[PRCo] Re: The Clock

[Herb Brannon]

Here in New Pittsburgh (nee Cleveland) GCRTA has all clocks at all stations, offices, platforms, garages, maintainance facilities, transit centers, BRT platforms, in other words 100% of all RTA clocks are linked to show the same time all over the service area. RTA has this system coordinated with the National Bureau of Standards atomic clock. These are digital clocks rather than analog. Operators also must have their "railroad approved" watches set to the RTA time system. The railroad approved watch is not supposed to have more than a +/- 15-seconds in 24-hours. RTA "Time and Watch Policy" also states that operators and supervisors should invest in the newer "Atomic Watches" which keep the same time as the National Bureau of Standards clock. 
   
  Perhaps we have a more 'transit oriented' ridership here. It is very rare that I have to explain to a passenger how to read the timetable. However, I will always take the time to explain this relationship between the printed timetable and the RTA time system. Then they know how it works.
   
  As for the musuem, yes that might be a good idea and also a learning tool.
Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:
  The note is called thinking out loud or planting ideas.

We can get ideas in the strangest of places. This afternoon I was 
watching a children's show on PBS. The subject was watches and time 
and clocks. The skit started with the actor being asked what time 
is it. He pulled up his sleeve and asked where? New York? 
Chicago? Los Angeles? London? He had watches set for 
everywhere. Digital watches. Analog watches. A sand clock that 
didn't work very well because he had to turn his arm upside-down 
every three minutes.

Do you have any idea where I'm leading you all?

No?

Many of our guests in trolley museums have no idea that trolleys ran 
on tracks. They have no idea that than use electric motors. They 
have no idea that they get the power from a wire overhead.

They don't know that you have to pay a fare to ride because they do it.

And it just occurred to me this afternoon that most ever saw a 
schedule. Most do not understand the relationship between a 
timetable and a clock.

Now do you know where I'm going with this?

I've included the Pittsburgh Railways web site because some of those 
guys are museum members. Some interested. Some may want to help.

I'm think how train stations in Europe always have platform clocks. 
I think Swiss Federal Railways may have even linked all the station 
clocks in the entire country together because I've never found them 
to deviate by seconds from one another. If you are in some of those 
countries like Switzerland or Germany, when the second hand moves to 
the top of its sweep, the train usually starts moving out of the 
station.

Now where do we get a large platform clock to be installed next to 
the platform at Arden (Richfol, and perhaps later moved to the east 
site) so we can show the public (particularly children) how schedules 
and a clock relate? 





Herb Brannon