Swiss Railway Precision: A week on the wrist with the Mondaine Evo2 SBB Automatic reference MSE.40610.

Most watch collector/accumulator-types I know have a brand that they’re always interested in but never manage to connect with. One such brand for me is Mondaine. From time to time on my watch journey I check in with this independent Swiss brand, drawn to the handsome Swiss rail station clock looks, mid-century Modern design, and happy associations with my own past travels through Switzerland. But it seems like whenever I’ve looked seriously at them, the magic evaporated for one picky reason or another. Well, I’m happy to let you know that Mondaine has restored order and balance to the universe, mine at least, with the lovely and completely new Evo2 SBB Automatic. When Mondaine reached out to let me know about this new line of automatics, I jumped at the chance to do a week-on-the-wrist review.

The new Evo2 SBB Automatic from Mondaine.

The Swiss Federal Railway dates to 1902, but if you’ve never looked into why the iconic Swiss rail station clock looks the way it does, the appearance may be a little mysterious to you. Switzerland is a nation of four official languages—German, French, Italian, and Romansh. The railroad company’s name is translated into German as Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (abbreviated SBB), into French as Chemins de fer fédéraux suisses (abbreviated CFF), and into Italian as Ferrovie federali svizzere (abbreviated FFS). The railway is therefore often referred to by any of these abbreviations, and sometimes all three taken together: SBB CFF FFS, with English speakers very commonly using just the shortened SBB. I have no idea why the Romansh name for the railway is not officially used. If you’re Swiss and you know why, please get in touch. :)

The Evo2 SBB with its third cousin twice removed, a Swiss Rail-issued Victorinox Technician.

Hans Hilfiker’s original design. Image compliments of Mondaine Watches.

The official Swiss railway clock was designed in 1944 by Hans Hilfiker, an engineer and employee of Swiss Federal Railways, but the sweep seconds hand wasn’t added until 1953. What makes the clock’s design so captivating and unique isn’t just its appearance; its function is very special too. Swiss trains depart on the full minute, and the sweep hand has been designed to traverse the 360 degree clock face in 58 seconds. When it reaches 12 it pauses for two seconds, the minutes hand increments itself one full minute, and the cycle repeats itself. The exaggerated lollipop shape of the red seconds hand was intended to work in concert with its own stop-action to be readily discernible by railway staff responsible for dispatching trains. Brilliant.

All of the clocks in a station are synchronized, which was a technological innovation in its own right at the time. Image compliments of Mondaine watches.

Now on to Mondaine, a family-owned company founded in 1951, which has licensed the official Swiss railways clock design from SBB since 1986. Incredibly, the original officially-licensed watch Mondaine produced used a movement that recreated this stop-for-two-seconds-at-12 action. The watch went out of production in 2001, when Mondaine introduced an updated model that was the first Evo. However, Mondaine still today offers a quartz version called the Stop2Go, which reproduces this action with a sweeping seconds hand powered by a very special quartz (!) movement. The company also owns the Luminox brand, and both Mondaine and Luminox watches are produced in Switzerland in modern factories with completely offset carbon footprints.

The cheerful red strap matches the red lollipop sweep hand perfectly.

When I took the Evo2 out of its very clever and simple packaging, which wonderfully echos the original SBB clock design elements, I was immediately impressed with the apparent quality of the watch. A fresh 40 mm case, sapphire crystal, and tastefully signed crown are the first details that jump out. Closer consideration reveals that the case is in fact a very special shape; I’d use the word space saucer to describe it except that the top surface is perfectly flat. There is absolutely no dome to the crystal, and the case doesn’t appear to use a bezel to hold it down either, so the combined effect is more like a handle-less sauce pan than a flying saucer.

The perfectly flat, bezel-less case and cheerfully signed crown of the Evo2 SBB.

The perfectly integrated lugs are short, straight, and simple, locating the strap bars at the bottom of the assembly, so there is plenty of clearance for your favorite straps. The caseback appears to snap on, although I couldn’t identify any sort of recess to get a case knife into it for removal. The completed assembly is wonderfully smooth and streamlined, with an apparent simplicity that belies a thoughtful complexity. I absolutely love the crown, with its beautiful dash of red and Mondaine M logo. I did find it a bit slippery and hard to grip when winding; however, this is literally my only complaint about the watch, and it is an automatic, after all, so “winding feel” wouldn’t have been my primary goal if I were designing it myself, either.

Plenty of clearance for your favorite straps with the Evo2 SBB.

Unlike Max Bill and the famous watch he designed for Junghans, Hans Hilfiker presumably never envisioned his design being used as a wristwatch, so he probably never concerned himself with case shape and crown design. Which brings us to the dial and handset, the ultimate details of this lovely watch and probably the reason you would feel compelled to pick it up and try it on at a shop. And here again we see the hallmark of design perfection — an apparent simplicity that is, in fact, the result of careful, considered, and inspired human brilliance. The hands are straight and blocky affairs with squared-off ends, but look closer and you’ll see they are not rectangles. They taper very slightly but purposefully, with the end of the minute hand exactly filling the space between minute markers on the dial. When I realized this for myself, it was a small thrill to put this together with what I knew about the original function of SBB station clocks. Of course it had to be this way on the watch; anything else would have been wrong.

Dial and handset are industrial design perfection.

I could live without the date window, but then again it’s hardly what I’d call a nuisance, being pure white against a pure white dial. Consistent with Hilfiker’s original design, the Evo2 SBB’s hour indices are all the same shape and size, so I suppose you could also argue that the date aperture gives your eye some quick orientation when telling the time at a glance. For me, the super cool Mondaine and Swiss Federal Railway logos, the latter being reproduced in miniature detail just below the former, are sufficient for this purpose. I will say it would be nice if Mondaine offered a non-date option for customers who prefer the purest manifestation of Hilfiker’s original design, but hey, I’m also a Hamilton and Longines fan, so I get it.

Flipping the watch over reveals a see-through crystal, giving us a look at the workings of the Sellita SW200-1 movement inside. It’s minimally finished, and doesn’t even have a custom rotor. But at the price point, who cares? Where an experienced collector may fail to see the point of showing off such a movement, it’s not like you’re forced to look at it, and at the price Mondaine charges for this watch, I can easily imagine it finding itself onto the wrists of new collectors in the form of graduation or first-real-job gifts. And in that circumstance I’d think the see-through caseback would be a very interesting feature. Interestingly, Mondaine’s website says the case is water resistant to 3 atmospheres but the caseback itself claims 5 atm.

It should be obvious that the dial and hands are utterly devoid of luminescence, as the Evo2 SBB is certainly not pretending to be a tool watch. It’s tempting to think about Mondaine fitting the watch with a fully lumed dial, the time being told quite easily by reverse contrast à la the Damasko DA47. But here I think we might be diverging too far from its true intent, which is to be a beautiful time-telling specimen of industrial design on your wrist, signaling to the world that you are a person of discerning taste who values thoughtful and classic design. And with the Luminox brand in Mondaine’s stable, it’s not like they don’t offer a pretty satisfactory tool watch already.

The right tool for package opening duty.

The watch Mondaine sent me came on a playfully bright red leather strap, but it is also offered on a handsome black strap and a mesh bracelet, either of which would seem to give it a slightly more serious look and feel. The watch is also offered in a “petite” 35 mm case size, which is otherwise proportionally identical. And for fans of all things Swiss rail, the compatibly designed wall clocks have got to be of interest.

The bright red strap lends a playful character to the Mondaine Evo2 SBB.

The red leather strap was not for me, so I ended up wearing the Evo2 SBB on a Rover Haven Arts & Crafts strap in Horween’s Cognac color. I could also see it on a black shell cordovan strap with red stitching, and I think this watch would do really well on a one-piece nylon pull-thru strap in black or red, too. I truly enjoyed my week on the wrist with the Mondaine Evo2 SBB. When you consider the design heritage of this watch, the evident production quality, and all the little details that Mondaine gets so right with it, the $665 retail price seems a bargain.

Do you have a Mondaine? I always love hearing from readers and welcome your comments and factual corrections.