Chiltern, Northern, and Celia

[MerlinRail 804]

Are there any plans with Chiltern or Northern to replace Celia as the announcer at stations? If not then great because that gives me more time to get as many recordings as possible!
I imagine it’s probably gonna happen at some point with GBR though.

 

[AutoUnder]

I think when GBR happens, KeTech CIS will be phased out along with Celia.

I'm not sure about Chiltern but Northern's KeTech system has so many flaws. It doesn't have any form of volume levelling feature, meaning recordings made by staff are often significantly quieter than Celia; it seems to have issues with recieving firmware updates, such as failing to receive new recordings properly and many other issues, such as it having audio quality issues when installed to existing PA systems and it frequently dropping out completely. I have also spoken to a few members of Northern staff who agree the KeTech system is inadequate.

 

[MerlinRail 804]

I think when GBR happens, KeTech CIS will be phased out along with Celia.

That makes sense. The end of an era I guess.

I'm not sure about Chiltern but Northern's KeTech system has so many flaws. It doesn't have any form of volume levelling feature, meaning recordings made by staff are often significantly quieter than Celia; it seems to have issues with recieving firmware updates, such as failing to receive new recordings properly and many other issues, such as it having audio quality issues when installed to existing PA systems and it frequently dropping out completely. I have also spoken to a few members of Northern staff who agree the KeTech system is inadequate.

I have seen mentions of the KeTech issues before. Interesting how it’s something none of the passengers would ever really think about. The low volume in general bugs me, as well as the fact that some announcements don’t play until after the start of it, so sometimes you don’t hear the platform number or even time! Had that a couple weeks ago at Marylebone.

 

[centraluser]

Are there any plans with Chiltern or Northern to replace Celia as the announcer at stations? If not then great because that gives me more time to get as many recordings as possible!
I imagine it’s probably gonna happen at some point with GBR though.

There are currently no such plans at Chiltern.

 

[Halish Railway]

Does the current Celia system have the capacity to announce the stations on the Northumberland line? If I remember correctly it can’t announce “Transport for Wales” and that came about long before spades went into the ground to reopen the Northumberland line to passenger trains.

 

[stadler]

Does the current Celia system have the capacity to announce the stations on the Northumberland line? If I remember correctly it can’t announce “Transport for Wales” and that came about long before spades went into the ground to reopen the Northumberland line to passenger trains.

Northumberland Park has been recorded by Celia Drummond as she recorded all of the Tyne & Wear Metro stations years ago.

Ashington, Bedlington, Blyth Bebside, Newsham, Seaton Delaval, have not been recorded by Celia Drummond so they will have to get someone else to record those.

Some other recent recordings like Headbolt Lane and Lumo have been recorded by a new lady who sounds similar to the Amey "Only Woman" lady (it may well be her) so i presume she will record these new stations.

However both East Linton (which has been open for over a year) and Reston (which has been opened for over two years) are still not recorded. At stations such as Alnmouth and Morpeth they get ignored. Also on the KeTech system in Scotland they have not recorded East Linton or Reston either so they get ignored there too. So i do not have much hope with KeTech actually recording the Northumberland Line stations. KeTech are a very incompetent company.

 

[MerlinRail 804]

Northumberland Park has been recorded by Celia Drummond as she recorded all of the Tyne & Wear Metro stations years ago.

Ashington, Bedlington, Blyth Bebside, Newsham, Seaton Delaval, have not been recorded by Celia Drummond so they will have to get someone else to record those.

Some other recent recordings like Headbolt Lane and Lumo have been recorded by a new lady who sounds similar to the Amey "Only Woman" lady (it may well be her) so i presume she will record these new stations.

However both East Linton (which has been open for over a year) and Reston (which has been opened for over two years) are still not recorded. At stations such as Alnmouth and Morpeth they get ignored. Also on the KeTech system in Scotland they have not recorded East Linton or Reston either so they get ignored there too. So i do not have much hope with KeTech actually recording the Northumberland Line stations. KeTech are a very incompetent company.

Failing all else, half-words could be spliced to make the recordings

 

[RailWonderer]

This is why, as much as I have not been a fan, operators like WMR, EMR, and GA have all moved to TTS. Even if it sounds robotic sometimes they can have it say anything they need, and give passengers up to date information about upcoming 'meet the manager' events and engineering works that weekend. Northern with their pennypinching wouldn't suprise me by moving to TTS.

 

[LCRTrainfan979]

This is why, as much as I have not been a fan, operators like WMR, EMR, and GA have all moved to TTS. Even if it sounds robotic sometimes they can have it say anything they need, and give passengers up to date information about upcoming 'meet the manager' events and engineering works that weekend. Northern with their pennypinching wouldn't suprise me by moving to TTS.

I am not sure about that, because something that WMR, EMR and GA all have in common is that they are all owned (mainly) by Transport UK group, the group formerly known as Abellio. I do slightly wonder whether that is maybe company policy to scrap usage of that ATOS system (the one which has ATOS Anne on it) at nearly all of their stations as a (possibly) cost saving measure, given they don't have to employ real people, and they just need to install a dozen robotic voices to do the announcements. The only exception was EMR which must have already had robotic announcements fitted by East Midlands Trains at most, so wasn't worth replacing Anne at the mainline ones which do have her.

While I imagine that Celia will need to be replaced in the very near future, alongside the antiquated KeTech system, the replacement is likely to be determined by GB Railways, who I suspect would likely want to have a nationwide standard. What that standard involves though will be their decision as to whether they are going to settle on a nationwide TTS system, or one or two nationwide announcers (one male, one female, which could replace ATOS Anne who apparently doesn't really do announcements anymore) for a nationwide ATOS system. Either way, if they go with the former, they would need to carefully choose something, given some systems sound decent enough, like the one on WMR and GA, whilst others (at least in my opinion) sound plain awful due to the fact they end up mispronouncing stations and conceive sentences in an unnatural way, like Acapela Rachel, who in my opinion should be removed by GB Railways.