On Mon, 20 Nov 2006, Donald Newcomb wrote:
> The comparison with Japan was that in large Japanese stations there
> will be a queue for a particular coach painted on the platform. [...]
> In Italy there may be a sign saying where a coach will be but it may
> actually be at the other end of the train.
There are NO "signs on the platform" (if you mean the platform FLOOR) in
Italy nor anywhere else in Europe I'm aware of. What there will be in
major stations in Italy, and more systematically elsewhere e.g. in
Germany are letters indicating platform SECTIONS (A/B/C/D/E/F). They
won't be painted on the floor, but hanging from the ceiling or
protruding from poles or pillars.
Then there will be a display (not systematically in Italy, depends on
station and Compartimento (which is not a train compartment, but a
regional railway "district"), more systematically in Germany where it is
called Wagenstandanzeiger) telling which car number goes in which
sections.
Car numbers may not be sequential, it is likely to be sequential for
fixed trainsets, but variable for long distance night trains often
arranged with through cars connected somewhere en route. I've seen
trains with car # 253 but it did not have 253 cars ! :-)
In most places car numbers are written on a sticker, in some cases on a
display (LCD or luminous). For instance in Denmakr on IC3 these displays
are reprogrammable. I remember I had a booking for a given car, and when
the train arrived there was no car with such number. Passengers got off,
then doors were closed, displays were blanked out with some notice
saying they were cleaning the cars, then reprogrammed with new (non
sequential) numbers (for some reasons the numbers seemed to refer to
half-car sections on either sides of the doors), and only then doors
opened again. This occurred at the terminal station of the train.
--
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