[harshaw]

There is a similar issue with the MBTA commuter rail in Boston. At south station, the signage in the main waiting area and at the platform only announce the train 10 minutes before departure.

However, there are a couple of tools to get around this. For Starters, each revenue service train has a number (like 508). In a push-pull system like the MBTA the first coach in the consist is nearest to to the platform. This coach has a number like 1827. Luckily, the MBTA publishes which trainsets will be assigned to which departures. This makes it easy to know that 1827 is for train 508. All you need to do is walk out to the platform and see if 1827 is sitting there.. if so it's your train. You can get this mapping of trainset to train via a bunch of apps.

This has been further expanded upon by micro-social apps like "MBTA Rail Tracker" which has a comment section for every train. The whole thread is basically "which platform" followed by a bunch of responses and then snarkiness on why the trains are horribly late all the time.