On Mon, 5 Oct 1998 Dick Hewetson <Dhewetson@aol.com> wrote:
> Can someone tell me which is correct, the destination on car or the
> destination on the electronic sign at the platform? Today I boarded an M
> train at Castro. The two cars wre plainly marked "SF State". The electronic
> signs read "Balboa Park". As I was only going to West Portal, it made no
> difference. However, the next time it might.
I've grown to not trust the electronic signs much, lately.
Often, they are not "in sync" with the trains, especially at
the Embarcadero station, where they are behind one or two trains.
In addition, there is some sort of "dial" (any drivers, please
help me out here) that tells the computer what route the train
is. When the dispatcher at Embarcadero tells a driver to
change it's route (it happens sometimes), the overhead
sign often still has the original route. The worst I've seen:
when I was monitoring Embarcadero on the 28'th last month,
at 6:04 pm, the train sign said "K", the overhead sign said
"J", and the driver anonounced he was running the train as
an "M" (and this was 34 minutes since the last "K"!)
So, if we can't trust the train sign OR the overhead sign,
what CAN we trust?
Till later,
Ken Parker