So long, Penn Station departure board

[NKP guy]

   I'm sorry to see the departure board in lovely Penn Station finally go after watching it work for the past 15 years.  

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/nyregion/penn-station-departure-board.html?_r=0

[BaltACD]

NKP guy

   I'm sorry to see the departure board in lovely Penn Station finally go after watching it work for the past 15 years.  

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/nyregion/penn-station-departure-board.html?_r=0

[aegrotatio]

I, for one, want to know why the pillars at the level below this one with its quaint old CRT departure board screens are so enormous.  People say it's because the Old Penn Station's conduits, plumbing, sewer, and support beams are still there and nobody knows if they're needed.  Supposedly when the NJ Transit ticket and waiting area was built they found a treasure trove of disconnected pipes, wires, etc., in these pillars.

 

 

[PJS1]

I am glad to see the big sign go.  There are better technical solutions that can be spread around Penn Station.  They will, as noted, help disperse the mob that tends to gather under the sign waiting to learn the track number of their train.

 

Amtrak’s boarding process at Penn Station, as well as many of its other stations, is archaic.  It should assign seats through the reservation processeses, thereby eliminating the need felt by many to charge down to the platform as soon as the track number is posted so they can get a good seat.  Or it could adopt a group boarding process similar to that used by Southwest Airlines, which knows a thing or two about customer service.

[NKP guy]

JPS1:  As much as I enjoyed watching the big board do its flipping thing, I think your two comments regarding Penn Station are spot-on.  In every way possible, the Penn Station experience is a real downer.

[RME]

NKP guy

JPS1: As much as I enjoyed watching the big board do its flipping thing ...

You do know they're not talking about the Solari board, right?  That one was removed around the millennium, and this is the obsolescent-almost-when-installed replacement that's being -- wisely, in my view -- put out to pasture. 

I expect all new boards will be dot-addressable RGB, like televisions, and be infinitely superior to that piece of dreck.

[NKP guy]

Yes, RME, I am aware that this was not the "original" board.  When I first titled  the thread it was "So long, Solari," until I fact-checked the name and found out that board was removed 15 years ago.

I used "flipping" more as a pun on the Solari original than a statement of present fact.

However, it's now an "alternative facts" world;  e.g. "lovely Penn Station."

[rcdrye]

I still miss the "Pony Express" you saw from time to time as the old Solari board flipped.