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SWR - short platforms announcements.

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Deepgreen

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Yesterday I travelled up from Portsmouth Harbour to Guildford. Shortly after leaving PH there was an announcement about various stations having short platforms and which coaches would be accommodated at each. The annoucement ended with a reassurance that there would be individual announcements in good time for each station to allow passengers to move as needed. However, in the event, there was nothing further for any of the stations en route! I am wondering why the trains' p.a. systems don't have auto annoucements for this - it seems an obvious thing to include (and far more relevant than so much of the other stuff that is recorded!).
 
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HughT

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Are you sure you were in a portion of the train where the subsequent announcements would have been needed? In my neck of the woods, the announcements on arriving at individual stations are only broadcast to the affected carriages.
 
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swt_passenger

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HughT said:
Are you sure you were in a portion of the train where the subsequent announcements would have been needed? In my neck of the woods, the announcements on arriving at individual stations are only broadcast to the affected carriages.
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That‘s also how the 444/450 system works. “You need to move forward from this part of the train, etc etc”.
 
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stadler

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On the topic of these SWR short platform announcements the 458/4s have an issue where they tell you about non existent short platforms. This has been going on even since they entered service last year. It seems that SWR forgot to reprogramme them when removing the fifth coach. For 8 or 9 coach platforms the announcements will still say "customers wishing to leave the train at the next station must be in the front 8 coaches" or "customers wishing to leave the train at the next station must be in the front 9 coaches" even though the train is only 8 coaches long now. The system seems to still think that it is a 10 coach train formed of two 5 coach units.
 
Dstock7080

Dstock7080

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I did post in the “SWR class 458 to be retained” thread in December and received a promising reply:

SWR Class 458 to be retained

Minor detail, the date on the news item says April 2021. The OP quoted wrong. It was April 2021. Noted, have amended my post.
www.railforums.co.uk www.railforums.co.uk

swr444 said:
I definitely worked a pair which had the updated announcements the other week. I believe it’s a slow process of updating the PIS on these trains
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TEW

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stadler said:
On the topic of these SWR short platform announcements the 458/4s have an issue where they tell you about non existent short platforms. This has been going on even since they entered service last year. It seems that SWR forgot to reprogramme them when removing the fifth coach. For 8 or 9 coach platforms the announcements will still say "customers wishing to leave the train at the next station must be in the front 8 coaches" or "customers wishing to leave the train at the next station must be in the front 9 coaches" even though the train is only 8 coaches long now. The system seems to still think that it is a 10 coach train formed of two 5 coach units.
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The 458 PIS is incredibly basic. It doesn't have any idea how many coaches there are. The codes were simply programmed for either 5 or 10 coaches, and to play relevant short platform announcements, and weren't immediately updated to account for the fact they are now 4 or 8 coaches. If the 10 car code were entered on a 5 car formation, it would play the short platform announcements as if it were a 10 car.
 
DelW

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swt_passenger said:
That‘s also how the 444/450 system works. “You need to move forward from this part of the train, etc etc”.
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Very occasionally it gets confused. I remember being on one up service (10 or 12 car) which seemed to play that throughout the train at pretty much every station. It even told me to "move forward ..." as we came into Waterloo, and I was in the front coach.
 
Sealink

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I remember being on a 9-car SWT from Waterloo to Exeter which split at Salisbury with a portion going to Bristol.

The announcement was mind-boggling. Although I suppose you only have to listen out for your own station. Thankfully I didn't really have to pay attention (just be in the correct part of the train!) as I was going all the way to Exeter.
 
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swt_passenger

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Sealink said:
I remember being on a 9-car SWT from Waterloo to Exeter which split at Salisbury with a portion going to Bristol.

The announcement was mind-boggling. Although I suppose you only have to listen out for your own station. Thankfully I didn't really have to pay attention (just be in the correct part of the train!) as I was going all the way to Exeter.
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I remember a long announcement on an 10.444 approaching Southampton Airport Parkway, basically saying pax would need the front portion for stations Bournemouth and beyond, from Southampton Central, where the train would divide. So an advance warning, that had been repeated quite a few times since Waterloo.

A family with about 4 children leapt to their feet on hearing it this time and hurriedly bailed out at Parkway, and while they were deciding what to do next the train left.
 
Vexed

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swt_passenger said:
I remember a long announcement on an 10.444 approaching Southampton Airport Parkway, basically saying pax would need the front portion for stations Bournemouth and beyond, from Southampton Central, where the train would divide. So an advance warning, that had been repeated quite a few times since Waterloo.

A family with about 4 children leapt to their feet on hearing it this time and hurriedly bailed out at Parkway, and while they were deciding what to do next the train left.
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On top of (if they boarded at Waterloo) the platform displays and station announcements being very clear what stops each coach does, as of course there are a number of short platforms after Southampton on top of dividing.

It is complicated but they do nearly always explain it well.
 
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Cricketer8for9

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Happens at Purley Oaks where people bail to move back and get left behind. Listened to a bloke trying to explain to another bloke that all they needed to do was get off at Purley and walk back. Somehow bloke 2 thought the trains would not let anyone off at Purley and bloke 1 couldn’t convince bloke 2 otherwise even though bloke 2 could not satisfactorily answer “what do you think happens at Purley?”.
 
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