Another question, how do the stock in general tell what the next stop is? (eg, if you miss a station, how does it know to play the correct announcement for the next stop) Also, do the different trains use different systems? (I've heard that C, D, and 72 stocks use the same controller, but I don't know about any other stock)
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Tube train automated announcements 2005
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Dstock7080
Established Member
D Stock used a combination of GPS and axle revolutions to determine location.
1972 and C Stock used the same cab equipment.
Refurbished D Stock had a slightly more sophisticated version, with built-in cab unit.
bramling
Veteran Member
The C and 72 stock system (and presumably 67 stock) measured the number of wheel rotations. If a station was closed then the driver would press a button, presumably it could be pressed at any point prior to arrival, and the system would then skip forwards.
More cleverly, if there was a discrepancy in the number of wheel rotations then the system would identify this, and the driver would get a message stating “Confirm Position - xxx”. Not sure what happened if he pressed no, it might mean having to restart the journey in the system from scratch.
The system used on these stocks was really quite well designed. There was clearly a lot of operator input into making it work in a way which was particularly fit for purpose.
I think the C Stocks stopped going on the Met once the H&C gained its identity in the early 1990s, so would definitely be pre-announcements.
That would've been the Yellow Pages C Stock unit, when it operated the Chesham shuttle during the 1998 Steam on the Met event.
98224-C stock Chalfont & Latimer
C69 stock car 5537 heads out of Chalfont & Latimer with a Chesham service on 17/05/98
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Notwithstanding the comments already made re: the C, D and '72 stocks, I believe many other stocks respond to transponders in the track, which trigger the messaging.
In most cases this is on approach to the station, however the Piccadilly line triggers directly after departing the previous station. Incidentally, the '73s didn't have announcements triggered by such means until late 2006, so presumably it took a while to set up the necessary equipment. Similarly, the Jubilee line used to only have announcements while at stations, not on the approach.
I do remember the '67 stocks were similar to the '73 stock in that they played the next station upon departure of the previous station. This changed with the '09 stock.
Of course, go back further in time and the 1986 stock announcements could only be played by the driver selecting the buttons each time - we think anyway, given those on here who have memories riding them never remember the announcements playing!
Thomas_TankR
On Moderation
Where did emily Phipps comes from? Is she confirmed to be the Elloise' voice?
A google search of **Elloise voice over artist** comes up with a few results on someone called Elloise Thomson. granted I imagine there are others with the same first name out there. does anyone have a recording of the new voice please?
Elloise Thomson is indeed the voice behind the new Acapela Ellose voice on the Piccadilly Line 2024 Stock and Docklands Light Railway B23 Stock trains. It has since been confirmed that it is her.
I have no idea who Emily Phipps is or where on earth that name came from. It was a forum user called Jonah Kemp who mentioned that name but he has not provided any other information.
The new Acapela Elloise voice can be heard here:
Acapela Group | Digital custom voice created by Acapela Group will guide London Underground passengers on the Piccadilly line
A synthetic British voice is to inform passengers travelling on the new fleet of trains on the London Underground's Piccadilly line from the end of 2025
www.acapela-group.com
There are two recordings uploaded on that article that you can listen to.
Thomas_TankR
On Moderation
Thank you! I didn't know it was confirmed that it was Eloise Thomson, I couldn't find that confirmation. Thank youElloise Thomson is indeed the voice behind the new Acapela Ellose voice on the Piccadilly Line 2024 Stock and Docklands Light Railway B23 Stock trains. It has since been confirmed that it is her.
I have no idea who Emily Phipps is or where on earth that name came from. It was a forum user called Jonah Kemp who mentioned that name but he has not provided any other information.
The new Acapela Elloise voice can be heard here:
Acapela Group | Digital custom voice created by Acapela Group will guide London Underground passengers on the Piccadilly line
A synthetic British voice is to inform passengers travelling on the new fleet of trains on the London Underground's Piccadilly line from the end of 2025
There are two recordings uploaded on that article that you can listen to.
sjoh
Member
Some slightly odd inflections generated by the AI that hopefully will be ironed out. For instance "Bank, and Tower Gateway" don't sound like different destinations due to the downward inflections at the beginning of the words and the lack of pause between them.Elloise Thomson is indeed the voice behind the new Acapela Ellose voice on the Piccadilly Line 2024 Stock and Docklands Light Railway B23 Stock trains. It has since been confirmed that it is her.
I have no idea who Emily Phipps is or where on earth that name came from. It was a forum user called Jonah Kemp who mentioned that name but he has not provided any other information.
The new Acapela Elloise voice can be heard here:
Acapela Group | Digital custom voice created by Acapela Group will guide London Underground passengers on the Piccadilly line
A synthetic British voice is to inform passengers travelling on the new fleet of trains on the London Underground's Piccadilly line from the end of 2025
There are two recordings uploaded on that article that you can listen to.
Thomas_TankR
On Moderation
im sure you're right about this but I still can't find it confirmed anywhere. Where does it confirm she is the voice please?Elloise Thomson is indeed the voice behind the new Acapela Ellose voice on the Piccadilly Line 2024 Stock and Docklands Light Railway B23 Stock trains. It has since been confirmed that it is her.
I have no idea who Emily Phipps is or where on earth that name came from. It was a forum user called Jonah Kemp who mentioned that name but he has not provided any other information.
The new Acapela Elloise voice can be heard here:
Acapela Group | Digital custom voice created by Acapela Group will guide London Underground passengers on the Piccadilly line
A synthetic British voice is to inform passengers travelling on the new fleet of trains on the London Underground's Piccadilly line from the end of 2025
There are two recordings uploaded on that article that you can listen to.
I emailed her a few weeks ago and asked. It is not published anywhere or in the public domain. I had just asked her through email and she confirmed that it was indeed her.
Thomas_TankR
On Moderation
Thanks I wonder why it's not been confirmed by the underground, maybe they'll say its her when the trains are in use or something. Wow skilled detective work you definitely are the person to ask is this just a hobby ?
Anyway she sounds really good, a good choice for this glad she is doing it!
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If I'm honest, I find the voice samples I've heard to be a bit too sterile and lacking in gravitas. Yes, it's clever to use TTS and will save costs in the long run, I just would have preferred a different voice. On the plus side, I am glad they have gone for female; the Adrien H. mock announcements just don't work for me, when we are so used to female voices for on-board announcements.
It is quite common for some companies to be quite secretive about the voices used. I am not sure why. A lot of the National Rail operators have been similarly secretive about the voices used and it has taken me a lot of detective work to find out who some of them are. I just always have a interest in things like this. I like finding out about the history of automated announcements and who voices which.
I initially thought the Piccadilly Line voice was Eloise Carr as she had a Facebook post and Twitter post ages ago saying that she had auditioned to be the new voice. But when i asked her she said she had unfortunately not been successful in getting the job and it was not her. It turns out that they had two people with the same name in the shortlist and Elloise Thomson was the voice they choose. It is also worth pointing out that Ellose Thomson does mention TFL in the client list on her website. That is what made me think it was her and i emailed her and she confirmed it is indeed.
I am not a fan of the Adrian Hieatt announcements either. But i do think that some male voices can work well. Dan Strauss on the Northern class 333 is a perfect example of an excellent male voice. His announcements sound perfect and i actually think he would work very well on London Underground stock. But staff member male voices (those who are not professional voiceover artists) never seem to work well. Matt on GTR trains and stations is another one that i am not a fan of.
I hope the new female voice on the BLIP and CLIP trains gets launched soon. Although i would not be surprised if that has been cancelled due to funding issues and we are stuck with Adrian Hieatt on them. TFL were supposed to find a new voice for all of the other tube stock and record all of the new London Overground line names but that has been put on hold due to funding issues. So who knows. Maybe the new female voice will not happen.
Thomas_TankR
On Moderation
thanks for the reply really interesting. My guess is its less that companies are being secretive and more than public bodies are disorganised with their records . I know some people in public transport at least that's how I know a little bit about those places I think.
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Yes agree I think females are better for this and I expect most people do why change it. Unless they are doing male one in name of diversity which I think is a bad thing to do it just because of that
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There are only two voice samples in the public domain, and still some work to do before the Piccadilly line trains go into service. I imagine Acapela chose two random sound files/phrases as they wanted to get a press release out rather than waiting for the final train-quality/TfL approved announcements. I wouldn't judge the voice based just on those two files.
RacsoMoquette
Member
Sarah Parnell Question:
Hello, I am interested to discuss why the Sarah Parnell announcements sound so inconsistent and different across lines? Why did the examples on the C69/77TS sound so unlike the examples on the 1972TS? When both stocks used the same audio DVA software by Focon (Denmark)? Why do the examples on the 1992TS sound very similar to the examples on the 1972TS while the two stocks have different DVA systems? The latter 1992TS used Westinghouse while 1972TS uses Focon (Denmark). Another question of mine is why does Sarah Parnell sound so different on the 2009TS to the S Stock? As they both use an Axon DVA system, so one would not expect differences of such?
Hello, I am interested to discuss why the Sarah Parnell announcements sound so inconsistent and different across lines? Why did the examples on the C69/77TS sound so unlike the examples on the 1972TS? When both stocks used the same audio DVA software by Focon (Denmark)? Why do the examples on the 1992TS sound very similar to the examples on the 1972TS while the two stocks have different DVA systems? The latter 1992TS used Westinghouse while 1972TS uses Focon (Denmark). Another question of mine is why does Sarah Parnell sound so different on the 2009TS to the S Stock? As they both use an Axon DVA system, so one would not expect differences of such?
Yes it is noticeable how the original Sarah Parnell announcements on the 2009 Stock and S Stock (and even the C Stock and also infills on the D Stock that she did) all sound really good but her infills on the 1972 and 1992 and 1996 stocks sound much worse. These announcements were recorded only a couple years later so it was not like her voice had changed much. It is very odd. One possibility was that she was told that she was doing infills for another announcer and they asked her to try and make her voice sound as similar to Emma Clarke as possible. This could explain the difference. Other than that i can not think of any other explanation.
Train Announce
On Moderation
I also found some old Waterloo and city line announcements since before 2007 of Waterloo international station was closed
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I know we discussed lift announcements in this thread at some point last year. In a similar vein, has anyone had the chance to check out the lifts in the new Knightsbridge entrance yet? I wonder what voice is used.
starlight73
Member
The kind of tone reminds me Henrietta Bess or Celia Drummond (not saying it is them as I would be surprised if it was). It’s quite a low, warm, RP and authoritative voice. Will try to upload a video when I have the time!
southern442
Established Member
Probably a combo of this and also the fact that the speakers through which you are playing the announcements can make them sound very different as well. Consider Emma Clarke on the D stock vs 1992 stock, and Celia Drummond on 1996s vs 1995s vs her NR station announcements.
The fire rumour doesn't seem to be the case, as in two separate FOI requests (FOI-3289-2324 from Jan 2024 and FOI-0307-2526 from May 2025) TfL have stated in both occasions:
Which concludes that they have got the original audio files.
While in the search for some old Underground announcements I came across two videos that I don't know who they were voiced by, nor have been posted in this thread so might be best to post them here. The first is a female "Mind the Gap please" announcer on the Sub Surface platforms at presumably Victoria, which is stated to be from at least 1995 (seen from 3 minute mark):
Another is a somewhat experimental announcement on the Northern line platforms at Leicester Square, a male voice announcing along the lines of "This station is Leicester Square. Change for the Piccadilly line. The next station is Tottenham Court Road. Please stand clear of the doors" (seen from 1:40 mark):
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Thanks for sharing this. The only thing I can think of to keep the fire story alive is maybe the files themselves have always existed (and can't be shared due to copyright) but the ability to update the files on the trains required a specialist computer, which is what caught alight? (No pun intended)
Of course, in latter years they have been able to update. Given we put a man on the moon, an IT whizz came up with a solution eventually!
Wow - wish we had more of her. She's great.
Very slow and RP. I note "the next station for this train is" in the script.
bramling
Veteran Member
I think TFL now just send out a generic response to any FOI relating announcements. Essentially “we’ve released what we can, anything else is exempt”.
Sadly I suspect the original Janet Mayo announcements are unlikely to appear, but never know. It’s a shame, as IMO they’re some of the best ever, and an example of how announcements should be.
I've uploaded this video to YouTube a few days back compiling Janet Mayo's (Sonia) Central line recordings as far as I can find them, including ones uploaded on this thread which I've traced back to the BVE simulation for the Central line's old (Ruislip Gardens-Perivale) and new (Ealing Broadway-Liverpool Street) routes. While not fully complete, it does put out an online record of what the announcements should sound like.
A few notes also while researching, and writing this thread:
SONIA, like VERA and ANITA, reflects the inconsistency of early tube announcements. For example, Oxford Circus' line changes have the Bakerloo and Victoria lines in alphabetical order, but at Bank they are reversed ("Northern, District and Circle lines"). It also appears that Sonia didn't have 'next stop' announcements in their early years. Listening to the full recording of one trip by Squarewheels in 1998 as well as hearing next stop calls on others' recordings in 2001/02, I might assume they were updated around the Millennium.
I've not been able to find, amongst a number of stations, the Waterloo & City announcements. I know they were programmed on the Central line stock (and mistakenly played) but unsure if Sonia was ever used on the W&C stock, especially during NSE days? I also guesstimate there's a 90% chance the North Weald and Ongar announcements existed but never got put to proper use since the 92TS never ran in passenger service to there. I wonder if the script upon arrival at Epping would've said "change for Central line service to Ongar"?
I have a feeling that Sonia were recorded and managed separately from LRT's control, hence TFL's inability to release them under FOI. Perhaps until the recording company allows the release of the raw audio files to the public, much to delight of rail enthusiasts interested in a very niche sub-subgenre, this is the best of what we've got.
Some excellent finds there. I like that Mind The Gap female voice. I do not think it is her but she reminds me a bit of the Pauline Cavilla announcements.
I just stumbled across this video yesterday which i think is the same female voice:
I always wonder why London Underground had so many different Mind The Gap voices at station platforms. What made them decide to keep getting new voices for different stations. There is at least two females and six males that have been used for the Mind The Gap announcements at station platforms over the years.