Original London Waterloo Automated Announcer

[liam13woll]

I've been searching through my sound collection and I have come across some old recordings of the original automated announcer at London Waterloo.

If I remember correctly, the system was installed at the start of 2005 and subsequently replaced with the current Ditra Phil Sayer system (circa 2006).

I believe the system and the accompanying male voice-over to be one of the best, if not the, out there.

I have never heard the announcements outputted from this system anywhere else throughout Britain.

Does anyone know any further information about this particular system or where it is currently installed?

I have attached some of these recordings.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dan_atki]

Does anyone know any further information about this particular system or where it is currently installed?

As I understand it, Waterloo was the only station that had this voice on an announcement system.

Not much is known (well within the announcement enthusiast circle anyway) about the system due to how 'limited' it was in the sense it was only at Waterloo - Ditra and Atos systems are increasingly popular so it is easier to find out about them!

The thing that I note is that many of the 'special' announcements use similar, if not exactly the same, wording as Ditra currently do*, just with a different voice. However, there are a few things different between the two which causes some confusion.

*Those in your Waterloo 01 file are phrased exactly the same by Phil and Celia.

You will have made one other member very happy now, he'll be along shortly...!

 

[thefab444]

Sir, you are a legend! I have been looking for clips of the original Waterloo announcer for ages. The voice, as you say, was one of the better one used; he had so much more "character" than Phil Sayer, who has recently been turned down so you can barely hear him anyway!

As Daniel said I don't believe that system was used anywhere else, I think it was replaced in early 2007 when the ill-fated Plasma screens at Waterloo were replaced with standard LED ones. Presumably SWT asked for a Ditra system to be installed instead of the standard Network Rail ATOS system so as to be standardised with the rest of their network. I think it was installed before 2005 though, I would hazard a guess at about 2002-ish?

The similarities in wording are probably down to a standardised script rather than any relation to the Ditra voice; the system used by South Eastern also uses that wording.

 

[liam13woll]

I think it was installed before 2005 though, I would hazard a guess at about 2002-ish?

It was definitely not this early. I can remember posters around the station towards the end of 2004 stating that the manual announcements would be replaced by a new automated system.

I thought at first it was Ditra and the voice was just Phil Sayer's successor - like the young female successor of Celia Drummond at Virgin's stations up north.

He amused me when he use to announce platform alterations - Attention please, this is a platform ALTERATION.

I have attached some more recordings.

 

[thefab444]

Ah, I thought he'd been there for a lot longer! A real shame he only lasted a couple of years then. That replacement bus setup/wording is exactly the same as Ditra, so maybe it was a Ditra product.

Thanks for those clips.

"A replacement BUS? service? will then continue..."