After my first visit to Switzerland, I knew I needed one of those clocks for my home. Unfortunately the ones available are cheap (though expensive) and don't have the second hand dwell at the top of each minute.
The central clock dependency is cool, but I wonder is there were any problems with latency -- like does the centralized electrical impulse reach a train station 10km away and another one at 20km at the same time? Did they factor that in?
Isn't that propagating with around the speed of light? Switzerland is only about 1 light ms wide so even if they only have one master clock instead of one per train station the latency should be negligible especially in the 1950s.
Mondaine also sells their Stop2Go collection, which is specifically designed to do the pause at 58 seconds
https://mondaine.com/collections/stop2go-watches
I remember when Apple just went and stole the Swiss railway clocks. See: https://www.techmonitor.ai/technology/apple-pays-21mn-to-swi...
Here is an original from a German station (in the design of the 1950ies):
https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/bahnhofsuhr/343129269...
After my first visit to Switzerland, I knew I needed one of those clocks for my home. Unfortunately the ones available are cheap (though expensive) and don't have the second hand dwell at the top of each minute.
I always thought I was just imagine a pause at the full minute.
Wait for it, wait for it... Click.
Aaaah.
The central clock dependency is cool, but I wonder is there were any problems with latency -- like does the centralized electrical impulse reach a train station 10km away and another one at 20km at the same time? Did they factor that in?
Isn't that propagating with around the speed of light? Switzerland is only about 1 light ms wide so even if they only have one master clock instead of one per train station the latency should be negligible especially in the 1950s.
The speed of light is copper wires is fast enough that you don't need to factor this in. At least not for human purposes.
I know the Swiss are known for punctuality and timekeeping, but I don’t think anyone is going to notice a 33μs delay to their train.