PowerBook 145B!
Station Villa-Maria, Métro de Montréal
❤️🧡💛

#MontrealMetro #PowerBook #VintageApple #VintageMac

Long shot but—
Any leads on data archives of the content being shown on the Montréal Métro Télécité displays from 1991 to 2015?

It was such a unique medium [see links below] but now it's gone.
Would be so nice to dig up those files and run them on an emulator, a modern recreation or even better: on real hardware.

Those tri-colour (orange, red and green) LED matrix displays were pretty advanced for their time, featuring fluid animations. Even the ads were so unique as they had to be custom. But it was more than ads! There was news, weather, tidbits, fun facts, trivia and even poetry to pass the time. For close to 25 years, it was such an integral part of riding the Métro.

Installed in 1991 and acquired by Alstom in 1999, the system was then sold to other transit systems around the world. It was apparently one of the first of its kind.

The custom content was phased out as the newer (MPM-10) trains were put in service. Télécité displays are still in use on the old MR-73 trains, where they're kept at their minimum: showing the date and time, announcing stations and their connections as well as any service announcements.

In the 1990s, it introduced itself with this cool animation:
"Vous regardez: [logo swoosh swoosh swoosh] Télécité, les afficheurs électroniques du Métro"

In the 2000s, it became:
"Alstom Télécité, média électronique du Métro"

I only found a few newspaper articles mentioning it despite it being so ubiquitous for over two decades. There's only a handful of videos of it on the internet (mostly > 2009, when people started having video cameras in their pocket).

📹 Footage from 2010:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPAaiT0lnBY

🔠 Artist William Gamache recreated the font in 2017 (but never released it, AFAIK):
https://www.behance.net/gallery/52783015/Prochaine-Station

📺 Gamache also made an animation that can only be found on the MR-73 English Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MR-73#Automated_announcements_and_visual_information

📷 Left: Picture by me, last Thursday on the Blue line; right: screenshot from footage above.

#STM #STCUM #Subway #Montreal #Metro #MontrealMetro #Alstom #Telecite #PublicTransit #MR73

#montrealmetro #60s #montreal

Station LaSalle.

#Montreal #MontrealMetro #photography #UrbanPhotography #transit #metro

They seem to like building arch overpasses in the stations.

#Montreal #MontrealMetro #photography #UrbanPhotography #transit #metro

Bonaventure Station.

#Montreal #MontrealMetro #photography #UrbanPhotography #transit #metro

Direction: Côte-Vertu

#Montreal #MontrealMetro #photography #UrbanPhotography #transit #metro

🚇 In case you missed it over the weekend, new on the blog: “Station Stories: Radisson” https://heliomass.com/posts/2416-station-stories-radisson/

#Montreal #transit #architecture #MontrealMetro

🚇 Station Stories: Radisson – https://heliomass.com/posts/2416-station-stories-radisson/

New on the blog today, we take a look at some of my favourite station architecture. But dig beneath the service and we find all is not perfect...

#Montreal #transit #MontrealMetro #Brutalism #architecture

Métro Préfontaine is so beautiful! I love that you can see the sky from the platform level. #Montreal #transit #MontrealMetro

Let’s all take a moment to appreciate how Université-de-Montréal is a hidden gem of a station on the Montreal Metro.

I’m especially a fan of the lovely pocket park which sits in front of the station entrance.

#Montreal #MontrealMetro #transit #architecture

STM investigates ‘dangerous’ online video stunts inside metro cars
Montreal's transit agency is investigating after videos on TikTok appear to show thrill seekers breaking into the rear operator cabin of trains where the car control panel is.
#globalnews #Traffic #MontrealMetro #Montrealtransit #STM
https://globalnews.ca/news/10522569/video-trend-montreal-transit-metro-cars/

STM investigates ‘dangerous’ online video stunts inside metro cars
Montreal's transit agency is investigating after videos on TikTok appear to show thrill seekers breaking into the rear operator cabin of trains where the car control panel is.
#globalnews #Traffic #MontrealMetro #Montrealtransit #STM
https://globalnews.ca/news/10522569/video-trend-montreal-transit-metro-cars/

OK, so I re-read the last article I’d read on this (dated Feb 2024: https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/2024-02-03/metro-rosemont/des-enjeux-de-securite-dans-le-terminus-tout-neuf.php)

And it seems the issue was with falling objects in general, not just ice.

Again, an architecture award given but essentially it’s a badly designed building which has resulted in a vital transit hub being unusable.

#Montreal #Rosemont #MontrealMetro #transit

In hyperlocal transit news, the bus station at Rosemont is *still* not open, after what now feels like years.

The last I’d heard it remained closed due to the risk of falling ice, a design flaw in the new building above.

Yet we’re well past the winter weather now and still no sign of reopening.

The building did win an architecture award, so we can all take comfort in that at least?

#Montreal #Rosemont #MontrealMetro #transit

⏪ Tuesday rewind!

Ⓜ️ Station Stories: Peel – https://heliomass.com/posts/2402-station-stories-peel/

(more episodes of this series coming soon!)

#Montreal #MontrealMetro #transit #architecture #brutalism

Montreal commuters can now reload OPUS cards with a smartphone. Here’s how
Chrono accepts debit, credit cards, Apple Pay and Google pay as payment methods for Montreal public transit users to purchase passes online.
#globalnews #Tech #MontrealMetro #Montrealpublictransit
https://globalnews.ca/news/10415094/montreal-public-transit-opus-cards-smartphone/

Montreal metro gets new security plan amid rise in safety concerns
Montreal's transit authority is deploying special constables and other safety employees in teams of four to monitor the 10 stations where riders have most reported feeling unsafe.
#globalnews #Canada #MontrealMetro #STM #TransitSafety
https://globalnews.ca/news/10414704/montreal-metro-new-security-plan/

Montreal metro gets new security plan amid rise in safety concerns
Montreal's transit authority is deploying special constables and other safety employees in teams of four to monitor the 10 stations where riders have most reported feeling unsafe.
#globalnews #Canada #MontrealMetro #STM #TransitSafety
https://globalnews.ca/news/10414704/montreal-metro-new-security-plan/

Montreal metro gets new security plan amid rise in safety concerns
Montreal's transit authority is deploying special constables and other safety employees in teams of four to monitor the 10 stations where riders have most reported feeling unsafe.
#globalnews #Canada #MontrealMetro #STM #TransitSafety
https://globalnews.ca/news/10414704/montreal-metro-new-security-plan/