NOTE This project has been parked and won't be developed further (bar fixes).
Go to The new version using Staff Data.
Why is this being parked? A great first iteration, however limited by the data available via the Public Departure Board API and required a re-write to optimise performance so the Staff API (which provides much more detail) could be used.
However Do try this out - it works and is great fun. And you can run this instead of or alongside the new version.
A way to build your own HUB75 RGB matrix train departure board powered by a Raspberry Pi.
Configurable via a light-weight web-page or the command line.
You can select:
- All trains from a station
- All trains from a station on a specified platform
- All trains from a station to a specified destination
- Or combinations of the above
- Whether to show message.
- Frequency of display update
- Many other options...
Default display:
- The next train with calling points, operator and formation
- The following two departures - destination and departure times
- Any delay-related messages and cancellation reasons
- Operator and number of coaches for 1st departure
Options to display
- Location
- Departure platform
- Estinated departure time for calling points
- Any National Rail messages for the station
Components are a Raspberry Pi 4, a matrix-adapter (Adafruit RGB matrix bonnet), some RGB matrices and a power-supply.
There are some limitations with using this hardware which I suspect don't apply to commercially-available units.
However for the cost it's a great result!
Being a life-long train fan I've always wanted my own departure board, and as a regular commuter one which shows my usual route.
Over the years I've looked at flip-dot displays and various other types and saw LED dot-matrix displays become available for purchase.
These look amazing... however the price is offputting, as is the monthly-subscription some require.
My thought - "How hard can it be".
And here we are.
- Three P2, 5V, 128*64 pixel colour modules with a HUB75E interface from Ali Express
- A 1GB Raspberry Pi 4 from Pimoroni
- Adafruit RGB Matrix Bonnet for Raspberry Pi from Pimoroni
- A 5V power-supply capable of delivering at least 5 Amps
I purchased three P2, 5V, 128*64 pixel colour modules with a HUB75E interface from Ali Express.
Three is a good size and three is limit for a chain of panels with the matrix library I used. However you could have up to three rows of three.
There are a myriad sellers on Ali Express and elsewhere. I suspect there's little to differentiate between offerings.
You could purchase a 1GB Raspberry Pi 4 from Pimoroni - I'm not plugging Pimoroni, it's just they also stock the Bonnet.
I used a Raspberry Pi 4 which was unloved and needed a new purpose.
Note that the RGB matrix library doesn't yet work with a Pi 5. I'll update when it does as the increased power of the Pi 5 will be welcome!
This project was built with an Adafruit RGB Matrix Bonnet for Raspberry Pi from Pimoroni
Specification on the Adafruit site.
If there are other mechanisms which folk can recommend then let me know!
Most sellers provide these with the matrix panels. If you're making your own then your mantra has to be "Short Is Good".
I used a bench-top adjustable power supply to provide 5v and up to 5A for the matrix boards and the Raspberry Pi.
The nature of the panels means that current can vary quite wildly. For the departure board with three panels it runs at about 1.5A to 2.0A.
I'd recommend getting something substantial as the "all pixels on" power is just around 3.5A with my configuration... and let's face it, you're going to want to play about with it!
The Words about power in the RGB Matrix documentation is worth a read.
I'd highly recommend reading the detail on the hzeller rpi-rgb-led-matrix - Let's Do It! documentation as it answers every question you can think of. It's an awesome resource and fabulous software. More of that below!
Details below are for the Adafruit Bonnet
For other adapters see the RGB Matrix - wiring documentation.
As highlighted here in the RGB documentation, an optional change to connect pins 4 and 18 on the hat/bonnet.
I did this by soldering a row of pins to the bonnet and using a modified connector to make it easy to add/remove the modification.
As highlighted here in the RBG documentation, a change required for the size and type of panels I used.
As a side note, I had to chop some pins off a connector on the Pi as they hit the bonnet - I suspect I may regret that at some point when the Pi gets used for something else.
Only thing to watch for is to make sure that your ribbon cables are short and connect from 'Outputs' to 'Inputs' (should be labelled or have an arrow on the matrix boards
Noting the advice about power in the RGB Matrix documentation.
Connect to the panels and the 5v screw-connectors on the Adafruit bonnet to power to the Raspberry Pi.
As noted in the documentation, the Raspberry Pi doesn't have enough juice to power the panels.
A chance to be creative!
To get you started I've provided a very basic solution to 3D print joiners.
You can set the key parameters to create a joiner specific to your panels.
More detail in the Joiner Directory
There are more tutorials than you can shake a stick at on how to install an OS on a Raspberry Pi.
Use the 'OS Lite (64bit)' to maximise CPU cycles the matrix driver can use. Set up ssh and Wifi in the Raspberry Pi Imager tool.
Once installed there was the usual upgrade/update and disable/uninstall anything unecessary.
I would strongly recommend following using a minimal raspbian distribution for more detail.
What is described what I did in March 2025. Detail in the rpi-rgb-matrix repository will be the most recent recommendations.
- Set
dtparam=audio=offin/boot/firmware/config.txt - Add
isolcpus=3to the end of the parameters in/boot/firmware/cmdline.txtto isolate a CPU. - Example -
console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=PARTUUID=9f23843a-02 rootfstype=ext4 fsck.repair=yes rootwait cfg80211.ieee80211_regdom=GB isolcpus=3 - Remove unecessary services with
sudo apt-get remove bluez bluez-firmware pi-bluetooth triggerhappy pigpio
run lsmod and to check for the snd_bcm2835 module.
Example:
$lsmod | grep snd_bcm2835
snd_bcm2835 24576 0
snd_pcm 139264 5 snd_bcm2835,snd_soc_hdmi_codec,snd_compress,snd_soc_core,snd_pcm_dmaengine
snd 110592 6 snd_bcm2835,snd_soc_hdmi_codec,snd_timer,snd_compress,snd_soc_core,snd_pcm
If it's there then blacklist it:
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rgb-matrix.conf
blacklist snd_bcm2835
EOF
sudo update-initramfs -u
Then reboot - sudo reboot to get a nice clean and sparkly install.
Note At the rsk of stating the obvious, when adding options to cmdline.txt put them on the same line as the existing arguments. No newlines allowed.
In no particular order:
- Git -
sudo apt install git. - JSON for modern C++ -
sudo apt install nlohmann-json3-dev. - curl (should be there already) -
sudo apt install libcurl4. - curl C++ wrappers -
sudo apt install libcurlpp-dev.
Take a clone of the RPI RGB Matrix repository - git clone https://github.com/hzeller/rpi-rgb-led-matrix.
Compile the library
cd rpi-rgb-matrix
make
A pre-emptive read of the Troubleshooting section will help you get ahead of issues.
Enjoy the demos in the examples-api-use directory.
If you've got the configuration described here then you can start with this:
sudo ./demo -D9 --led-rows=64 --led-cols=128 --led-chain=3 --led-gpio-mapping=adafruit-hat
Have fun!
There are two options - as far as I can tell the data available via both feeds is the same.
This is the easiest of the two options.
Go to raildata.org.uk and register.
It's likely you'll fall into the Individual not affiliated with a company category.
Once you've got your acccount set up you need to subscribe to the data feed.
The easiest way to find this is via the Data Products Catalogue. From here search for Live Departure Board.
The one you need is published by the Rail Delivery Group.
Don't use the 'Staff Version' as that isn't compatible with this software.
The landing page for the Live Departure Board data has a Specifications tab.
On that tab you'll find the API access credentials - you need the Consumer key.
Press the Copy button and drop it into the APIKey field in config.txt.
Note Make sure there are no spaces in the configuration - APIkey=123456aVeryLongString.
Note Be sure to set Rail_Data_Marketplace=Yes in the configuration file.
This is more complex as the API uses SOAP - not ideal for C++ - so a proxy is required.
Huxley2 is a cross-platform JSON proxy for the GB railway Live Departure Boards SOAP API.
More detail on this site which includes a demo server.
I've created a fork of Huxley2 for running locally on a raspberry Pi - Huxley 2 for Raspberry Pi - or you can run on Azure.
With the monochrome configuration below a install on the Raspberry Pi used for the RGB matrix doesn't affect performance.
Download and build from this repository
git clone https://github.com/jonmorrissmith/RpiTrainDisplay
cd RpiTrainDisplay
chmod 755 setup.sh
./setup.sh
This will build the software, create config files and ensure permissions are correctly set on directories.
Start the UI server
./run.sh
You should see:
Starting server on port 80...
Which means you can go to http://<IP address of your Raspberry Pi> and start using your display!
Set the following in the UI
from \\ The station whose departures you want to show
to \\ Leave blank for all departures or populate for a specific destination
platform \\ Leave blank for all platforms or populate for a specific platform
ShowCallingPointETD \\ If set to Yes will display departure times after each calling point
ShowMessages \\ If set to Yes will display Network Rail message for your departure station
ShowPlatforms \\ If set to Yes will display the platform for the departures
ShowLocation \\ If set ('from') will display at the bottom (alternate with Messages)
APIURL \\ full URL for Network Rail data (i.e with the https:// header)
APIkey \\ Any API key you need to use (applied using x-apikey:)
Rail_Data_Marketplace \\ If set to Yes will use the Rail Data Marketplace URL (and over-ride APIURL).
fontPath \\ Path to fonts - you can use the matrix package (/home/<your username>/rpi-rgb-led-matrix/fonts/7x14.bdf)
scroll_slowdown_sleep_ms=15 \\ Lower the number, the faster the scroll
refresh_interval_seconds=60 \\ How often the API is called to refresh the train data
third_line_refresh_seconds=10 \\ How often the third line switches between 2nd and 3rd departure
Message_Refresh_interval=20 \\ How often any Network Rail messages are shown
ETD_coach_refresh_seconds=4 \\ How often the top right switches between ETD and number of coaches
matrixcols=128 \\ Number of columns in an LED matrix panel
matrixrows=64 \\ Number of rows in an LED matrix panel
matrixchain_length=3 \\ Number of panels you've got chained together
matrixparallel=1 \\ Number of chains you've got running in parallel
matrixhardware_mapping=adafruit-hat-pwm \\ The hardware adapter you're using to connect the Pi to the LED matrix
gpio_slowdown=2 \\ Sometimes the Pi is too fast for the matrix. Fiddle with this to get the right setting.
first_line_y=12 \\ pixel-row for the first line of text
second_line_y=29 \\ pixel-row for the second line of text
third_line_y=46 \\ pixel-row for the third line of text
fourth_line_y=62 \\ pixel-row for the fourth line of text
Scroll to the bottom and click on Save and Restart.
This saves your configuration (to 'config.txt') and (re)starts the display.
You can Save as Default and Rest to Default to allow you to revert changes.
It's unlikely that you'll need to change these, but they're available if you need to.
Detail of the parameters is available in the RGB Matrix documentation.
led-multiplexing
led-pixel-mapper
led-pwm-bits
led-brightness
led-scan-mode
led-row-addr-type
led-show-refresh
led-limit-refresh
led-inverse
led-rgb-sequence
led-pwm-lsb-nanoseconds
led-pwm-dither-bits
led-no-hardware-pulse
led-panel-type
led-daemon
led-no-drop-privs
led-drop-priv-user
led-drop-priv-group
Simply remove the -d option from the Executable_command_line line in ui-config.txt
Change the port in ui-config.txt.
Note that the executable needs root to access the RGB matrix.
You can edit config.h to hard-code values for parameters which are in config.txt
If you do this then it's easiest to run
make clean
make
which will recompile the executable with your defaults.
Five options all of which also support a '-d' option for debugging information
Use the hard-coded configuration in the executable
sudo ./traindisplay
Use the hard-coded configuration in the executable and specify origin
sudo ./traindisplay SAC
Use the hard-coded configuration in the executable and specify origin and destination
sudo ./traindisplay SAC STP
Use the configuration file
sudo ./traindisplay -f <config file>
Combination of the above
sudo ./traindisplay SAC STP -f <config file> -d
RGB Matrix Issues
Software Issues
The most fragile part of the software is the parser.
You can test this using software included in the distribution built using make parser_test.
Running traindisplay with the debug flag dumps results from API calls into the tmp directory.
You can test the parser against this data using ./parser_test -data /tmp/traindisplay_payload.json.
Other options are available:
Usage: ./parser_test -data <string> [-platform <string>] [-clean <string>] [-f <string>] [-debug <string>]
-data <filename.json> json data file
-platform <string> select a platform
-clean <y/n> remove whitespace
-f <filename.txt> file (not currently in use)
-debug <y/n> switch on debug info in the parser code
Feel free to raise an Issue here and I'll try to help - attach your config.txt and debug.txt created using
./parser_test -data /tmp/traindisplay_payload.json -debug y > debug.txt