Erwin Bernheim and his son Ronnie Bernheim founded Mondaine in Zurich in 1951 as a Swiss watch importer and producer focused on the mid-market segment. Through the post-war decades the company built a portfolio of mid-tier Swiss watch operations including ownership of M-Watch and various other brands. The defining commercial moment came in 1986 when Mondaine secured an exclusive license from the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB CFF FFS) to produce wristwatches based on the iconic SBB station clock face.
The SBB station clock itself was designed in 1944 by Hans Hilfiker, an SBB engineer responsible for railway station infrastructure design. The clock face is starkly minimalist: white background, thick black bar indices at the hours, thin black sub-divisions for minutes, classical black baton hands, and a distinctive red second hand with a disc-shaped tip that pauses for ~2 seconds at 12 to allow railway station chiefs to dispatch trains in synchrony. The design has been continuously installed in every SBB station since the 1940s and is widely cited as one of the most refined examples of post-war Swiss industrial design.
Under the SBB license Mondaine produced wristwatches that faithfully recreate the station clock face on the wrist - the same 1944 typography, the same red disc-tipped second hand, in modern wearable case sizes. The watches are sold across SBB station shops, watch retailers globally, and the brand's own boutiques. Production includes quartz (the volume product), automatic (Sellita SW200-based dressier references), and various complications including Stop2Go (a quartz movement that mimics the SBB clock's pause-at-12 behaviour). Annual production is substantial (estimated high tens of thousands per year) and Mondaine remains a privately-held Swiss family business under continued Bernheim ownership.
