Grand Central Terminal Replaces Old-School Train Information Boards

April 30, 2019

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2 min read

Grand Central Terminal Replaces Old-School Train Information Boards

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Grand Central's historic terminal is losing a little of its Old World charm.

The iconic train station's schedule information boards, which show the times and platforms for all departing trains, are going completely digital. The current boards are LCD screens designed to look like the flipboards of a bygone era. But even those screens are further digitizing.

On Monday, officials unveiled the first digital screen. The new track schedules are part of New York's Metro-North "Way Ahead" initiative, according to WABC. The initiative is a push to keep the trains modern for the growing number of riders on Metro-North, which operates trains to upstate New York.

Here you can see the old and new boards side by side:

The LCD signs replaced the original flipboards in the mid-90s, WABC reports, and before that, train times were written by hand in chalk.

Grand Central Station is known for the Beaux-Arts architecture of its main terminal, which was built in 1871 and sees 750,000 people pass through it every day.