qwilpen / uk-train-departure-display

A balenaCloud Raspberry Pi app to display replica near real-time UK railway station departure data on SSD1322 screens.

Balena UK Train Departure Display (next train indicator)

A set of python scripts to display replica near real-time UK railway station departure data on SSD1322-based 256x64 SPI OLED screens. Uses the publicly available Transport API. This project has been developed and simplified based on the work of others to run on the balenaCloud platform.

• Installation
• Configuration
• Hardware
• Credits

Installation

Running this project is as simple as deploying it to a balenaCloud application. You can do it in just a few clicks by using the button below:

Alternatively, sign up, add an application and device as per the getting started guide. Then use the balena CLI to push the project to your Pi.

This allows you to easily deploy multiple devices and configure them from the dashboard with the following variables which will then automatically generate the config.json file required.

There is also a full writeup on the balena blog.

Configuration

Sign up for the Transport API, and generate an app ID and API key (note the free tier has a limit of 1000 requests a day).

These environment variables are specified using the balenaCloud dashboard, allowing you to set up mutiple signs in one application for different stations.

Key	Example Value
TZ	Europe/London (timezone)
departureStation	PAD (station code)
destinationStation	HWV (station code) [optional] Filters trains shown to only those that call at this station
outOfHoursName	London Paddington (name shown when current time is outside the transportApi_operatingHours)
refreshTime	120 (seconds between data refresh)
transportApi_apiKey	798c7ddfdeadbeef87987e9a8e79 (transport API key)
transportApi_appId	12345678 (transport API application ID)
transportApi_operatingHours	8-22 (hours during which the data will refresh at the interval above)

Hardware

This project (without modification) requires the use of a SSD1322-based 256x64 SPI display, an OLED in yellow for the authentic look. I have used displays from AliExpress successfully.

The connections for one of these displays to the Raspberry Pi GPIO header are as follows, but it would be a good idea to check the connections with the datasheet of your particilar display before powering on as there's no guarantee yours will match the pinout of mine.

Display	Connection	Raspberry Pi
1	Ground	6 (Ground)
2	V+ (3.3V)	1 (3v3 Power)
4	D0/SCLK	23 (BCM11 SCLK)
5	D1/SDIN	19 (BCM10 MOSI)
14	DC (data/command select)	18 (BCM24)
15	RST (reset)	22 (BCM25)
16	CS (chip select)	24 (BCM8 CE0)

Case

There are .stl 3D models for a case available in the assets directory.

Credits

A big thanks to Chris Hutchinson who originally started this project and inspired me to develop it further. Blake made some further improvements and this project was forked from there.

The fonts used were painstakingly put together by DanielHartUK and can be found on GitHub at https://github.com/DanielHartUK/Dot-Matrix-Typeface - A huge thanks for making that resource available!