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Phil Sayer's announcements

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thefab444

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Should've guessed!

Anyway, nothing wrong with the accent, I much prefered "Dagenham Dave" to the replacement. The new voice; that of Julie Berry, is also on the Piccadilly line, 171/375/376/377s etc., Southern 455s, Miseryrail 507/508s, as well as the Heathrow Connect 360s as mentioned before. She also did a lot of station work for BR (both tape recordings and early modular systems), but those systems have all been replaced.

Very patronising is all I can say, and as mentioned, she mispronounces a number of places... Newport is announced as "New-port" (not Nooport), Cheshunt as "Chesh-unt" (not Chezzunt) etc.
 
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Owain

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Scotrail have their own woman (don't know her name) who's good and doesn't sound too robotic.
The woman at Edinburgh Waverley is very clear, but she gets on my nerves a bit,

AIUI The announcements at Waverley are done by Network Rail and were re-recorded using the voice of Juliet Donnachie, the Station Manager.
 

Bittern

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Whilst we're here, I found this video of the old Scotrail announcements; "Annoying Annie". Click here.

****, glad I was never on a train with her voice!

btw, does anyone happen to know who it is that does the voice at stations such as Paisley Gilmour Street, Glasgow Central Low Level, Argyle Street etc.?
 

metrocammel

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If you want to meet the chap that did the recordings for Ashford, Dover
Western Docks and Proiry (Last two not him now) He's working at Faversham
Also he's fluent in 4 or 5 languages


He'd have a rather boring job announcing trains at Dover Western Docks these days!!

I want the on-train guy from 'one' back. Far more character than the current bland woman.

A friend once met 'Dave', coincidentally on a 360 going to Ipswich a couple of years back- he actually did a personalised announcement that she recorded on her mobile! Apparently he used to work as a driver for Great Eastern (and 'one'), however by then had moved over to the 'Green Team' based off Ipswich.
 

thefab444

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Slight tangent, but I'm aware Oxford (and Slough?) have had new CIS screens installed, and somebody said somewhere that the automated PA would also be replaced. Does anyone know if the previous "Boofay" voice still at these stations or has she been replaced and if so, who the voice is (my bet is on "Sarah" - hateful woman!)?

Well, in answer to my own question, it appears Phil and Celia are indeed both at Oxford now, although using the previous system's loudspeakers so it sounds pretty dire.

Celia to an odd destination

Old vs New
 

emoaconr

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I take it this thread has diversified somewhat :p

I heard 'lovely' Ruth's voice on the Microsoft advert, which nicely resides on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko1jBiaMY9Y

It seems on the 175 I was on last week that Ruth has been re-programmed with the on-train announcements (at least). She still seems surprised by "Holyhead!!", although all of the station names have been re-recorded. In particular, she now longer seems to go up and down an octave mountain when saying "HEREford", "LUDlow" and "SHREWSbury". In particular, "Pontypool and New Inn" seems clearer, and "CwmBRAAAAAN" seems less pronounced. Although the Llandudno Junction and Llandidnor question is still unanswered.

The safety information now also seems to have been omitted, and in a rather sarcastic tone, "safety information IS provided in the passenger saloons, please take time to read it".

Can't tell you how long its been like this, but it wasn't like that on my last journey about a month ago.
 

jon0844

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Scotrail have their own woman (don't know her name) who's good and doesn't sound too robotic.
[*]She always gets the NXEC trains the wrong way around, with regard to First Class.[/list]

So at least they've given her a sense of humour then!
 

WhereInSussex

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Gatwick they have more than one voice doing the same announcement! With regional accents... it's amazingly awful!
 

dave_wm

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Having been on a Class 175, I can confirm she still says 'Llandidnor' and that also appears on the screens on board.

I like the sarcasm :P
 

Tom B

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AIUI The announcements at Waverley are done by Network Rail and were re-recorded using the voice of Juliet Donnachie, the Station Manager.

I always think she sounds depressed - especially when she threatens people with the "security services" nabbing bags, whoever they may be.
 

Bittern

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You think Waverley's is bad? You should hear the one at Glasgow Queen Street. She's completely emotionless.
 

Geezertronic

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I always think she sounds depressed - especially when she threatens people with the "security services" nabbing bags, whoever they may be.

I think Phil sounds great when announcing a security announcement. There is one or two vids on YouTube which include him announcing an evacuation of Birmingham New Street and he's quite calm and collected all being said :D
 

F Great Eastern

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Sarah has now replaced Boofay at Ipswich, and she is even more annoying there than she is in Liverpool Street, with a few things that really need addressing.

When a freight train comes past or a train terminates at Ipswich - all passenger trains stop at Ipswich!
"The train now approaching platform two does not stop here. Please stand away from the platform edge of Platform two, the train does not stop here"

And the one that really annoys me, she seems to have no ability at all to make late announcements. I was in Ipswich yesterday and 3 trains were late by around 10 minutes, yet there were no manual or automated announcements the only way you would know the train was running late was by looking at the screens, yet Sarah says when it turns up 15 minutes late
"In order to assist with the punctual departure of your train, please close the doors behind you making sure that all luggage is stowed safely"

It's really patronising and is said in a tone which makes me feel like I AM to blame for it running late rather than the fact the class 90 is losing time!

Overall Ipswich station is pretty much horrible compared to what it was 9 months ago and thats saying something, they've took a load of seating out of Upper Crust to put a mini WHSmiths in because you can't access the other one after going to platforms due to the barriers they've introduced, they've took two ticket machines away so there is only one left, and the first class lounge is closed and we have this silly woman.
 

philjo

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The announcements at Cambridge are always very clear - I haven't heard that voice used at other stations I have visited.
 

dan_atki

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The announcements at Cambridge are always very clear - I haven't heard that voice used at other stations I have visited.

Ah Celia (if it's still her). Go on Southern/South West Trains territory (or even a SWT train exc 421s/458s) and she becomes infinitely times more annoying, with the inability to pronounce places correctly. The Southampton area a prime example.

She's now also at Birmingham New Street (unless they removed her after customer complaints), where some West Midlands and Welsh pronunciations also leave a lot to be desired...
 

thefab444

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Whilst she is annoying on-train, I am getting used to her and she doesn't seem as bad as when she replaced Phil back in January '07. She is also still at Cambridge (and Stansted Airport) as far as I know.

At least at Birmingham New Street she can say Nottingham, which is more than she can down here. (apparently CrossCountry now serve Westerton)
 

thefab444

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Yeah, Sarah has that quality.

Does anyone know what was wrong with the previous announcement system used by one/Natex EA. They haven't put up new screens, which is usually the reason for changing the announcements?
 

ffcphone

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What's wrong with good old fashioned human beings instead of these automated things which no matter how hard they try will always sound automated?

Travelling around the rail network it's refreshing to hear a human being talking live.

F
 

thefab444

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To put it simply, it's a waste of staff time and therefore money to the TOC.

Why have a member of staff locked away in a cupboard just to do announcements, when a computer can do a far better job (most of the time) and releases the member of staff to do something useful that passengers will appreciate such as selling tickets, manning gatelines or providing assistance on the platforms.
 

F Great Eastern

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Yeah, Sarah has that quality.

Does anyone know what was wrong with the previous announcement system used by one/Natex EA. They haven't put up new screens, which is usually the reason for changing the announcements?

They seem to have put a new information system in, on the existing screens, the reason I say that is all the screens have changed their layout at Ipswich, from the one they have had for many years, to a new layout so I guess it may have happened at the same time.

The current one means a train is never late in NXEA's eyes so I guess they see it as an improvement!
 

monkey

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...when I was younger, and go to see my brother off to uni, at newcastle when it had awful tannoy system (you could barely make out what was being said), there used to be this french sounding anouncer, with deep voice. used to always make me smile, gave an international feel to the station, even though you couldn't tell what was being said...
 

Aictos

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Can we start a campaign to take these across the nation?

Stations like peterborough, with no proper announce system, could really do with his dulcet tones.

BRING BACK PHIL!

Peterborough does have a proper announce system as they use manual announcements using the station announcer based at Peterborough PSB much like Doncaster I'm sure has a similar system with their station announcer based at Doncaster PSB.
 

Tom C

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Seven Sisters still uses an old tape recording on the Liverpool Street platform at least, must be one of the last ones left in use.
 

Geezertronic

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Birmingham International still use live people to do the announcing but even I have trouble understanding a couple of the blokes :D the ladies that do the announcing are always easy to understand.
 

asylumxl

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Ever been to Luton Airport Parkway?

The automated announcer announces something along the lines of "Please take care with luggage on the station and use the lifts provided".

Unfortunately, it announces it literally every 2 seconds...
 

Fincra5

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I think southern uses Phil at most stations and Celia on the trains. I'm not sure tho.
 

F Great Eastern

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Ever been to Luton Airport Parkway?

The automated announcer announces something along the lines of "Please take care with luggage on the station and use the lifts provided".

Unfortunately, it announces it literally every 2 seconds...

I was there yesterday! To be fair though, it only says it actually on the speakers where the stairs are, and not every speaker on the PA System

"Passengers with luggage are advised to use the lifts provided, when using the stairs please use the handrails and take care"
 
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