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What was the first station to have auto announcements?

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Bletchleyite

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Cheers, brings back good childhood memories of wandering the rail network of the North West.

FWIW, she's more Northern than I remembered - in particular a very Northern "afternoon"! :)
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As an aside, has anyone else come across the on-board autoannouncer on the unrefurbished SWT Junipers? (The refurbs have the system from the Desiros). The way they recorded the upwards-intoned version of the stations it sounds like the announcer (a male in his 30s by the sound of it) had just been given a massive shock at having arrived somewhere.

Mind you, if I'd just unwittingly arrived at Feltham (the one where the effect was most noticeable) I'd have had a bit of a shock as well. :)
 
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Galvanize

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Ruth was a Wessex Trains employee; I don't think the system preceded Wessex Trains. She was at Romsey, Dunbridge and Dean, but as far as I am aware Salisbury has always used the SWT Phil/Celia system.

According to the Regional Railways Story, the ATOS system which employed Ruth and Eryl (The Welsh Speaking male we affectionately know as Glyn) first came about under Wales&West in the late 1990s under "Project Inform."
 

herschell

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I like the announcer at Montrose, very clear, any idea who it is and if she's anywhere else on the Scottish network
 
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I always liked that woman. I remember her at Lancaster when I was there at University from 1999 - 2002. She survived at Wigan North Western until quite late on, around 2008 / 2009 I think. There was a similar sounding woman at Seven Sisters till only a few years ago too. That was a very old system at Seven Sisters, an old Ditra system, that - as another post mentions - used a series of pre-recorded announcements which were activated by the platform staff typing a 3 digit number into a very old wooden box on the all, which would then make the relevant announcement. There was a book of scripts, along with the 3 digit codes, and only those ones in the script book could be announced.

There is a recording here: (sorry about the sound quality from Lancaster, it hasn't transferred from tape very well).

She was also at Wakefield Westgate and Meadowhall and presumably others in the locality (in the very late 90's I recall from uni days
 

6Gman

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The first BR recorded announcements will have been in the late 60's - my mother wasn't in at the very start, but started recording announcements - for Southern Region - around 1970, joined by my father in 1971. Neither were professional actors, although both had done a bit of am-dram.

Was she the "Bow-mouth this is Bow-mouth" lady?
 

rebmcr

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So, back to the OP: What was the first AUTO announcement station? That is, one that played its messages based on a signalling or PIS feed of some sort, without station staff involvement.
 

jon0844

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The Seven Sisters system is presumably the same as at Cheshunt in the late 80s? With flip dot displays that went wrong within months?
 
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