NTL1991
Train Attendant
Just a heads up to Solari Board fans in New England.
After months of delays (this was supposed to happen in July), the new digital PIDS system in Providence, RI will be live within the next few days. Final installation of computer terminals and audio connections are currently being made today and tomorrow. The platform displays (on both platforms) are installed and connected, as are the 8 station displays.
For those who like technical information:
The Solari board and it's old computer system and converter boxes will remain installed until some time after the new system has proved itself. Not sure how long that will be, but as of yesterday, they are already removing the old overhead platform signs which were only installed on the Tracks 1 & 2 platform. These award-winning signs were installed during the Acela re-branding, and AFAIK, Wilmington, DE still uses these attractive displays, but they are being replaced with generic silver Daktronics signs, due to ADA requirements that specifies that all audible announcements must also be displayed for those who are hearing impaired.
The Solari track indicators over the stairways down to the platforms have been removed for some time to install the new digital signs. No word has been made if the original Solari departure board, circa 1985 will remain installed in a "blanked, out of service" state, or if it will be removed for parts.
The current software for the Solari is DOS-based, and was written almost 20 years ago. Many stops have been added since the Solari was installed -- T.F. Green Airport & Wickford Junction for the MBTA Purple Line Service and Lynchburg, VA for Amtrak's Northeast Regional Service. These are displayed as a blank flap on the Solari board, causing quite a bit of confusion daily.
Also, the board is very limited when showing delay status. Delay times are printed on the flaps in 5 to 15 minute increments, with a maximum of 3 hours late. Delayed and and Canceled are also printed. Rough estimates need to be made without over compensating. For example, if a train is 38 minutes late, it needs to be posted as 30 minutes late, an 8 minute difference. If 40 minutes is posted, and someone walks out of the concourse, and comes back at exactly 40 minutes after, they would have missed the train.
The new system will show the departure or arrival time as "Now 7:35p", for example, for a 5 minute delay on a 7:30p scheduled departure.
Instead of previously-recorded announcements for each train, the new system will use Text to Speech technology to generate speech for the boarding , security and paging announcements, eliminating the need to modify existing per-recorded announcements or have them professionally re-recorded.
One interesting thing: the original Solari Udine computer--actually more of a mainframe that's about 28"x 36"x7'-- is still in the station in storage. Not sure what's going to happen to it. It's an attractive unit that would look good in a museum. Anyway, the schedule information was loaded into the mainframe with 5-1/4" floppies generated from a terminal. The machine would be powered up and would need to actually "warm up" before it was functional. This was replaced by a standard IBM-compatible PC and a Current Loop converter box, taking up a fraction of the space as the original, and allowing for a second backup PC to be installed for redundancy.
A few binders worth of schematics are still at the station, detailing the inner workings of the Mainframe, and the circuits to the track indicators and departure board... All in Italian!
Attached are some pics for those interested.
After months of delays (this was supposed to happen in July), the new digital PIDS system in Providence, RI will be live within the next few days. Final installation of computer terminals and audio connections are currently being made today and tomorrow. The platform displays (on both platforms) are installed and connected, as are the 8 station displays.
For those who like technical information:
The Solari board and it's old computer system and converter boxes will remain installed until some time after the new system has proved itself. Not sure how long that will be, but as of yesterday, they are already removing the old overhead platform signs which were only installed on the Tracks 1 & 2 platform. These award-winning signs were installed during the Acela re-branding, and AFAIK, Wilmington, DE still uses these attractive displays, but they are being replaced with generic silver Daktronics signs, due to ADA requirements that specifies that all audible announcements must also be displayed for those who are hearing impaired.
The Solari track indicators over the stairways down to the platforms have been removed for some time to install the new digital signs. No word has been made if the original Solari departure board, circa 1985 will remain installed in a "blanked, out of service" state, or if it will be removed for parts.
The current software for the Solari is DOS-based, and was written almost 20 years ago. Many stops have been added since the Solari was installed -- T.F. Green Airport & Wickford Junction for the MBTA Purple Line Service and Lynchburg, VA for Amtrak's Northeast Regional Service. These are displayed as a blank flap on the Solari board, causing quite a bit of confusion daily.
Also, the board is very limited when showing delay status. Delay times are printed on the flaps in 5 to 15 minute increments, with a maximum of 3 hours late. Delayed and and Canceled are also printed. Rough estimates need to be made without over compensating. For example, if a train is 38 minutes late, it needs to be posted as 30 minutes late, an 8 minute difference. If 40 minutes is posted, and someone walks out of the concourse, and comes back at exactly 40 minutes after, they would have missed the train.
The new system will show the departure or arrival time as "Now 7:35p", for example, for a 5 minute delay on a 7:30p scheduled departure.
Instead of previously-recorded announcements for each train, the new system will use Text to Speech technology to generate speech for the boarding , security and paging announcements, eliminating the need to modify existing per-recorded announcements or have them professionally re-recorded.
One interesting thing: the original Solari Udine computer--actually more of a mainframe that's about 28"x 36"x7'-- is still in the station in storage. Not sure what's going to happen to it. It's an attractive unit that would look good in a museum. Anyway, the schedule information was loaded into the mainframe with 5-1/4" floppies generated from a terminal. The machine would be powered up and would need to actually "warm up" before it was functional. This was replaced by a standard IBM-compatible PC and a Current Loop converter box, taking up a fraction of the space as the original, and allowing for a second backup PC to be installed for redundancy.
A few binders worth of schematics are still at the station, detailing the inner workings of the Mainframe, and the circuits to the track indicators and departure board... All in Italian!
Attached are some pics for those interested.
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