Ain't technology wonderful

[rsc]

The MBTA (Boston-area public transportation) has, over the last few years, installed electronic signs at most or all of its commuter rail stations in order to convey the impression that they are interested in providing commuters with better information. This would be more convincing if the signs ever told you anything more than the date, the time, the name of the station you're at (now there's a piece of dynamic information!), and the fact (which may or may not be actually factual) that all trains or running on schedule.

Yesterday afternoon I took the train from Gloucester to North Station for the first time this season, and the sign was doing its usual thing. But then I noticed (as I heard the train hooting at the nearby grade crossing) that the sign was flashing a sequence of phrases. Because it was flashing, and because the sequence was changing fairly frequently, it was actually quite difficult to read, but I eventually figured out that it was saying the following sequence (I know that the technology available to me makes it possible to demonstrate the flashing, but I won't suibject either you or myself to that):

TRAIN APPROACHING

PLEASE STAND

BEHIND THE

YELOW LINE

It took a few iterations to confirm my observation that it really did say "YELOW".

Gotta love the T and its use of technology.

Comments

[arfur]

For a while, the ones at Back Bay station (orange line part) were in a continual reboot cycle, so they displayed their config info (such as 9600 baud).

My favorite typo on the commuter line cycle was last fall:
ALL TRAINS RUNNING ON OR NEAR SCHEDULE TODAY, OCTOBER 31. NOO SMOKING PLEASE.
I continue to believe it was intentional, but I probably won't ever know.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

But where are your baby-eating politicians?