Atomic Systems

6rdfar90 wrote:I too, miss the Big Board at Birmingham New Street. I also wish that the train stations in the Yorkshire area had the same man that does the voices in Birmingham New Street (It is still a man right?) I dont know why, just sounds better than the stupid woman we have at the train station in Leeds.

The woman is still out in force at Leeds but most if not all of the local stations have Phil Sayer announcements. Why they have that woman when she is clearly inaudible (and well out of sync across the station) amazes me!

XPTE wrote:I was quite surprised that I heard the familiar ding ding ding ding ding chime(which is still used today) followed by the announcement "May I have your attention please. Please do not leaves cases or parcels anywhere on the station. Any unnattended items will be removed without warning". And it was the very same bloke who does a lot of the pre-recorded announcements nowadays, across the Southern region anyway, as well as Birmingham New Street to name another destination .

Its still there at Huddersfield as well sounding brilliant as ever. Its been on the PIS system there a long time before 9/11!

birminghamnewstreet wrote:

terryhfs wrote:There's a Jamaican guy who does the most amazing annoucements I've ever heard on Victoria tube station at peak hours. Not only does he have the best accent I've ever heard, he embellishes his annoucements with bizarre details like "This is the oh eight fifty three train to Brixton" (like a tube passenger cares what time train it is), "calling at every single station on the way to Brixton" and then random details about what a lovely day it is, how lucky we are bcos this trian has one of the good drivers etc..

Really brightens your day on your way to a stress packed meeting or a day in the office.

Hurrah !

Terry...

Ive heard the person- very amuzing way to start the day, or even end it. Allways brings a smile to everyones faces on the packed station's/lifts/stairs ect.

Pre-recorded anouncements are better, simply because of accents. The well known bloke thats at most stations, the one who does the birmingham new street station anounsments, he should be the voice everywhere. He speaks clear and is understandable. Live anounsments you can have anyone speaking with a compleatly different accent speaking unclearly, which in turn a passenger could mistake for something else, expeciely if its a day the station display's are down.

Duno if you have ever seen the program "the tube" which was shown on itv and now repeated on sky three, but i belive he stared in it. His name was simon.

6rdfar90 wrote:
I too, miss the Big Board at Birmingham New Street. I also wish that the train stations in the Yorkshire area had the same man that does the voices in Birmingham New Street (It is still a man right?) I dont know why, just sounds better than the stupid woman we have at the train station in Leeds.

The woman is still out in force at Leeds but most if not all of the local stations have Phil Sayer announcements. Why they have that woman when she is clearly inaudible (and well out of sync across the station) amazes me!

I havent really noticed him at any other stations really. Mind you though, its either Manchester, Birmingham or York that I end up at anyways.

allypally wrote:Smoking has been banned on the underground since the Kings Cross fire in 1987. Not quite the 50s but hey ho

Actually, the smoking ban on the tube started several months before the King's X fire. The fire was actually caused by a smoker.

When I was on duty in Luton South 'box in the 70's I was accompanied by a 'Box Boy' who's job it was to complete the train register, make the tea and work the train announcement machine - a very posh BBC female voice this machine had which was all well and good until the trains got out of course then it was back to live announcments. This particular lad. I think his name was Dave but he was always called by his nickname "Bumfluff Bill" would get very embarrassed and wanted to giggle when working the mike and would phyce himself up to the announcement leaving it almost untill the train was running past the box to get going. I only had to glance at him and he would start laughing. One day, a bank holiday Monday late turn I think it was, the trains were well out of course and I was really winding this poor lad up as a Manchester Express was imminent he started his performance trying to control his laughter. Once again the train was almost in the station and he started, unfortunately he turned his back to me so as to control himself so I crept up behind and gave him a firm dig in the ribs - the announcement to the packed platform went " The next train arriving at Platform one is going to "F---Off to Manchester" - oh dear fortunately nobody said anything.

Regards, Dick.

dikkidee wrote:"Bumfluff Bill"

any specific reason for this nickname?

People call me shorty (imaginative as always), this stemmed from the fact i was always short in primary school and the first few years of high school. Im 6'4" now.

This lad was 16 -17yrs old and was absolutley mad on Status Quo - yes even they were young then!! anyway at that time Quo had beards and he was trying his hardest to grow a beard but it just did'nt work!!

He was quite a good lad actually and looking back we were probably pretty hard on him but, heh ho, thats life, he took it in good stead as we all did and he could give as good as he got. None of this "Political Correctness" then ,we could still have a joke with each other.

Regards, Dick.

People were never offended by such comments until the pc brigade told them they should be, people tend to act like sheep in that way.

I meant to put this on here ages ago. But what's with the male and female pre-recorded announcements at London Bridge station going off at exactly the same time? The exact same announcements for "Please do not leave cases or parcels anywhere on this station...." and "For your comfort and safety this station has CCTV...." go off at exactly the same time. One with the male announcer, the other with the female announcer. What's the point in that? It's been like for the last 21 months at least.

Pre recorded ones are always done using one of those great sounding voice over lady's like who dose then on the tube but if there is problems delays very late train then you need a live announcement

I always wanted to know who dose the announcements at small unstaffed stations you know like South Wigston or say Syston they have Loud speakers on the lamp posts but who controlls then you only ever here then used when there are big delays.

I would imagine they are controlled by Leicester!

Weird announcement at Bristol Temple Meads this morning, which didn't make much sense.

First of all, the HST set to be used on 0815 London Paddington-Swansea service had a front power car failure. To which everyone was asked to transfer to another HST which would be on the delayed service. To which it departed at 0833. Arriving in Bristol Temple Meads, 25 minutes late.

Just as the train was arriving in Bristol, the pre-recorded announcement said "I'm sorry to announce that the 10 09 service to Swansea is delayed by ... 21... minutes. This is due to a technical failure on this train at London Paddington which is being dealt with now. I'm very sorry for the delay to this service.". If the train was still at London Paddington with the failure being dealt with(as the announcement suggested), it would hardly be just pulling into Bristol and only running 25 minutes late!

I think Manchester Victoria is done live because I go from there to Oldham Werneth every week and the announcement never sounds the same

If you like the guy at Birmingham New Street, you've got to listen to the beginning of this video

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nt-WNfu786k

Quite a calm chap isn't he

I know that sheffield is automated with the occasional live one. I know that York, Darlington and Newcastle are all live and much more interesting!!! The automated female voice on SWT really annoys me. It's just so patronising!!!

Glenn