Auto Anouncments - Errors/funny sayings

[NSEFAN]

Travelling from Kyle of Localsh to Inverness, this was spoken by the auto-announcement thingy as the train approached Strathcarron:

"The next station is please mind the gap when alighting from this train"

And a little later...

"The next station is..."

I presume that they simply forgot to add Strathcarron to the recordings list :?

 

[me123]

The 156s auto-announcements are very good. Was it that one above, or is that a 158?

The 156s are very rarely out or bad in anyway, in Scotrail. Some of the best announcements on the network, in my opinion.

 

[dan_atki]

He's always sorry...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aMtlqdwhzTo

Yeah he can be really sympathetic but he honestly does sound sorry which is more that what I can say about Celia 'always happy' Drummond. Yesterday in Brighton the 1255 Watford was cancelled (due to Southern starting the services at Clapham) and when announcing it she sounded just as annoyingly happy as she normally does, with barely any 'sympathy'.

What is interesting about that recording is that 'which cannot be rectified' is up inflected (i.e. designed for the middle of a sentence) but put at the end (sounding quite strange). I cannot think of how that could be put in mid sentence though. Another note is the fault was rectified on site and the train departed late...

 

[thefab444]

I don't think they have a...

"I'm happy that the 09:54 Chiltern Clubman service to London Marylebone, which was cancelled due to severe overcrowding at High Wycombe, is now running. Thank you for your co-operation".

Would probably be followed by...

"I'm sorry that the 09:54 Chiltern Clubman service to London Marlyebone is reported as full and standing today."

Then in really happy voice...

"This train is the service from Bicester North."

 

[dan_atki]

No, but when I heard Phil saying about London Underground engineering works yesterday I thought that the system is going to get expanded for every possibility to replace the need for manual announcements (I suppose the next step will be recording all the LU station names for part line suspensions).

I noticed that at King's Cross St. Pancras they use Microsoft Sam to make announcements by typing it in and having it synthesised.

Are there any Chiltern stations that use the Ditra system? (and if there are, how is Marylebone pronounced on it?)

 

[nath9425]

ALL Chiltern stations including Marylebone are all manually operated.....by some silly Londoner that dosen't know how to pronounce Birmingham!

Banburys have idiots on the mic's. You would get everything in reverse!

"Platform 2 is the 12:54 service from London Marylebone to Leamington Spa - Calling at Banbury."
Its crap they need to invest to keep the company going.....

Wording changed following a complaint. David

 

[dan_atki]

Thanks for the info!

I don't understand why we need to be told where the train originated from - what purpose does it serve? If you honestly wanted to know you could look it up on a timetable. It is also displayed on screens on some 'one' stations (Chelmsford springs to mind).

 

[matt]

Thanks for the info!

I don't understand why we need to be told where the train originated from - what purpose does it serve? If you honestly wanted to know you could look it up on a timetable. It is also displayed on screens on some 'one' stations (Chelmsford springs to mind).

In case you are meeting someone off a train so you know which train there are on

 

[dan_atki]

That was the only reason I could think of, but for some reason I'm reluctant to accept that it is the only reason (i.e. I'm thinking the TOCs have their own reasons for it - maybe to assist station staff?).

 

[djw1981]

For staff who help with assisted travel. Especially if tehre could be more than one service to a destination in a short space of time from different TOC's - especially somewhere like Reading / Crewe / Newcastle.

 

[dan_atki]

Yeah, now it's in front of me it is strikingly obvious - thanks!

But I do still have the lingering question of why it (well seems to be at least) is only used at limited stations rather than everywhere that uses the 'approaching' announcements.

 

[christopher]

The new CIS in a One 317 that I was travelling in last night got really confused, and started announcing things backwards. Having departed from Liverpool St, it announced "We are now approaching London Liverpool St ..." at Bethnal Green, causing many passengers to fall about laughing. On approach to Tottenham Hale it said "This train is for London Liverpool St ...". It then said "We are now approaching Tottenham Hale ..." around Northumberland Park. I think that the driver switched it off at this point.

I had that on a 455 from waterloo but when we got to earlsfield it went off.

 

[Daniel]

I think it was on a train from Aberdeen to Glasgow we had:

"The next station is please mind the gap when alighting from this train."

 

[AlexS]

You can't complain - 1990ish one on Youtube of Harrow on the Hill or whatever has the manual announcement with the following -

'Passengers travelling northbound, the 17xx service to Aylesbury is cancelled, the next service north is London Underground to Amersham' END.

How's that for sympathy and apology!

 

[Lewisham2221]

The auto announcements on 175's get pretty annoying, especially when travelling between the penultimate and final stations. And even more especially when the final destination is Crewe, which she likes to shout quite loudly.

"This train is for CREWE! calling at CREWE! The next station is CREWE!"

 

[NSEFAN]

Has anyone noticed that the automatic and manual announcers at Oxford contradict each other? The platforms are numbered 3,1,2 but the manual announcers keep thinking its 3,2,1.

The other day, when several Voyagers were following one another due to being very delayed, the auto announcement gave the standard details on the delays caused, and the manual announcer had to tell people not to board the first train due to being very overcrowded.

He couldn't make up his mind whether it was platform 1 or 2 the trains were using!

 

[tedted]

At Chesterfield station today waiting for the 08:03 to Edinburgh, the departure board said that first class would be at the rear. However, the announcement (manual as usual) said it would be at the front. It turned out that the train was two Voyagers coupled together with first class in the middle!

Approaching York (manual announcement):
"In a few moments time, we will be arriving at Leeds; York even."

At Edinburgh Waverley(auto announcement):
"We are sorry to announce that the xx : xx GNER service to London King's Cross is delayed by approximately"
That was it!

 

[Nym]

The woman you refer to is Celia Drummond. She is often used at the same stations as Phil Sayer (who features in the vandals announcement above). I think that she is one of the worst announcers around, if you listen to her interpretation of St. Leonards Warrior Square (which she fits in 1 second) it sounds like she says Venezuala (I will upload a recording when I get some time).

In fact in the latest edition of South West Trains E-Motion magazine, there is a letter from a resident of Micheldever (pronounced mitch-ell-DEV-ver) complaining about announcements saying mitch-ell-DEE-ver instead. SWT did an investigation into this and found that whilst Phil says it correctly, Celia pronounces it incorrectly and SWT has promised to rectify this. Has this been done yet?

On another note, I am about 99.9% certain that Phil Sayer does the announcements on the SWT Desiros - again I will put recordings up of these when I get some time along with his statiion announcements for comparison.

She delibratly made them awful because she was getting made redudant after recording them, so the delibratly made some wrong for revenge

eg. she always shouted at people for saying wet weather in the "Due to today's wet weather, please take extra care whilst on the station, surfaces may be slippery", the're ment to say inclement weather. Also when she says "Manchester Piccadilly is a No Smoking station, please refrain from smoking on the station", she had a cig in her hand, also after the anouncment she turned the mic off and said bugger because the cig had burned her finger.

 

[Philip]

Anyone know who does the Wales announcements in English and on the majority of ATW stock?

There was also an announcer at Wigan and Warrington who never used to say the TOC name, and said "there will be a service of snacks and light refreshments available on this train" rather than the usual corporate "Virgin Shop located in Carriage ...." She's recently been replaced by a woman who just sounds silly in most announcements.

 

[rower40]

Many years ago (at a guess, late 1990's) I was waiting at Derby in the early hours of a Summer Saturday morning for the overnight service to Newquay.

The platform display showed the train calling at:
Birmingham New Street
Bristol Temple Meads
Exeter St Davids
Plymouth
Par
St Blazey
Goonbarrow Junction
St Columb Road
Newquay

For those unfamiliar with the geography/operations, the train WAS timetabled to stop at St Blazey and Goonbarrow Junction (either no station, or long-closed), but only for the driver to pick up/exchange single-line tokens. But the CIS at Derby wasn't programmed to differentiate between normal stops and token exchange stops.

 

[me123]

I've seen this on a photopic, and at Glasgow Central. Sometimes charter trains show as:

CHARTER TRAIN calling at (say) NEWCASTLE, YORK, PETERBOROUGH, STEVENAGE and CHARTER TRAIN.

Can someone tell me where Charter Train is?

A 320 a wee while ago also had a problem (which I think has been fixed). They changed from Annoying Annie to Fletcher Whats-Her-Face ages ago, but on one unit, Blairhill probably hadn't been uploaded, so we got:

Flethcher: This is
Annie: [abruptly cutting Flatcher off] BLAWNTIEYAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I think she meant Blantyre; it was actually Blairhill)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
And now for a real woman at Glasgow Central. She obviously was sitting at the security cameras and was nagging people over the tannoy.

"Could the 6 people on bikes please dismount immedaitely. Cycling is not permitted in this station. Yes you. No, not him, you. On the bike. Oi, you get off that Christmas tree!" Haven't heard from her since...

 

[P156KWJ]

the former CT (XC) 170s are notorious at playing up! when they used to be on suburban ct routes, i can remember a nottingham-grimsby trainn saying that we were heading for grimsby via /nuneaton and at nottingham i did once hear "passengers please stand clear of platform 1, as the next train is not scheduled to stop at this station. this train will terminate here, and is the ??:?? service ... from... liverpool lime street

 

[voyagerdude220]

Amongst the chaos of January 2nd at Birmingham New Street, caused by the Rugby botched job, one thing which made me smile was Phil Sayer, whenever he announced "London Midland" in a suddenly very happy, positive tone of voice, compared to his usual tone

 

[Hentis]

My train yesterday from Poole 06:28 Poole to Waterloo.
This train will call at Parkstone, Brockenhurst, Vauxhall and terminate at Poole!!!!

Oh Yeah fantstic. Although it does not say it stops at Eastleigh it did so that was handy for me.

Hentis

 

[thefab444]

Thats because the slow Weymouths were making additional stops at Eastleigh, but thats not on the calling pattern. It was probably also calling at Fleet and Farnborough.

 

[P156KWJ]

at sheffield once, it had an announcement for a voyager service to plymouth, so it said 'calling at#'... etc' and plymouth................is available on the train. this train................. convey any smoking accomodation.'
the other ones which make me laugh is at places like nottingham, sheffield, man picc etc, when it says 'any unnattended articles are likely to be removed without warning, or destroyed or damaged by the security services' (what does 'damaged' consist of? lobbing a rock at it to see if it explodes? kick it around a bit??)

 

[me123]

There are screens at Glasgow Central. A few weeks ago, these read: "Platforms can be announced up to 30 seconds before departure. Doors close 60 seconds before departure". Oops

 

[thefab444]

Yeah, the Doris/Sarah system has three "essay length" explanations...

"Any unattended articles may be removed without warning, or damaged, or destroyed by the security services" (or eaten, or crapped on etc.)

"24 hour CCTV recording is in use at this station for the purposes of security and safety management" (What the hell is safety management?!)

"xxxx is a request stop, and passengers for this station should ask the conductor on the train to arrange for the train to stop, to allow them to alight."

 

[driver9000]

MerseyRail class 142 auto-announcments seemed to have an obsession with Edge Hill at one time. No matter where I was with one it was always "The next stop is Edge Hill, this train is for Liverpool Lime St"

 

[O L Leigh]

We had the same problem with our Cl317 PIS system that had a fixation on Shenfield. Unless you where quick with the handset it would even announce "This is Shenfield. This train is for Southend Victoria. The next station will be Billericay" at certain key points. Turned out to be corrupt software in the end.

one TN