E-Ink Train Schedule Display

E-Ink Display for Train Schedule Information

We built a small wireless display system for showing live train schedule information at the Kaeserberg museum. The display updates automatically as trains move around the layout.

The hardware is a Raspberry Pi Pico W connected to a Waveshare 2.13” e-paper screen, housed in a custom 3D-printed enclosure. The firmware is written in MicroPython and subscribes to an MQTT topic for updates. When new data arrives, only the changed areas of the screen are refreshed, which reduces flicker and extends battery life.

E-ink was the right choice for this context. The displays are readable in direct light without a backlight, draw almost no power when static, and fit naturally into a museum environment without looking like consumer electronics.

The firmware handles WiFi reconnection and uses exponential backoff to recover from network interruptions without manual intervention. The font rendering is a custom bitmap implementation, sized for readability at a normal viewing distance.