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New announcements: "Separate" not "Divide" and "Carriages" not "Coaches"

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AM9

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Wow! 30 posts in less than 40 hours on whether it's 'cars', 'coaches' or 'carriages', and the finer points of 'separates' and 'divides'. It must be a slow (rail) news week. :)
 
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xotGD

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Never mind separates/divides, what is wrong with saying that the train 'splits'?
 

benbristow

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Travelling on Southern recently I notice they have changed their announcements. Whereas trains always used to divide they now say separate. Also the train has 8 Carriages not 8 Coaches.

Does anyone know why they have done this. Has there been some sort of research to say people are confused about the old announcements ?

Carriages and Separate have more syllables than Coaches and Divide so the announcements have got longer !

Being that Southern serve the Gatwick Airport station it might be useful in that regard with all the non-native English speakers using the trains.

Carriages makes it a lot more clearer than it's talking about a train than road coaches.

Separate makes it blatantly clear the train is going to split up. "Divide" isn't as obvious.
 

700007

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Being that Southern serve the Gatwick Airport station it might be useful in that regard with all the non-native English speakers using the trains.

Carriages makes it a lot more clearer than it's talking about a train than road coaches.
But if you are at the station on the platform, having seen staff at the ticket gates who would have willingly let you through - why would a road coach suddenly be running on rails? Even those who don't know English well wouldn't assume that, I hope.
 

benbristow

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But if you are at the station on the platform, having seen staff at the ticket gates who would have willingly let you through - why would a road coach suddenly be running on rails? Even those who don't know English well wouldn't assume that, I hope.

Fair point. I still prefer 'carriages' to 'coaches' personally though.
 

frediculous

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At the Southeastern stations I use the arrival time alternates with the length of train as "12 carriages" while the scrolling text below says "formed of 12 coaches". An odd inconsistency.

(As an aside because the length alternates even if there is no arrival time (e.g. for a Not in Service) there's the odd situation of telling passengers how long an ECS start is)
 

pt_mad

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Travelling on Southern recently I notice they have changed their announcements. Whereas trains always used to divide they now say separate. Also the train has 8 Carriages not 8 Coaches.

Does anyone know why they have done this. Has there been some sort of research to say people are confused about the old announcements ?

Carriages and Separate have more syllables than Coaches and Divide so the announcements have got longer !
I seem to remember some years ago some locations were changing to carriages instead of coaches due to some customers walking around stations asking where, for example, the 4 coaches to Liverpool were. I.e. road coaches.
 

Bletchleyite

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I seem to remember some years ago some locations were changing to carriages instead of coaches due to some customers walking around stations asking where, for example, the 4 coaches to Liverpool were. I.e. road coaches.

LM changed to carriages near the end of their tenure. Interesting that that's why - I did wonder - it always sounds a bit too quaint.
 

Silverlinky

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LM changed to carriages near the end of their tenure. Interesting that that's why - I did wonder - it always sounds a bit too quaint.

I always thought it was a bit strange that the 153's running to Bedford were announced as being "formed of one coach"....is it a coach or is it a train?

LNW still divide though, rather than separate.
 

xotGD

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I always thought it was a bit strange that the 153's running to Bedford were announced as being "formed of one coach"....is it a coach or is it a train?

LNW still divide though, rather than separate.
A 153 is both a coach and a train. The coach number is on the side and the set number is on the front!
 

londonmidland

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I always thought it was a bit strange that the 153's running to Bedford were announced as being "formed of one coach"....is it a coach or is it a train?

LNW still divide though, rather than separate.

A few things to note here here.

- Where it is announced, at Bedford, the station is managed by Thameslink, who use the word 'coaches/coach' in their announcements. Whereas up the line in Bletchley, the station is managed by London Northwestern Railway, so it'll be announced as 'carriage'.
- As far as I'm aware, South Western Railway are the only TOC to use the word 'separate' in their announcements.
 

172006

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Wow! 30 posts in less than 40 hours on whether it's 'cars', 'coaches' or 'carriages', and the finer points of 'separates' and 'divides'. It must be a slow (rail) news week.
There are all 3 words in Benfleet station.
Audio: "This train is formed of four coaches"
Display: Formed of 4 carriages
Stop sign: 4 CAR STOP

As for being clear, I don't think 'terminates' could be confused for anything else, but 'All change please' could possibly be confused by passengers with learning disabilities. The whole journey they're told "change for..." so they understand 'change' to mean 'alight, go to another platform, board a different train' and now they hear "all change." Does that mean that the station exits are closed and they need to board another train to leave the station? No, it only means they can't stay in this train.
 
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