Northern - poor management their of P.A systems?

[londonmidland]

Does anyone know why Northern are so awful at managing their auto P.A systems?

On their Class 195 fleet, you’ll get the whole announcement being too quiet, before it randomly announces a single station loudly, before going quiet again. Sometimes it can be loud enough to make you jump if you don’t expect it.

As for stations, they suffer from an endless amount of faults. From quiet and/or muffled and broken speakers, to announcements being cut off at the beginning, sounding distorted or simply not working properly at all.

These faults have been reported several times, as well as being an issue for several months, however, they don’t seem to take any interest in fixing it whatsoever. These issues are still present to this day.

Has anyone else experienced these issues whilst on their trains or at their stations?

 

[dosxuk]

I was being amused by them trying to do manual (and automated) announcements at meadowhall the other day, but the whole station PA is so broken you can't understand a word that is said. I'd noticed the speakers on platform 1 were broken a few months back, but hadn't realised the whole station was affected.

 

[Scott1]

Fixing things costs money, bodging bad equipment to keep running is cheaper. Penny wise, pound foolish, springs to mind.

 

[Parallel]

I was being amused by them trying to do manual (and automated) announcements at meadowhall the other day, but the whole station PA is so broken you can't understand a word that is said. I'd noticed the speakers on platform 1 were broken a few months back, but hadn't realised the whole station was affected.

The announcements were completely broken a while back, then they were fixed, then soon after it sounds like the amplifier has blown as the sound is very distorted.

Wilmslow is another where the announcements are very poor with random words or parts of words missing. Recording attached for anyone who hasn’t heard.

 

[northernchris]

There's something which doesn't seem to be set up right in the auto announcements with late running trains. When announcing late running trains, I think the system should say something along the lines of 'this train is currently at xxxx' however it will just name a station which sounds really odd. Northern services still aren't announced with the number of carriages either.

 

[sportzbar]

On the 195s whenever a station beginning with "W" is announced it tends to shout it. It is a problem that is known about and is in the process of being rectified, unfortunately like a lot of things on the railway it's taking some time.

The problem is occurring due to the stations beginning with "W" were taken from the original recording and then added to new recordings. However for some reason the volume controls between the two separate recordings were different and it wasn't noticed when it was sent out.

So now we are stuck with "the next station is WALKDEN!!!!!" etc until the new recordings are made once again.....

 

[pdq]

Not limited to Northern. I was on a few TfW trains last month and the PA was awful on each one. The chimes were fine - so no issue with the amplification or speakers - but the manual announcements were totally inaudible. This was a shame, as on one journey in West Wales, not only was there some disruption which needed explaining, the guard sang his own version of well known songs with new words relevant to the approaching station. But we couldn't hear them. When I was stood in the vestibule I could hear him clearer through the cab door than through the speaker above my head.

It seems a general issue that trains' PA systems never have decent Microphones that enable manual announcements to be delivered with similar clarity to the pre-recorded ones.

 

[py_megapixel]

There's something which doesn't seem to be set up right in the auto announcements with late running trains. When announcing late running trains, I think the system should say something along the lines of 'this train is currently at xxxx' however it will just name a station which sounds really odd.

Sometimes it names two stations. "The 18:12 to Manchester Airport is delayed. Lostock! Bolton!"

Sometimes it says the right thing with a pause for suspense! "This train is between.......................... Lostock and Bolton."

Northern services still aren't announced with the number of carriages either.

They were at one point but the train lengths seemed to have stopped appearing in the data. It's affecting Northern services everywhere, not just at Northern-managed stations.

 

[Scott1]

Not limited to Northern. I was on a few TfW trains last month and the PA was awful on each one. The chimes were fine - so no issue with the amplification or speakers - but the manual announcements were totally inaudible. This was a shame, as on one journey in West Wales, not only was there some disruption which needed explaining, the guard sang his own version of well known songs with new words relevant to the approaching station. But we couldn't hear them. When I was stood in the vestibule I could hear him clearer through the cab door than through the speaker above my head.

It seems a general issue that trains' PA systems never have decent Microphones that enable manual announcements to be delivered with similar clarity to the pre-recorded ones.

That's a common problem with TrainFX systems. The chime is fine, but the manual announcement following it is far too quiet.

 

[jfollows]

Handforth is pronounced "Handfuth" on the trains themselves, which is just wrong.
Only because I haven't noticed it, I guess that the pronunciation of Sandbach as "Sandback" has been corrected.
Just sloppy, as in not bothering to check and being arrogant in assuming you're right when you're not.

 

[py_megapixel]

Handforth is pronounced "Handfuth" on the trains themselves, which is just wrong.

Some trains appear to have a fault where the last half-second or so of the announcement cuts out, in which case it becomes "Handfoot"!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Handforth is pronounced "Handfuth" on the trains themselves, which is just wrong.

Not all that far out, to be fair. "Hand-fawth" is maybe a closer approximation of how it should, perhaps, be.

 

[jfollows]

Not all that far out, to be fair. "Hand-fawth" is maybe a closer approximation of how it should, perhaps, be.

Yes, it's not major, but I noted it before ( #92 ):

... the last vowel should be a relatively long ɔːr as in "north" but it gets pronounced ʌ as in "strut".

according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet

EDIT Also I could be wrong - I was born in Bramhall in 1961, lived in Poynton until 1976, Manchester 1996-2008 and Wilmslow since 2008 but that doesn't mean I'm right, I could have got it wrong all of my life!

That said, when I'm on the train and "she" (Celia?) witters away, there's something "just wrong" with her pronunciation which I suspect is obvious to almost everyone else on the train also.

 

[dosxuk]

It seems a general issue that trains' PA systems never have decent Microphones that enable manual announcements to be delivered with similar clarity to the pre-recorded ones.

They key to a good quality recording is not the microphone - it's the space you are making the recording. You want a nice quiet, non-echoey space, with no electrically noisy equipment nearby - pretty much the opposite of what you'll ever be able to provide on a train. Couple that with using people specifically trained and experienced at making announcement recordings and the time to edit and process the recorded audio to make it as good as possible, and you're pretty much setting on board crew up to fail at making a good (audio) quality announcement before they've even started.

 

[JD2168]

I have noticed this a few times on Northern Trains, on Thursday on the 12:35pm to Huddersfield from Sheffield was announcing & displaying the stops in the opposite direction (towards Sheffield), there is almost so many announcements that there is not enough time before reaching the next station.

 

[WAB]

When I used Bradford Interchange, the PA was inaudible on the platform. The first train of the day westwards was late due to crew from Leeds not having had a taxi ordered for them on time (RRB Leeds --> Bradford). It was to be run fast, but obviously no-one knew due to the rubbish PA. I had to get the guard to shout down the platform warning that it was warning fast before he released the doors.