Information phrases which grate

[Efini92]

A class 195 announcing that you are now arriving at hebden bridge when you’re leaving Chester.

 

[Gloster]

I agree with the customer versus passenger. I have always referred to myself as a passenger.

The one that really annoys me is the encroachment of airline terms 'business class'. I have never liked the term 'standard class' either. To me it's 1st and 2nd.

Recollection is that at one time, forty years ago in CIE days, the choice on the Irish trains was Standard and Super Standard.

 

[Siemens Trains]

I've heard both.

they should say "zero" because most of the time when they say "oh" it sounds very similar to "eight".

Must admit I'm struggling to think of an accent where the letter O can sound like the number 8. Perhaps a distorted number 8 could sound like the letter A. I would expect the number 8 to be pronounced as the word 'ate'.

I always thought using the letter O instead of saying zero was best avoided as it could leave the listener mistaking it for the number 4. However maybe that's just my experience of Edinburgh accents.

 

[Skimpot flyer]

That never occurred to me until you pointed it out!

“This way for bus replacement services” (usually written on a sign).

It’s a railway replacement bus service!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Dec 2021 ==

On a non-rail tangent, my workplace uses forklift trucks, and very occasionally, a collision almost occurs.
It grates on me when we have to fill-out a ‘near miss’ report.
Shouldn’t it be a ‘near hit’ report?

The phrase 'a complete stop' irritates me as there's no such thing as a partial stop - that's called 'still moving'.

I'm sure it's designed to stop people doing things which are ill-advised when the train is in motion, but 'complete' is still redundant. Haven't heard it for a while though.

 

[YorksLad12]

Has anyone mentioned "arriving into" instead of "arriving at" ?
Arriving into sounds to me like the passengers are shimmying down the chimney instead of arriving at a platform.

Me, in post #17

On passengers v customers: I used to say that you're a customer if you have a choice, a passenger if you don't.

 

[Pigeon]

Now that it's been mentioned above, one of mine is "skip stopping" (although not one usually heard by the public). It makes sense, but my brain won't let it go and insists on switching it around to "stop skipping".

Listen to your brain - "stop skipping" is correct. There are stops, which normally it makes, but today it is skipping them. "Skip stopping" is what happens when a Class 67 gets a red, and its use in the context of station service patterns is one of those vile macerations of language which fools invent because they think it sounds cool or something when really it just makes them sound like an illiterate idiot.

 

[ComUtoR]

Listen to your brain - "stop skipping" is correct. There are stops, which normally it makes, but today it is skipping them. "Skip stopping" is what happens when a Class 67 gets a red, and its use in the context of station service patterns is one of those vile macerations of language which fools invent because they think it sounds cool or something when really it just makes them sound like an illiterate idiot.

Stop skipping is what happens to the customer.
Skip stopping is what the Driver has to do.

Both are correct.

 

[Brooklands]

I was waiting at Portsmouth Harbour when an automated announcement proclaimed, please stand behind the yellow line, fast train approaching.
Much mirth and raised eyebrows!!

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Must admit I'm struggling to think of an accent where the letter O can sound like the number 8. Perhaps a distorted number 8 could sound like the letter A. I would expect the number 8 to be pronounced as the word 'ate'.

I always thought using the letter O instead of saying zero was best avoided as it could leave the listener mistaking it for the number 4. However maybe that's just my experience of Edinburgh accents.

London area... it's also more likely to be "translated" by the brain as an eight when it's surrounded by the other numbers. Try saying "six one oh one six" out loud at the sort of speed they do in the announcements, and then take into account that it's a partially electronic sound because it's come through the PA system.

 

[Right Away]

On trains with SELEctive Door Opening, the announcement ABOUT not leaving from the last X carriages "Because the next station has a short platform" NO, the station platform has always been the same length, it's the train that Is too long.

Another announcement (which seems to be prevalent on GWR) is 'Coaches x and y will not be PLATFORMED at the next station.'

 

[The exile]

I was waiting at Portsmouth Harbour when an automated announcement proclaimed, please stand behind the yellow line, fast train approaching.
Much mirth and raised eyebrows!!

Likewise, recently at Bristol Parkway. Can't remember the exact wording but "The fast train now approaching platform 1 does not stop here. Please stand clear". The "fast train" turned out to be an extremely slow-moving 66-hauled freight, which duly stopped at the red signal. The problem with this sort of thing is that it starts teaching the general public that announcements don't mean what they say. After experiencing that a few times, they ignore the warning that precedes a train barrelling through at line speed (OK, that's probably not very high at BPW pl. 1) with all the consequences that might entail. It would also be interesting to know what the courts would make of a warning announcement that had been used so often so inappropriately that it has ceased to mean anything. ("Caution, contents may be hot", anyone? - last seen on a tub containing ice-cream!)

 

[_toommm_]

A Class 195 announcing you’re arriving into Bradford Interchange as you arrive into Bradford Interchange, then subsequently announcing you’re arriving into Bradford Interchange, when you’re solidly on your way to Low Moor or Pudsey.

 

[507 001]

I still have a (irrational?) dislike of being referred to as a customer. I've always (and still) regarded myself as a passenger when I'm on a train or bus or tram or.....

Fully agree with that one.

There’s a couple of announcements that get to me.

The first is on Northern services. Northern have never been able to get their auto announcements correct. When the 319s were first introduced they had such a long ‘we are now approaching’ announcement that quite often the train would be stopped with her still babbling on about minding the gap and taking your personal belongings and hand luggage with you.
When Arriva took over that announcement was removed, but the other irritating one remained which is ‘this is the Northern service to xxx’. So it’s the only one is it? Not running the usual hourly/half-hourly service today?

Considering that the 319s (which were the first Northern units (other than the 333s) to have auto announcements ran predominantly out of Liverpool, you’d think they would have taken a leaf out of Merseyrail’s book and used the same format as their announcements which are perfect. Using Julie Berry’s voice would be a massive improvement over moaning Myrtle or whatever she’s called.

The other is in work on Metrolink. Our auto announcements seem to like using unnecessary words. So on approach to an interchange (We’ll use Cornbrook) you get ‘We are now approaching Cornbrook, where you can change for services to Eccles, Media city UK, Manchester Airport, East Didsbury and the Trafford centre’.
This could, and should be simplified to ‘we are now approaching Cornbrook, change here for…’
Similarly, the announcements at stations were changed around 2013 from ‘This is a Bury service, the next stop will be Z’ to ‘This is a service to Bury’. Just adding pointless extra words!

 

[Train Maniac]

The posh lady with a lisp on SWR trains
"Swee it, Sway it, Sthorted"

Theres also the one on Thameslink (Same person?) Like she cant believe what shes reading
"This train calls at London City ThamesliNK?, FarringdON? London St PanCRAS? And West HampstEAD?

 

[YorksLad12]

Digital Dot at Leeds sounds like she's just been goosed when she announces the departure of "the 12.34 Northern service to SHEFFIELD!" But then she reads out the list of stations perfectly fine.

Then she gets goosed again on the recap. Very strange.

 

[Factotum]

Where this train terminates.
No it doesn't terminate: it remains completely intact.

And all those warnings that rain might make the platforms wet

 

[_toommm_]

The onboard announcements on Northern saying ‘This is the Northern service to LEEEEEEEEds’ instead of ‘Leeds’.

 

[Llandudno]

I really meant those on the station, not on the train. "Please note that x and y are request stops, and customers for these stations should ask the conductor on the train to arrange for the train to stop to allow them to alight." The last five words are redundant and the message could probably be reduced to "....passengers for these stations should notify the conductor."

Seems to take an age at Manchester Piccadilly or Stockport to read out all the request stops in Pembrokeshire on the Manchester - Milford Haven service!

 

[Spaceflower]

If I had this job, I'd carry a clothes peg with me and a spare - just in case I misplaced the first. Now that is how train announcements should be done.

Try it. You know I'm right

 

[Master29]

You beat me to it.

Then there's "Please take care when stepping down from the train to the platform" - I always think: well, I managed to successfully get on board the train without an assisting announcement, why should getting off be any different?

Perhaps one of these days the Guard will helpfully add "and please don't forget to breathe."

There is the extension to that particular one. "There is a larger than usual gap between the train and the platform".

 

[urbophile]

The onboard announcements on Northern saying ‘This is the Northern service to LEEEEEEEEds’ instead of ‘Leeds’.

That sounds like a Sheffieeeld accent to me.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Dec 2021 ==

There is the extension to that particular one. "There is a larger than usual gap between the train and the platform".

The platform has shrunk overnight.

 

[KT550]

On Thameslink trains...

"If you see somethink that doesn't look right...."

Annoys me.

 

[_toommm_]

That sounds like a Sheffieeeld accent to me.

It’s just a very very very big emphasis on the ‘ee’ part of Leeds for some reason.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

A class 195 announcing that you are now arriving at hebden bridge when you’re leaving Chester.

It's better than when 175s started.
They had a habit of being one station out in the announcements ("This is Helsby" when you had just arrived at Chester).
And occasionally got the whole thing backwards, as though you were going the other way.
Presumably that was something to do with GPS signals.

Going way back to BR/FNW, I used to get cross when DMUs on shuttle services showed (eg) Crewe at one end and Chester at the other, and didn't bother to change them all day. Or not bothering to show a destination at all.
That practice at least has disappeared.
I do like the big external destination display on 195s, something we won't get on the gangwayed 196/197s, which I expect will be like the useless tiny 158 ones which never stop scrolling (eg for "Milford Haven/Aberdaugleddau").

 

[Spaceflower]

Oh gangways......They way they romanticise rail travel on the telly. I almost travelled in one once...as an 8 or 9 year old with my mam and my sister. We boarded what was probably a Liverpool train at Newcastle for the epic journey back to Durham. The dying days of BR blue. Train hadn't even departed when the guard kindly reminded my mum of our social status.

 

[ExRes]

Just wondering if anyone has started using the modern announcement yet

"So, <fill in the appropriate message>"

 

[norbitonflyer]

It's better than when 175s started.
They had a habit of being one station out in the announcements ("This is Helsby" when you had just arrived at Chester).
And occasionally got the whole thing backwards, as though you were going the other way.
Presumably that was something to do with GPS signals.

This happens on SWR "roundabouts", where the train gets confused as to whether its coming or going. Most amusing when you are told to "mind the gap" at Queenstown Road when you're on the "Main" side, and the "gap", were the doors to open, would be about 45 feet wide, with four running lines in it.

 

[Deepgreen]

Almost all are over-wordy and tedious, and are probably counter-productive as a result. "See It Say It Sorted" (punctuation optional, apparently) is horrible - cheap, awkward language which demeans the railway's proud heritage of information quality (the railway and the BBC were once bastions of good information - both are no longer). 'See It Say It Sordid' as I always think of it. "Arriving into..." also grates badly. The railway has fallen into the trap of trying to invent new terms for things which already had perfectly clear ones, just to try to appear pro-active and dynamic - 'station stops' and 'calling points', for example, meaning 'stations'.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Dec 2021 ==

Just wondering if anyone has started using the modern announcement yet

"So, <fill in the appropriate message>"

Yes, I have heard many starting with "so...". It would also be a lot better if crews didn't make announcements which either immediately follow or precede the same information provided by the recorded messages, which are at least clear and without stumbling.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Dec 2021 ==

On Thameslink trains...

"If you see somethink that doesn't look right...."

Annoys me.

I think you'll find they are 'Thamesling' trains...!

 

[py_megapixel]

"I'd just like to let you know that the onboard shop in coach C is now open, selling a range including americanos, lattes, cappuccinos, espressos, mochas, not chocolates, tea, fizzy drinks, fruit juice, water, alcoholic beverages, crisps, chocolates, sandwiches, salads, biscuits, cakes, crackers, newspapers, magazines..." OK yes, I think we get the idea!

 

[norbitonflyer]

Just wondering if anyone has started using the modern announcement yet

"So, <fill in the appropriate message>"

"So: Ham, this is Soham"