Schutzengel station receives the latest train display panel

The SBB recently equipped the Schutzengel Stadtbahn station in Zug with two new display panels.

The SBB operates 2,100 platform indicators throughout the whole of Switzerland. It’s hardly imaginable, but true: the state railway previously operated these systems manually. With today's train density, this type of information presentation would no longer be conceivable. At one time, stations such as Zug Schutzengel were able to manage without a display panel at all.

The Schutzengel S-Bahn station (S-Bahn = city train) in Zug has now been given the honour of being the first station in the city of Zug to receive the latest generation of SBB display panels, which have been in use since summer 2017, and can accommodate five lines of information. This provides enough space to display all the stops as far as Cham. When asked, no one at SBB was able to explain exactly why Zug Schutzengel had received the new displays. Displays are normally replaced when they come to the end of their useful service. In applying this criterion, therefore, more display systems will also soon have to be replaced in the canton of Zug.

The new information panels at the Schutzengel S-Bahn station.

These more advanced information systems for train journeys were initially installed on the major Swiss east-west connection, with the first being put into operation by SBB in Fribourg in the summer of 2017. One advantage of the new generation is that they can provide significantly more information than the display panels that are still mostly in use today. The new panels are based on LCD technology. For many years, split-flap indicators were considered the latest thing, and the largest of these was the one placed in front of the railheads in Zurich's main railway station. The end of their era came in 2015.

In a media report in the summer of 2017,the SBB stated that this technology would also help to save energy. The latest generation of train departure indicators saves around 40% of energy compared to the split-flap indicators.

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