Split Flap Departure Boards

A few stations in Italy still have Solari indicators - the company is based in Udine - but they are rapidly being replaced by electronic digital versions.

Taunton said:

The boards at Waterloo were installed in the early 1970s. The grand old Southern Railway wooden predecessor was advertised for sale in The Railway Magazine at the time by the installation contractor.

In 1977 I went to Los Angeles, USA, and was taken to a railway-themed restaurant near Universal Studios called "Victoria Station". Apart from them having several BR Mk 1 carriages in full blue/grey livery as dining accommodation, on entering, there it was ... the old Waterloo wooden departure describer, set up in price of place inside the main door. Set of course to a whole lot of nonsense combinations, but it still had all its original inserts.

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I wonder if that old Waterloo departure wooden describer still survives in the USA somewhere?

WesternLancer said:

I wonder if that old Waterloo departure wooden describer still survives in the USA somewhere?

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I assume that you are referring to the old Victoria wooden departure indicator? The one from Waterloo has been installed in the restaurant called 'Victoria Station', as mentioned above. I can see how the confusion arises though!

D6130 said:

A few stations in Italy still have Solari indicators - the company is based in Udine - but they are rapidly being replaced by electronic digital versions.

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The company still exists, making electronic displays. Hamburg's U-Bahn LED displays are made by them, for one.

D6130 said:

I assume that you are referring to the old Victoria wooden departure indicator? The one from Waterloo has been installed in the restaurant called 'Victoria Station', as mentioned above. I can see how the confusion arises though!

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No - I did mean the old Waterloo one that @Taunton mentioned as per quote below - but since his report was from 1977 I wondered if it still survived in 2022 - either in that restaurant or elsewhere, 45 year later?

In 1977 I went to Los Angeles, USA, and was taken to a railway-themed restaurant near Universal Studios called "Victoria Station". ...., there it was ... the old Waterloo wooden departure describer,

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Having now checked with a web search it looks like 'Victoria Station' was a chain of railway themed restaurants in the USA with one or two in the Los Angeles area and the chain is now closed - so I am assuming the former wooden Waterloo departure indicator is not there any more and may or may not have survived?


This suggests this LA one closed in 1997. I guess @Taunton would recall if this was the same place he saw that ex Waterloo indicator board in:

Assume they did go wrong, do remember one at Waterloo showing a 23.77 to Lymington Pier on one day in early 1990s. Was bit bemused why would even be able to show that as why have any number above 5 on the third digit?

Richard Scott said:

Assume they did go wrong, do remember one at Waterloo showing a 23.77 to Lymington Pier on one day in early 1990s. Was bit bemused why would even be able to show that as why have any number above 5 on the third digit?

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While they were very clear, the "non-failsafe" nature of them meant misleading wrong information could be and often was displayed if a flap got stuck as they often did.

The numbers were probably all just standard 0-9s.

The exile said:

Bristol TM (I think) The great advantage of them was that you couldn’t miss it when something changed!
Or was the Bristol one just final destinations ( like several others IIRC)
None of them were as fun (or as frustrating) as the snail’s pace East German ones…

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Moscow Sheremetyevo airport was another "final destination" example, for good reason, of course.

GZ

WesternLancer said:

This suggests this LA one closed in 1997. I guess @Taunton would recall if this was the same place he saw that ex Waterloo indicator board in:

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Yes, that's it. It must have been new when I first went there. Despite the restaurant chain's name it was indeed the Waterloo board they had. Much of the other UK memorabilia around the place was out of keeping for a purist as well (eg North Eastern Region tangerine totems), but in the USA that doesn't matter. Some of the coaches were indeed ex-Flying Scotsman USA tour, abandoned there when the loco returned.

I actually went through the various contacts in reverse order, first seeing it there, then some years later noticing the ad for it in an old Railway Magazine, and later again meeting professionally the contractor who had placed that ad, who did various building works for BR.

Victoria Station had a range of other outlets round the USA, though they seemed to be just franchised names, I never went to another one but they seemed to have just a couple of USA cabooses. The one in LA was the premier star of the group.

Taunton said:

Yes, that's it. It must have been new when I first went there. Despite the restaurant chain's name it was indeed the Waterloo board they had. Much of the other UK memorabilia around the place was out of keeping for a purist as well (eg North Eastern Region tangerine totems), but in the USA that doesn't matter. Some of the coaches were indeed ex-Flying Scotsman USA tour, abandoned there when the loco returned.

I actually went through the various contacts in reverse order, first seeing it there, then some years later noticing the ad for it in an old Railway Magazine, and later again meeting professionally the contractor who had placed that ad, who did various building works for BR.

Victoria Station had a range of other outlets round the USA, though they seemed to be just franchised names, I never went to another one but they seemed to have just a couple of USA cabooses. The one in LA was the premier star of the group.

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Thanks Taunton - interesting to read your further info.

I guess the memorabilia / railwayana there would have been either scrapped or sold off / given away when the restaurant closed, and no doubt the nature of the contractor involved in that process or the process itself / time-frame etc would have dictated what happened to it all.

Andy R. A. said:

All the main stations served on the scheduled services were included, and were altered every May for any new or withdrawn calling points. One year we lost Aintree and Windermere, and got Barmouth included for one of the Summer Sunday services.

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It's lost now, but I once came by a piece of the Euston flap indicator bearing the name "Long Buckley", for sale in the railway memorabilia shop near Euston station.
That would have been a misprint for "Long Buckby", and was presumably rejected before being fitted into the flap.

Were these things not like lego. lots of units fitted in a frame. So if one unit failed, it could be replaced with a spare, after having appropriate flaps fitted.

Taunton said:

Yes, that's it. It must have been new when I first went there. Despite the restaurant chain's name it was indeed the Waterloo board they had. Much of the other UK memorabilia around the place was out of keeping for a purist as well (eg North Eastern Region tangerine totems), but in the USA that doesn't matter. Some of the coaches were indeed ex-Flying Scotsman USA tour, abandoned there when the loco returned.

I actually went through the various contacts in reverse order, first seeing it there, then some years later noticing the ad for it in an old Railway Magazine, and later again meeting professionally the contractor who had placed that ad, who did various building works for BR.

Victoria Station had a range of other outlets round the USA, though they seemed to be just franchised names, I never went to another one but they seemed to have just a couple of USA cabooses. The one in LA was the premier star of the group.

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And I now recall that the chain spawned a Service Management case study at business school! Thanks for the reminder

GZ

whoosh said:

@ryan125hst I don't know the answer to your question, but I think you might find this thread interesting - in particular the linked post, of a Forum Poster having operated the Solari board at Euston:

Solari boards

When was the last Solari Board removed in the UK or is one still out there? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-51470599 The now-familiar design, with white numbers on black flaps, won the prestigious Compasso D'Oro award in 1956. In the same year, Solari sold its first moving sign to Liege...

www.railforums.co.uk

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Thanks whoosh, it looks as though they weren't always the most reliable of things but when they worked they would have been very useful for passengers.

Andy R. A. said:

The Solari Flaps were printed on the thin metal as things like Letraset would soon wear off with the constant turning over of the flaps. From my time at Euston when I operated the Solari Indicators I was able to keep a number of our old Repeater Flaps when they were changed, still displayed on my home office wall.
View attachment 115388View attachment 115389


It was possible on the Solari Indicators at Euston to use two boards for one train, especially those dividing on route. It was next to impossible to have every single station that could be served, but it was mostly the Additional trains or Excursions that were difficult to display (Besses o' th' Barn being a popular Excursion of the time which couldn't be displayed). The Main Flap for the Destination or Originating point was set as 'SPECIAL TRAIN' White on red, with the remarks column set at 'Please listen for announcements'. This was the case during the East Coast Penmaenshiel diversions of 1979 in and out of Euston, as Edinburgh and Aberdeen were not shown on any of the flaps. All the main stations served on the scheduled services were included, and were altered every May for any new or withdrawn calling points. One year we lost Aintree and Windermere, and got Barmouth included for one of the Summer Sunday services.

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I guess they were fine when everything was running as per timetable but diversions and terminating short couldn't easily be accomodated on them. It must have been difficult to keep passengers informed during significant distruption!

Nammer said:

I used to operate the departure boards at Portsmouth Harbour. You are correct in saying there were 40 flaps (00-39) in each 'destination' and 'calling at' module, one of which (00) was always blank. You had to programme in the flap number to get the calling points. It was quite a time consuming process, especially at timetable changeover! You had to programme in as best you could with all the available destinations and calling at points. Sometimes a new destination would need to be added and it would not be available, so the flaps would have to be ordered and they could take a month or so to be added. For this situation I used the 'Please listen to announcements' flap and put as many calling points in as I could. With those services it was imperative to make additional manual announcements. It wasn't an ideal situation but when the flap board indicators were replaced with 'Postfield' screens you could type in and show all information.

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Once they were programmed, did they updated themselves or did you have to keep removing information once a service had departed, move everything along and add a new service to the end etc?

At Portsmouth Harbour, each train was programmed in as its unique id (such as 1P16) - you had a 'post' option or 'clear' option - before you chose the 'post' option you could edit ie change platform number, add the Cancelled/Delayed flap, amend the calling points etc. The next departure would automatically select the next empty board. We had 5 boards at Portsmouth Harbour and 5 platforms (at that time!) so the information would arrange itself from Left to Right according to platform number.

ryan125hst said:

I guess they were fine when everything was running as per timetable but diversions and terminating short couldn't easily be accomodated on them. It must have been difficult to keep passengers informed during significant distruption!

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It's surprising but there were enough 'to go round'. Any of the suburban services would normally turn round at convenient points like Watford, Hemel Hempstead, Tring, Bletchley and Northampton. As trains already terminated at these places they had the flaps already on the Boards.
Long distance services tended to be diverted rather than terminated short. Back then there were the resources available to ensure there was a continuity of service. Birmingham services were often diverted via Nuneaton and Water Orton, missing out Coventry, but calling at Nuneaton for connections for Coventry. There were enough spaces to do these diversions, backed up with 'Please listen for announcements'. Also Single Line Working was resorted to where ever possible rather than bustitution. The only one I think we had any problem with was the occasional Holyhead service terminating at Llandudno Junction, which didn't have the main line flap destination, but did have it on the 'calling at' flaps. In this case you had to use the Red/White 'SPECIAL TRAIN' in the Destination flap, but could display all the normal calling points.
Manchester services could run via Crewe or Stoke, and I never recall any actually being terminated short of their destination.
Liverpool services were often diverted via Chester and Frodsham, or via Earlestown, but as these didn't affect the main calling points like Crewe and Runcorn it didn't affect the displays as such.
Glasgow services were often diverted via the Manchester area between Crewe and Preston, but once more this didn't affect the list of stops, other than blanking off the Wigan and Warrington flaps for those affected. The same applied for Settle and Carlisle diversions. It was removing calling points like Oxenholme and Penrith rather than needing others. To remove the calling points we often resorted to the un-official method of putting a piece of tape over the slots in the cards so the card reader wouldn't read those slots covered over.
I have about four years worth of day to day events covering numerous West Coast disruptions between 1975 and 1979 covered at https://www.facebook.com/WestCoastS...uDvVe2visxUcZf9hj4M8iNZd26h3KV1H5nEQEFGpY4SEl
This was just one day, you can find plenty more by scrolling through the various entries. I have just started on a new section covering the East Coast at Finsbury Park (1979-81), where the Solari flap indicators were operated through the Signalling train describers. Each little group of numbers would display the different calling points for each group of services.

Just bumping this thread to report that I was at Győr station in Hungary 2 days ago and it had Solari indicators still in use in the entrance hall, the platforms and the subway. I was going to post photos when I got back home but as it happens the latest video from Superalbs Travel posted today of a journey on the GySEV railway starts at Győr station and shows several views of the indicators, the best shot being at 2:10:

Also displayed in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, although it's an airport departure board.

MoMA artist page

Beebman said:

Just bumping this thread to report that I was at Győr station in Hungary 2 days ago and it had Solari indicators still in use in the entrance hall, the platforms and the subway. I was going to post photos when I got back home but as it happens the latest video from Superalbs Travel posted today of a journey on the GySEV railway starts at Győr station and shows several views of the indicators, the best shot being at 2:10:

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Here's a view from earlier this year...


Secaucus Junction station in New Jersey, USA also has some Solari boards.

43096 said:

Secaucus Junction station in New Jersey, USA also has some Solari boards.

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Surprising considering the station didn't open until 2003. I remember watching it being built.

Beebman said:

Just bumping this thread to report that I was at Győr station in Hungary 2 days ago and it had Solari indicators still in use

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They were in extensive use across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, at both railway stations and airports, and seemed to have had a heyday there in the 1980s, shortly before Perestroika, so much so that I suspect they were manufactured there, either by a Solari licencee or locally devised. I encountered various decrepit ones around Russia in the early 2000s.

Taunton said:

They were in extensive use across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, at both railway stations and airports, and seemed to have had a heyday there in the 1980s, shortly before Perestroika, so much so that I suspect they were manufactured there, either by a Solari licencee or locally devised. I encountered various decrepit ones around Russia in the early 2000s.

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Pragotron was a very large Czech manufacturer of them, though I can't say if they were licenced by Solari.

ryan125hst said:

I guess they were fine when everything was running as per timetable but diversions and terminating short couldn't easily be accomodated on them.

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The one at Birmingham New Street included Sandwell & Dudley as a possible destination which I always assumed was there purely for the reasons you suggest, to my knowledge no regular service has ever been timetabled to terminate there but the presence of a crossover less than a mile past the station would make it a convenient location to turn a service in an emergency.

There may well have been other similar locations but SAD is the one which sticks in my mind as it was my local station at the time.

The ones installed in Merseyrail’s underground stations were “future proofed” by having destinations such as Wigan and Preston already written onto flaps, that you briefly could see as they flipped over. 45 years later the indicators have been replaced, and Merseyrail still hasn’t been extended to those places.

lyndhurst25 said:

The ones installed in Merseyrail’s underground stations were “future proofed” by having destinations such as Wigan and Preston already written onto flaps, that you briefly could see as they flipped over. 45 years later the indicators have been replaced, and Merseyrail still hasn’t been extended to those places.

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Edinburgh Waverley had "Suburban Circle" available, which lost passenger service some 15 years before the Solari was installed!

Solari flap indicators, like the one at Waterloo, were indeed 40 flaps, but some others, such as Victoria, were Krone flap indicators which had 80 flaps. The Krone flaps were plastic, not aluminium like Solari. They were all silk screen printed. When it came to timetable changes the cost of printing new flaps could run into many £K. For some reason every 7th year there seemed to be a larger than usual number of changes meaning we had to order large numbers of blank flaps well beforehand. They came from Italy for Solari and arrived in wooden boxes similar to those used to box rifles and were quite heavy. Every year they were delayed in customs for further examination and we often had to go and watch customs staff open the boxes before we could take them to the printers.

Liverpool St had an Omega flap indicator board. In all - because there was a free text section which could display any message - it had 149,000 flaps. It also had the wrong computer, because the Russians invaded Afghanistan, but thats another story!

Tio Terry said:

It also had the wrong computer, because the Russians invaded Afghanistan, but thats another story!

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It's a story I'd be very interested to hear!

Cheshire Scot said:

High Level only, having info. re Low Level services on the main board is much more recent thing.

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Each platform (pl 10 and pl 11) in Queen St low level had its own flap type destination indicator from memory. They could show the destination of the first and second ("Next"?) trains. I think they showed the stops for the first train. There might have been 3 or four rows of flaps but only one column. I don't think they showed the departure time. The trains themselves had 2-digit route headcodes and these were shown in the public timetable. Despite all this information there were always questions on the westbound platform of whether any particular train was via Singer or Yoker. Some went via neither, instead going to Milngavie, which could baffle. I don't know when the Solari indicators were done away with. I think they still existed in the early 1980s, after the line from Partick through Central opened in 1979.

cadder toad said:

Each platform (pl 10 and pl 11) in Queen St low level had its own flap type destination indicator from memory. They could show the destination of the first and second ("Next"?) trains. I think they showed the stops for the first train. There might have been 3 or four rows of flaps but only one column. I don't think they showed the departure time. The trains themselves had 2-digit route headcodes and these were shown in the public timetable. Despite all this information there were always questions on the westbound platform of whether any particular train was via Singer or Yoker. Some went via neither, instead going to Milngavie, which could baffle. I don't know when the Solari indicators were done away with. I think they still existed in the early 1980s, after the line from Partick through Central opened in 1979.

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They were still there and in use in 1996:
(Link to photo on railscot, showing Solari mini-flapper train indicator board at Glasgow Queen Street Low Level in 1996)

hexagon789 said:

They were still there and in use in 1996:

Glasgow Queen Street Low Level - RAILSCOT

RailScot, a history of Railways with an emphasis on Scottish Railways. Photographs, maps, news, queries and more.

www.railscot.co.uk

(Link to photo on railscot, showing Solari mini-flapper train indicator board at Glasgow Queen Street Low Level in 1996)

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Slightly OT but before the Solari indicators at Queen St Low Level, I seem to remember a long horizontal grey glass box, almost the width of the platform. The destinations and stops were engraved on the glass and lights came on behind. The light shown thro the words illuminating them as appropriate. Some were lit in white and some in yellow but I don't remember the significance. Was yellow for the second train? Its shown on here.. https://www.railscot.co.uk/img/13/710/