Keeping Swiss time

The famous SBB station clock, with its second hand in the form of a stylised red signalling disc, the approximately 1.5 second delayed jump to the minute, the tapered black blunt-ended hour and minute hands, the black lines indicating the hours and minutes in the Bauhaus style and the white clock face, is inseparably linked to SBB. No Swiss station could ever be envisioned without it.

The clock can be found more than 3’000 times across the country. Back in the 1940s when the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) was looking for a way to take advantage of their name for punctuality and incorporate this theme into their national image, they asked Hans Hilfiker, an SBB employee, engineer and prolific inventor, to come up with a highly visible clock that would not only form the basis of their later corporate identity, but it would help to guarantee on time departures as well.

Hilfiker, an exponent of products that were both functional and well designed, created the Railways’ masterpiece in 1944. The design, with its clear and easily read face, mimics the smooth running of the trains and incorporates clever features that demonstrate punctuality in a highly visible fashion.

Click here for a nifty Swiss Railway Clock iPhone App by Thomas Feger.
For some entertainment play a fun game with the SBB station clock: http://playingwithtime.sbb.ch