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Does the original clock pause? If so, why?

There is an explanation in the Wikipedia article about the clock (written yesterday). The reason is to give some extra time to close the doors, and to also give the clocks a bit of more room to synchronize with the central clock.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock

Ah, thank you, I just read that not a minute ago from another poster's answer. It didn't mention the doors, though.

Wow, so the trains don't run on time, so they make the time run on the trains?

Not really. The second hand takes 58.5 second to move the entire circle at constant speed if I recall correctly. Then it stops for 1.5 seconds before it starts moving again. During that 1.5 second pause you close the doors of the trains. So it is more a method of synching the closing of the doors with the clock rather than actually gaining any time.

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