Network Rail “safety vision” announcement

johntea · 12 Oct 2018

A new announcement has popped up at Leeds station (among other NR stations too presumably) with a very thick southern Male voice

I lost count of how many times he emphasised the word EVERYONE!

This is a safety announcement for EVERYONE
We want EVERYONE to travel SAFELY
We mean EVERYONE

It’s a very annoying loud announcement which doesn’t fit in with the others at all due to the ‘southern voice’ and is basically just a load of complete waffle that nobody will pay attention to anyway! It took me until about the 10th attempt to finally work out the ‘safety vision’ part! (Guess what, the vision is for EVERYONE!)

To be honest the whole announcements system could do with a bit of a tidy up, there just seems to be no ‘standard’ voice any more!

RailUK Forums

londonmidland · 12 Oct 2018

If anything, there's more of a standard voice used for announcements today than there ever has been. Especially as the automated trend continues to grow.

Bar manual and specially recorded announcements, regional and local announcements are becoming a rare thing these days.

goblinuser · 12 Oct 2018

What is a 'thick Southern male voice'?

northernchris · 12 Oct 2018

I heard this the other day and it does sound a bit odd. Suppose if it reduces accidents it serves its purpose though!

takno · 12 Oct 2018

northernchris said:
I heard this the other day and it does sound a bit odd. Suppose if it reduces accidents it serves its purpose though!

Why on earth would you think it will do that? It will prevent people who can't read displays from getting the actual information they need from the other announcements, but I'd be amazed if anybody anywhere ever finds it useful...

DarloRich · 13 Oct 2018

Perhaps the experts here could offer some free advice on how NR can reduce passenger accidents at stations. They will, of course, know how high the statistics involved are.

northernchris · 13 Oct 2018

DarloRich said:
Perhaps the experts here could offer some free advice on how NR can reduce passenger accidents at stations. They will, of course, know how high the statistics involved are.

Exactly! I'm sure Leeds is no different to other mainline stations in rush hour, but some of the crowds going up/down the stairs can create a lot of congestion which then causes people to push their way through. It's an accident waiting to happen, and with the compo culture we unfortunately have the announcement is probably to protect Network Rail

londonmidland · 20 Oct 2018

goblinuser said:
What is a 'thick Southern male voice'?

Just heard it myself after being in Leeds and the person talking has a very strong Essex/Cockney/Kent accent.

Excuse my ignorance, but for someone who lives in the Midlands, the accents in the South/South East sound very similar to me.

306024 · 20 Oct 2018

It is retaliation for Anglia staff selling “butties” from the buffet car, which just sounds plain wrong in this part of the world. Seems they come from up north after the demise of the in house catering at Norwich.

A similar announcement at Baker St (I think) was in a child’s voice the other day. Does make you listen.

northernchris · 20 Oct 2018

306024 said:
A similar announcement at Baker St (I think) was in a child’s voice the other day. Does make you listen.

Old Northern used to have a child announcement although can't remember what it was for. I seem to recall they were a lot of complaints though and it was soon dropped

Joseph_Locke · 21 Oct 2018

DarloRich said:
Perhaps the experts here could offer some free advice on how NR can reduce passenger accidents at stations. They will, of course, know how high the statistics involved are.

At most stations it is slips and trips, a combination of Victorian staircases and moronic passengers engrossed in mobile devices.

Parallel · 21 Oct 2018

Birmingham New St has a couple of child announcements too but I can’t remember what for. I think one is for bad weather possibly.

lammergeier · 21 Oct 2018

Parallel said:
Birmingham New St has a couple of child announcements too but I can’t remember what for. I think one is for bad weather possibly.

They are unbelivably irritating. A station manager on here once said they would be turned off, but it hasn't happened unfortunately.

Camden · 21 Oct 2018

"When boarding the twain...",
"This is an important safety announcement!.. it is raining",
"If you see it, say it and we'll look at you like you're a nuisance"...
On top of the "I'm sorry to announce..." going off every five minutes, if anyone thinks these mass announcements/intrusions get anything through in a proportionally appropriate way (other than that stations are really annoying and unpleasant places to be for any elongated period of time!) I await the imperial evidence!

DarloRich · 21 Oct 2018

Camden said:
"When boarding the twain...",
"This is an important safety announcement!.. it is raining",
"If you see it, say it and we'll look at you like you're a nuisance"...
On top of the "I'm sorry to announce..." going off every five minutes, if anyone thinks these mass announcements/intrusions get anything through in a proportionally appropriate way (other than that stations are really annoying and unpleasant places to be for any elongated period of time!) I await the imperial evidence!

Sorry. I only have metric evidence

Network Rail “safety vision” announcement

johntea

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londonmidland

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goblinuser

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northernchris

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takno

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DarloRich

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northernchris

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londonmidland

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306024

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northernchris

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Joseph_Locke

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Parallel

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lammergeier

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Camden

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DarloRich

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