I noticed yesterday, while travelling at high speed through the English countryside, how hard it is to read the names of train stations as they flash past at 120mph. This, I thought would be the perfect application for kinegrams. These are those clever pictures which look different when viewed from different angles. By creating a kinegram of the station's name, so that each part of the name was visible only when the kinegram was viewed from a specific angle and putting this kinegram along the front of the station's roof, the effect as you flash past in the train would be of the station's name being displayed on the station's roof, and travelling along it at the same speed as the train. This could also be done on the station platform itself, where it would make a nicely textured, grippy surface.-- hippo, Mar 31 2010 Zoetrope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoetrope [normzone, Apr 06 2010] Kinegram http://thinkzone.wl...negram/Kinegram.htm [normzone, Apr 06 2010] Baked-ish, as mentioned in my anno https://hackaday.co...prising-subway-ads/ [notexactly, Apr 08 2019] IIIIIIIII-- rcarty, Mar 31 2010 An alternative form of high-speed signage might be a zoetrope type assemblage with railings providing the shuttering and the parallax effect providing an offset image - together this might provide a means to display an apparently stationary message to the speeding traveller.-- zen_tom, Mar 31 2010 Engrave lateral ridges on the track, so the wheels speak the station name as you zoom through?-- pocmloc, Mar 31 2010 [ZT] I've seen several advertisments set up like that in subways. They have multiple images spaced along the sides of tunnels such that they produce a persistance of vision animated ad. Doing the smae thing with station names would be a good thing.-- MechE, Mar 31 2010 What about an electronic scrolling sign whose words scroll at slightly slower than the speed of the train?-- phundug, Apr 05 2010 I do like [pomloc]'s anno, but the entire train saying "the next station is [...]" would probably scare the willies out of me.
Also, there would be lots of echo - as each carriage has multiple wheels in contact with the track, and each wheel would pass over a specific section of the recording at different times. So, doubly scary - and a fantastic prank if you can get away with it.
The problem I see with the original halfbake is that generally one's viewing angle out of a train is fairly limited - it's hard to look more than a few degrees forward or back of 90 degrees straight out. Or up or down. I think [zen_tom]'s zoetrope would be more effective.-- BunsenHoneydew, Apr 06 2010 this went by so fast I missed it!! ++++-- xandram, Apr 06 2010 This is now done (with full-motion video) for advertising purposes [link], but I haven't heard of it being used for a purpose as pedestrian (err… transit rider) as station names.-- notexactly, Apr 08 2019 A train in England went 120 mph?
Ahh, 2010, they had proper trains back then...-- not_morrison_rm, Apr 09 2019 Mainline trains will often run at 120-140mph in the UK. Even in the US, there are three "high-speed" services that can reach 125mph.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 09 2019 random, halfbakery