

I dont like how they put the track 13 display near track 13 - which is far away from everything else.

Well, putting a sign near it's coresponding track seems to make perfect sense to me

[ags]

Are they ever going to put in a board between Track 1 and Track 2 so people coming in off of Atlantic Avenue don't have to walk through to Track 4 to see the destination, especially when a train on track 3 means one has to walk all the way in front of the board (because of bad angling)?

[dbperry]

Are they ever going to put in a board between Track 1 and Track 2 so people coming in off of Atlantic Avenue don't have to walk through to Track 4 to see the destination, especially when a train on track 3 means one has to walk all the way in front of the board (because of bad angling)?

Amen! I second the motion! The lack of this board between track 1 and 2, plus the low height of the boards between all of the other tracks, makes me very disappointed with this project. It could have, and should have, been a much better final product.

Ideally, how about a board suspended from the ceiling way out in front of track 1, angled out towards Atlantic Ave? You could see that board all the way from the sidewalk (or at least the stairs).

Dave

[MBTA F40PH-2C 1050]

is the old board going to be removed or are they going to continue to use it? seems kinda crazy to have these 3 boards all active

[hi55us]

is the old board going to be removed or are they going to continue to use it? seems kinda crazy to have these 3 boards all active

I agree remove the new digital one's & keep the old ones!

[Veristek]

I've noticed quite a few issues with the LED displays, mainly the big one. I've noticed that some lines in the display are dimmer than others, and one or two lines flash off and then back on at random intervals (but keep the same text).

[rob2507]

Story in today's Globe: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articl ... g_on_ebay/
In summary, they couldn't find a buyer for the South Station board, so they said 'let's put it on ebay and see what we can get!'

The auction on ebay (no bids yet): http://tinyurl.com/SouthStationBoard

[caduceus]

Story in today's Globe: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articl ... g_on_ebay/
In summary, they couldn't find a buyer for the South Station board, so they said 'let's put it on ebay and see what we can get!'

The auction on ebay (no bids yet): http://tinyurl.com/SouthStationBoard

WHDH just had a segment on it...but it doesn't seem to be up for auction. It is listed as $500, and "Contact the seller". Other than the pictures, and that you must pick it up at South Station, there is nothing to indicate that this is the MBTA legitimately selling it either...

[BW]

Well, since I was intimately involved with the sign upgrade project (like it or not), I can tell you the seller on eBay is legitimate - it is the project manager.

Seems like some benefactor should consider buying the sign for one of the wonderful rail museums in the region........

And, without making ANY commitments, there is a possibility that, if the board and it's components are moved without being damaged, there may even be some people from my department willing to try to set it up in it's new home......

[caduceus]

Well, since I was intimately involved with the sign upgrade project (like it or not), I can tell you the seller on eBay is legitimate - it is the project manager.

I figured with all the press it seemed to be getting it was legit, I was just pointing out that from the ebay page alone, I would have questioned its legitimacy.

[jamesinclair]

Well, since I was intimately involved with the sign upgrade project (like it or not), I can tell you the seller on eBay is legitimate - it is the project manager.

Seems like some benefactor should consider buying the sign for one of the wonderful rail museums in the region........

And, without making ANY commitments, there is a possibility that, if the board and it's components are moved without being damaged, there may even be some people from my department willing to try to set it up in it's new home......

Could you answer why the North Station boards turned out so badly?

The damn things dont even list train times!

[BW]

Could you answer why the North Station boards turned out so badly?

The damn things dont even list train times!

James,

Elaborate some - how, in your opinion, did the signs turn out badly? I'm not challenging your statement - just curious to hear your input.

A contractor installed it, not my group, although we have observed some of the installation. I'm not sure the entire project has been accepted yet. I don't know who inputs the information for the signs - whether it's input at North Station or centrally for all three stations from South Station (although I do know that at least North Station has the capibility to update the signs locally).