Phil Sayer's announcements

[Max]

The on train announcements are done by a Station Supervisor from Hull.

Probably why they said 'ull originally then!

 

[37372]

At least the woman on the 185s has a regional accent appropriate for up north. Some of the pronunciations of stations up here are rubbish when made by southerners.

I wish Merseyrail had someone with a Scouse accent to do the auto announcements on their trains, Julie on the 507s/508s just sounds wrong!

 

[Mojo]

Had an auto announcer on a XC Voyager last night. Here's a recording from "Amworth" [sic]

 

[thefab444]

I think that's a relic from the old Virgin days as it's the same voice as the Pendolino automated announcements.

 

[Blindtraveler]

old thread I know but just wanted to say that I wish phill was stil more widely used. Coming from Edinburgh, the woman, the station manager I believe is just vv hard to listen to and we dont have many stations up here with automated pa's. Its iether nothing, or a boring inaudable scotrail employee who doesnt want to do it. By the way, who's the woman at stations like glc low level, partic etc?

 

[ATW Alex 101]

if its something at peterborough dont do the bloke at crewe

 

[185]

Arriva Trains & Milkfloats Wales should really accept defeat and that "Stupid Screaming Tourettes Woman" has been annoying passengers for too long now at stations and on board 175s.

Either Phil Sayer, or the lady used for Merseyrail / LU would be ideal.

 

[Blindtraveler]

the welsh one must be a challenge though as dont Ariva go in for multilingual announcements, pis screans, signage etc? Not sure if phil speaks welsh although must say am impressed with his station recordings for welsh services. Least favourite on train announcer would by a long way be TPE woman. She sounds perminantly fed up and says Edinburgh in such a depressed voice you'de think she was going there to die rather than just to sit there for 40 mins or so before the next load of unsuspecting passengers for Manchester turn up expecting an intercity style fast train and find instead, a cattle truck complete with trollie grrr!!! TPE should be given some 180s to at least imsove speed and passenger cumfort on Man-Scotland runs, oh and fit them with a decent pis voice lol

 

[The Barlow Boy]

You should listen to the lithper we have here on Southern.
"Thmoking ith not permitted on any thtathon".
"Pleath keep your luggage and bolonginth with you at all timth".
"The next train ith the fourteen thirty theven thervith to London Bridge".

 

[DazDude]

dont do the bloke at crewe

Who has an annoying tendancy to tell people "the next train on platform 5 is the xx-xx service for london euston, calling at london euston only", about 4 or 5 times in succession (YES WE HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME!:-x)

 

[Pumbaa]

Who has an annoying tendancy to tell people "the next train on platform 5 is the xx-xx service for london euston, calling at london euston only", about 4 or 5 times in succession (YES WE HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME!:-x)

You will be very surprised at the number of people who end up on that train for Stafford and Milton Keynes. It happens a lot!

 

[DazDude]

Mind you, that said with the woman who does the announcements sometimes you'd be lucky to hear what she says she speaks that quietly/softly.

 

[rmt-driver]

What happened to this announcer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VtqXIwxVHw

Also what was the idea of saying "[station name] this is [station name]" before a departure announcement?

Iv also heard this at Brum N St when I was there last year...

 

[thefab444]

Angela Peberdy did tape and solid state (very early computerised) announcements for NSE during the 1980s and 1990s, although she remained in use on some Connex South Eastern stations until about 2004-ish.

The use of "xxx, this is xxx", is primarily to inform passengers on the train of what station they are at, but it's also a formal way of introducing the announcement rather than just starting with "The train now standing at...".

 

[Philip]

They used to have a separate announcer on 185's for safety stuff who had an annoying rough but posh Yorkshire accent, the other one who reads stations doesn't sound that 'northern' to me.

I liked the announcer that used to be used at Wigan and Warrington up until about 4 years ago. She sounded very 'intercity service' if you know what I mean. Also the announcer used on 175s in the FNW days was better than the current one who also does Welsh and Shropshire stations. One thing I remember about previous 175 announcements was having her say "We welcome" while ATW, FNW and TPE were jointly using them - and it often got mixed up with staions.

 

[WestCoast]

They used to have a separate announcer on 185's for safety stuff who had an annoying rough but posh Yorkshire accent, the other one who reads stations doesn't sound that 'northern' to me.

There is one woman with a Yorkshire accent that announces "please have all tickets and passes ready for the barriers" on TPE. The standard announcer is more 'northern' than Julie and Celia (Phil sounds quite neutral to me) but she doesn't have a particularly strong accent.

Arriva Trains & Milkfloats Wales should really accept defeat and that "Stupid Screaming Tourettes Woman" has been annoying passengers for too long now at stations and on board 175s.

You mean Ruth? She does have a sense of sarcasm in her voice and tends to swallow her words a bit but she isn't too bad. However ATW should get someone with a light Welsh accent to do the announcements!

 

[chuckles1066]

Also what was the idea of saying "[station name] this is [station name]" before a departure announcement?

They do it a lot at Bath Spa before an arrival - a very well polished male voice although he's a little premature.......tells us the train "now standing" at platform 1 is the 17.36 to Bristol when the thing is only just pulling in.

Mind you, the same voice also implored us a couple of months back to "stand well back as the next train is not due to stop at this station"........which caused some confusion as the train bore a remarkable resemblance to the 17.24 to Bristol and did indeed stop.

As the masses on the platform were unsure of whether to board or not, a clearly tetchy official appeared and shouted "yes yes, this IS the Bristol train".

Ha ha, sometimes I miss the railways. Not often but it happens.

 

[Ivo]

There is a problem with the announcements at Bath, actually (these are made by the man in the thread title, Phil Sayer). On Platform 2 (eastbound), there are three announcements. The first advises of the next train, the second advises of its approach, and the third advises of its arrival. On Platform 1 however, as touched upon in the previous post, the first does not exist, and the approach note is made very early, and therefore it is rather common for trains to be announced as "standing" (i.e. stationary) on it when in practice they are still doing 20+ mph and sometimes not even in the station at all. It is most difficult for the longer runs westbound, especially the Merchant Venturer (right through to Penzance) and also to a lesser degree the stopping services to Worcester and beyond.

To be fair though, when the majority of services run no further than Cardiff or Gloucester it isn't that much of an issue because there are only a few stops involved. It is when you start getting lists of about ten different stations west of Plymouth, as well as a few before it, that problems arise. I guess it is just as well that the Carmarthen (and especially Pembroke) HSTs do not come this way.

 

[louis97]

There is a problem with the announcements at Bath, actually (these are made by the man in the thread title, Phil Sayer). On Platform 2 (eastbound), there are three announcements. The first advises of the next train, the second advises of its approach, and the third advises of its arrival. On Platform 1 however, as touched upon in the previous post, the first does not exist, and the approach note is made very early, and therefore it is rather common for trains to be announced as "standing" (i.e. stationary) on it when in practice they are still doing 20+ mph and sometimes not even in the station at all. It is most difficult for the longer runs westbound, especially the Merchant Venturer (right through to Penzance) and also to a lesser degree the stopping services to Worcester and beyond.

Sounds like a typical scenario for the old FGW CIS announcements, such as at Plymouth and Exeter, however it has got better recently. Newton Abbot used to never do a next train or a standing announcement at all on Platform 2. Hopefully with the new CIS the system should be able to find the trains better, rather than being somewhat suprised to have a train approaching, which causes it to skip the next train announcement.

However there is another scenario where at Totnes and Exeter St Davids when travelling up, the next train to arrive announcement is the ONLY announcement, this started ever since the signal box at Exeter was starting to be revamped. However if the platform is already occupied the announcements operate fully and as normal.

 

[rmt-driver]

Another good one was at GFD, which has the old system like at Ealing Bdy, Hayes & Harlington and Slough... the system hasn't worked for a few years.. but as the train from Padd arrived it used to announce "the train arriving at platform ONE is the xxxx from London Paddington, this service terminates here" before shortly after announcing the departure of the service, with the correct platform number (two) !

 

[Blindtraveler]

a station that would benifit from a good loud auto announcer, not anne, is glasgow central high level which stil has manual announcements and old poor qualitty speekers. why, out of the major network rail termini has this one not been done?

 

[Solent&Wessex]

I liked the announcer that used to be used at Wigan and Warrington up until about 4 years ago. She sounded very 'intercity service' if you know what I mean. .

She was excellent. Could be heard at Lancaster as well around 2000 ish. She was an old BR Intercity system (You can hear her at Lancaster on a VHS tape I have from 1992). The intonation on her announcements was excellent.

I especially liked the "Good Afternoon, Welcome to Lancaster" at the end of announcements. Recording (sorry, not very good quality, bit of echo) attached.


--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

a station that would benifit from a good loud auto announcer, not anne, is glasgow central high level which stil has manual announcements and old poor qualitty speekers. why, out of the major network rail termini has this one not been done?

London Victoria still has Phil Sayer, which must be pretty unique amongst Network Rail stations who all insist on using that awful awful woman.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

There are some lesser known voices in use, a pre-privatisation BR woman who is now only at Bishops Stortford, a

Also at Seven Sisters, I heard her the other week.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

Forgot to attach the Lancaster announcement:

 

[chuckles1066]

There is a problem with the announcements at Bath, actually (these are made by the man in the thread title, Phil Sayer). On Platform 2 (eastbound), there are three announcements. The first advises of the next train, the second advises of its approach, and the third advises of its arrival. On Platform 1 however, as touched upon in the previous post, the first does not exist, and the approach note is made very early, and therefore it is rather common for trains to be announced as "standing" (i.e. stationary) on it when in practice they are still doing 20+ mph and sometimes not even in the station at all

Ahhh, thanks for that, you're spot on........"the train now approaching platform 1" is actually not in sight and won't be for another 30 seconds.

<cue lots of puzzled punters staring into the darkness for this non-existent arrival>

Best one was an old dear, bless her, who clearly didn't use the railways much and who nudged her equally elderly husband and said "I think his eyesight must be as bad as yours, there's nothing approaching".

I didn't think attempting to explain that "he" was a recording would have much mileage in it.

 

[jon0844]

I never thought 'train approaching' meant it had to be there that second, or even visible. That announcement is given when the train passes a point just outside the station - so it's probably 20-30 seconds away which seems quite reasonable and still valid in terms of what is said.

It is still approaching even when it's a lot further away, assuming it hasn't got stuck at a red signal or something. Well, even then it is approaching - but I'd probably not want the announcement to start if something could hold the train up for a few minutes for whatever reason.

FCC had the 'next train', 'train approaching', 'XXX, this is XXX. + stopping pattern/desination' and now it has only the approaching one - which means no announcement at all when the train arrives. Not good for when the onboard CIS doesn't work (or doesn't exist!) as Phil used to speak the last announcement for the benefit of both those alighting and boarding.

It does make for a quieter station, but I consider it a total lack of information - especially for the latecomers who run on to the platform seeing a train and can't tell where it is going to.

 

[Aictos]

Who's the voice at Fenchurch Street, last time I read up on it in Rail it was done manually - have they gone automatic now?

 

[thefab444]

Forgot to attach the Lancaster announcement:

Yes, she was very good. She was the female voice of Ditra until 1996 when Celia Drummond took over.

As you mention, she is also at Seven Sisters but the speaker system there seems to be completely knackered. I suspect the announcements are only used because one of the staff likes them (they are manually controlled from the hutch on the London platform).

 

[MidnightFlyer]

a station that would benifit from a good loud auto announcer, not anne, is glasgow central high level which stil has manual announcements and old poor qualitty speekers. why, out of the major network rail termini has this one not been done?

It did have a new speaker system installed roughly 3-4 weeks ago, very clear now.

 

[Blindtraveler]

are! Not been through for a bit. Still manual announcements or has anoying Anne taken over god forbid?

It did have a new speaker system installed roughly 3-4 weeks ago, very clear now.