Class 185 Questions

[itsjamierawr]

I'm new here despite being a long time enthusiast/forum lurker but I have a few questions about the Class 185 that google and searching these forums didn't seem to answer:

1 - This afternoon I was on board the 1347 service from Preston to Manchester Airport. Shortly after leaving Preston when the announcement system usually does it's thing rather than play the announcements it played the same chime as you hear on HighSpeed 1 / Class 395s very loudly and displayed "www.tpexpress.co.uk" on the display. I've not heard it play this chime before and it came as a bit of a shock! I was wondering if anyone else heard this on a 185 before? Which leads me to:

2 - Do Siemans also manufacture the passenger info/announcement system? Or do First buy it in from another company or do Siemens/that other company make the PIS for the 395s?

3 - Who does the voice for the announcements on the Class 185s?

Thanks in advance :')

 

[91101]

Yes, I have heard it, its basically the chime which denotes that the current journey has been cleared down out of the CIS.

I don't believe that Siemens manufacture the system directly, there will be several components involved, the screens, the PA system and then the software that drives it all. Again, I don't think any of that is done directly by Siemens, and outside companies are brought in to provide those components. A company called InfoTec for example provides some of the Screens/LED displays which are used both on trains and on stations. It is probably one of these companies who were involved in production of one of the component pieces on the 395s.

I was recently on some local Alstom stock in France which had chimes the same as the 222's which are a Bombardier product!!

And the voice would be a former memeber of the platform staff at Huddersfield who is now I believe Station Manager at Hull!

 

[Eagle]

2 - Do Siemens also manufacture the passenger info/announcement system?

I believe they do, as the screens on 185s are the same as on other Desiros: 350s, 360s, 444s and 450s, although not the newer 380s. (They also appear retrofitted on SWT's 158/159s but no-one else's; for instance Scotrail 158s have the same screens as Clubmans and Turbostars.)

I'm pretty sure they're German-made, too, as a recent character map cockup meant that SWT's Twitter handle, @SW_Trains, was displayed with an S-Bahn symbol replacing the underscore.

 

[itsjamierawr]

Yes, I have heard it, its basically the chime which denotes that the current journey has been cleared down out of the CIS.

Ahh that would explain that then! I believe it's the same chime used on the Stockholm Metro too, so possibly the software developer used the same tone for each passenger info system. Could even be Siemens themselves as they do manufacture electronics like signage etc themselves.

Haha I've not been on a 222 (yet) but I imagine hearing the chime in France would be a bit of a surprise! Especially on Alstom, possibly the same situation as this, same info system manufacturer. Nice that they used someone working on the railway rather than just an actor or something


Eagle: Ahh that would probably support my theory behind Siemens making the software for them, I guess SWT with their stock being mostly Desiro, it made sense for them to stick the same system on other stock such as the 158/159 where as I'm guessing ScotRail has mostly 170s and possibly it was easier to retrofit the same system to some of their older EMUs/156s.

 

[MCR247]

I wouldn't say just because all Siemens UK stock use the same systems automatically mean that the systems are made by Siemens...

 

[WillPS]

I wouldn't say just because all Siemens UK stock use the same systems automatically mean that the systems are made by Siemens...

Indeed, it could be a case of a 'preferred supplier'.