Mr Fogg’s Departure Board for Raspberry Pi

Project overview

This project involved designing and building a fullscreen digital departures board web app inspired by a vintage railway split-flap and station-board aesthetic. The goal was to create something visually distinctive enough for a hospitality venue or public-facing display, while still behaving like a practical live information screen in kiosk mode.

The app was built as a modern Next.js application with a server-side API route, a Figma-led implementation workflow and a layout tuned for 16:9 TV displays. It combines a heritage-style visual system with live rail departure data, automated pagination, status highlighting and a custom analog clock designed to match the board styling.

Rather than treating this as a generic dashboard, the work focused on recreating the feel of the Figma concept as closely as possible while also making the app stable enough to run continuously on a Raspberry Pi-powered Chromium kiosk. This kind of delivery sits closest to my work in front-end implementation, custom functionality development and ongoing technical support.

The challenge

The main challenge was combining pixel-accurate design work with real operational requirements. The interface needed to look refined and atmospheric, but also function reliably as a live departures display with minimal maintenance and no user interaction.

What was delivered

The project was delivered as a custom Next.js application using App Router, Tailwind CSS and TypeScript, with the interface implemented from a connected Figma file and refined through multiple visual correction passes. The work covered both front-end presentation and the supporting API layer required to fetch, cache and stabilise live departures data.

Core functionality included

Key architecture decisions

A key decision was to build the project as a compact custom application rather than a CMS-driven site or a more complex dashboard platform. That kept the codebase focused, made kiosk behaviour easier to control and allowed the board to remain visually precise.

Another important architectural choice was separating live data concerns from presentation. The departures board itself remains a display layer, while data fetching, caching and fallback handling live behind a dedicated API route. That separation makes the board easier to maintain, easier to test and safer to run in environments where live transport feeds are not always reliable.

Results and outcomes

The result is a custom digital departures board that feels visually distinctive and purpose-built rather than template-driven. It reproduces the atmosphere of the original design while also delivering the practical behaviour needed for a public-facing screen.

The final implementation supports live departures, automated updates, pagination, status signalling and kiosk display behaviour in a single focused application. It also created a reusable foundation for similar venue, hospitality or transport-themed display systems in future.

Technology used

The project was built with Next.js App Router, TypeScript and Tailwind CSS, using a custom server-side API route for data fetching and in-memory caching. The interface was implemented against a connected Figma file using MCP-based design context and asset extraction, and prepared for National Rail Darwin/LDBWS integration and Raspberry Pi Chromium kiosk deployment.

The work overlaps most closely with theme and front-end implementation, custom development and technical support for long-term maintenance.