Are too loud and too many PRM alarms and announcements making travellers uptight.....

[Bletchleyite]

Indeed. Outside Leeds station I deliberately cross the road at the patronising "DO NOT CROSS HERE" sign for exactly the same reason. And when using the Southern entrance I try to respond to the "STAND STILL, HOLD THE HANDRAIL AND FACE THE DIRECTION OF TRAVEL" announcement by doing the opposite!

Sidestep up while not holding the handrail?

 

[CaptainHaddock]

Sidestep up while not holding the handrail?

To be honest these days I can only manage to disobey two of the three orders; just not holding the handrail and not standing still!

 

[EM2]

What happened to "you are silly on the stairs, you hurt yourself, your fault"?

Or if you bowl someone else over and cause serious injury, they sue *you*, not the railway?

It is obvious how to correctly use stairs and every single person over the age of about 5 knows. Personal responsibility is all it takes, not sanctimonious announcements.

If you hurt yourself badly, the railway still (generally) provide First Aid for you, and arrange an ambulance if necessary. That takes time, it takes staff away from other duties, amongst other things. If you're sensible, that doesn't happen.
Unfortunately, a lot of people have to be reminded to be sensible.

 

[TUC]

Indeed. Outside Leeds station I deliberately cross the road at the patronising "DO NOT CROSS HERE" sign for exactly the same reason. And when using the Southern entrance I try to respond to the "STAND STILL, HOLD THE HANDRAIL AND FACE THE DIRECTION OF TRAVEL" announcement by doing the opposite!

At Middlesbrough station there are similar 'hold the handrail' signs which does beg the question what the point is of the 10 feet wide starcase. Are passengers expected to stretch a long way over from the middle, or is the width of the staircase just to leave lots of nice looking empty space?

 

[sheff1]

At Middlesbrough station there are similar 'hold the handrail' signs which does beg the question what the point is of the 10 feet wide starcase.

Quite. I assume the next step will be to narrow the available width on all staircases by building the handrails out towards the centre so that it is only possible to go up and down in single file.

 

[BurtonM]

In short, I agree.
TPE annoy me in particular because they didn't bother using professional voice artists for their CIS, so the inflection is all over the place and excessively jarring.

 

[Peter Sarf]

At Middlesbrough station there are similar 'hold the handrail' signs which does beg the question what the point is of the 10 feet wide starcase. Are passengers expected to stretch a long way over from the middle, or is the width of the staircase just to leave lots of nice looking empty space?

Don't be silly . The rest of the space is for when people sit on the stairs (another gripe of mine). Then anyone, however frail, can detour away from the handrail and around the persons sat by the handrail :roll:.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In short, I agree.
TPE annoy me in particular because they didn't bother using professional voice artists for their CIS, so the inflection is all over the place and excessively jarring.

The on-board one? I always found it perfectly summed up the previous TPE operation - rude, clipped, arrogant[1] and dismissive.

The worst thing is that even if they did want to use a member of staff (anyone remember the Scouse lift at Liverpool Central?) they must have had some with far warmer, more welcoming sounding accents than that one. And it's worth remembering (much as the Dutch accent grates; all the other languages it does were based on native speakers) that Aviavox is based on the main Schiphol manual announcer of the time, not a professional artist!

[1] You can't shout about being "InterCity" while running overcrowded 3-car doors-at-thirds DMUs around the place on what is basically a jazzed up regional express. Of course, new TPE can genuinely say that once the new kit arrives

 

[BurtonM]

The on-board one? I always found it perfectly summed up the previous TPE operation - rude, clipped, arrogant[1] and dismissive.

That's very true of the on board one - it's like someone with no knowledge of formal speaking reading off a sheet, 'having a go' at sounding neutral and professional. (Because that's what it is!)
I meant the platform one primarily, but neither were done by professionals.
The platform one is terrible, and for some reason replaced Phil Sayer at Huddersfield.
Why they couldn't be bothered doing a proper job I've no idea - even Northern use Atos Anne (if anything).

 

[sheff1]

Heard a new one the other day - "Due to today's wet weather, please take care on the station as surfaces may be slippery. This includes the platforms, stairs and overbridge".

Obviously people would not consider the platforms, stairs and overbridge to be part of the station unless they were told.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

Heard a new one the other day - "Due to today's wet weather, please take care on the station as surfaces may be slippery. This includes the platforms, stairs and overbridge".

Obviously people would not consider the platforms, stairs and overbridge to be part of the station unless they were told.

A bit like the on-train announcement that "smoking is not permitted in any part of the train - this includes toilets and vestibules". Wow - who knew that the toilets and vestibules were part of the train and not entirely different means of transport???

 

[mallard]

The overuse of and incredible amount of waffle on both train and station announcements in the UK is ridiculous and definitely contributes to a sense of unease and general unwelcoming atmosphere of the railways.

Things that are completely unnecessary include "Due to today's wet weather..." (which I've heard regularly on entirely dry days) "Smoking is illegal on this station/train" (anything that threatens legal force is entirely inappropriate for a public annoucement; on stations/trains where smoking is a problem an occasional "please do not smoke" may be appropriate, but otherwise signage is more than sufficient), outright advertising (such as the "you're a monkey if you booked on another website" that my local TOC had recently, and the advertising disguised as service information; I've heard announcements along the lines of "This is important information for passengers travelling to <event> this weekend. Our trains are likely to be busier than usual, so why not upgrade to first class for only £<price>!").

Other announcements are far too frequent. There's absolutely no need for the "Be suspicious of your fellow passengers at all times" or "remember the 3 'S's" (Service Suspended, Suckers!) announcements to play every 30 seconds at small stations with an hourly service. Every 10-15 minutes is more than sufficient. Even at busier stations, every 5 minutes is plenty.

Even the "useful" train-related announcements are often overly frequent and have an necessary level of detail; pretty much nobody cares about the "at seat service of light refreshments", (aka overpriced soggy sandwich trolley) that's on every train, it's only worth mentioning if it's missing for some reason, so that you get "the next train to arrive on <platform> is ..." followed almost immediately by "the train now arriving on <platform> is ..." repeating the exact same information. The fact that the "first class accommodation is towards the front/back/center" is so frequently wrong (and sometimes impossible; such as when a 2/3-unit train is announced as having "first class towards the front") that it's best ignored just goes to show how little thought actually goes into this stuff.

The announcements on the trains are just as bad, full of pointless fluff and fake pleasantries, with the occasional legal threats ("passengers found smoking or putting their feet on the seats will be handed over to the police for summary execution" or similar), made even worse by the fact that on-train PA systems barely work most of the time, often rendering the whole rambling tirade inaudible or filling it with painful-to-listen-to feedback. This is the very system that's supposed to be the primary way of disseminating information to passengers in an emergency!

Basically, as you can tell, I feel strongly on this subject. Having experienced train services across most of Europe, it's always struck me how concise and to-the-point everywhere except the UK is. It's not uncommon for an announcement to be in 3-4 languages and still be less than half the length of the equivalent UK announcement with all the useful information. The standard of passenger information is also vastly better in other countries, with things like displays showing connecting departure information for the next station in vestibules, announcements as to whether/which connections have been held when the train is running behind time and the ubiquitous everywhere except the UK practice of announcing which side the platform is on as the train approaches a station...

Decision makers at UK TOCs really need to get out see how much better the rest of the world treats their passengers.

 

[Strat-tastic]

mallard lets off steam

 

[J-2739]

The overuse of and incredible amount of waffle on both train and station announcements in the UK is ridiculous and definitely contributes to a sense of unease and general unwelcoming atmosphere of the railways.

Things that are completely unnecessary include "Due to today's wet weather..." (which I've heard regularly on entirely dry days) "Smoking is illegal on this station/train" (anything that threatens legal force is entirely inappropriate for a public annoucement; on stations/trains where smoking is a problem an occasional "please do not smoke" may be appropriate, but otherwise signage is more than sufficient), outright advertising (such as the "you're a monkey if you booked on another website" that my local TOC had recently, and the advertising disguised as service information; I've heard announcements along the lines of "This is important information for passengers travelling to <event> this weekend. Our trains are likely to be busier than usual, so why not upgrade to first class for only £<price>!").

Other announcements are far too frequent. There's absolutely no need for the "Be suspicious of your fellow passengers at all times" or "remember the 3 'S's" (Service Suspended, Suckers!) announcements to play every 30 seconds at small stations with an hourly service. Every 10-15 minutes is more than sufficient. Even at busier stations, every 5 minutes is plenty.

Even the "useful" train-related announcements are often overly frequent and have an necessary level of detail; pretty much nobody cares about the "at seat service of light refreshments", (aka overpriced soggy sandwich trolley) that's on every train, it's only worth mentioning if it's missing for some reason, so that you get "the next train to arrive on <platform> is ..." followed almost immediately by "the train now arriving on <platform> is ..." repeating the exact same information. The fact that the "first class accommodation is towards the front/back/center" is so frequently wrong (and sometimes impossible; such as when a 2/3-unit train is announced as having "first class towards the front") that it's best ignored just goes to show how little thought actually goes into this stuff.

The announcements on the trains are just as bad, full of pointless fluff and fake pleasantries, with the occasional legal threats ("passengers found smoking or putting their feet on the seats will be handed over to the police for summary execution" or similar), made even worse by the fact that on-train PA systems barely work most of the time, often rendering the whole rambling tirade inaudible or filling it with painful-to-listen-to feedback. This is the very system that's supposed to be the primary way of disseminating information to passengers in an emergency!

Basically, as you can tell, I feel strongly on this subject. Having experienced train services across most of Europe, it's always struck me how concise and to-the-point everywhere except the UK is. It's not uncommon for an announcement to be in 3-4 languages and still be less than half the length of the equivalent UK announcement with all the useful information. The standard of passenger information is also vastly better in other countries, with things like displays showing connecting departure information for the next station in vestibules, announcements as to whether/which connections have been held when the train is running behind time and the ubiquitous everywhere except the UK practice of announcing which side the platform is on as the train approaches a station...

Decision makers at UK TOCs really need to get out see how much better the rest of the world treats their passengers.

Dunno why, but this comment made me laugh a bit

 

[al78]

At Middlesbrough station there are similar 'hold the handrail' signs which does beg the question what the point is of the 10 feet wide starcase.

Perhaps it is to maximize overtaking opportunity and minimize the frustration to people who are trying to get somewhere, and get held up by the trundle-bunnies walking six abreast at one quarter of the normal walking pace (the pedestrian equivalent of the motorway center lane ownership club).

 

[BurtonM]

See it, say it, shut it...

 

[CaptainHaddock]

The overuse of and incredible amount of waffle on both train and station announcements in the UK is ridiculous and definitely contributes to a sense of unease and general unwelcoming atmosphere of the railways.

Things that are completely unnecessary include "Due to today's wet weather..." (which I've heard regularly on entirely dry days) "Smoking is illegal on this station/train" (anything that threatens legal force is entirely inappropriate for a public annoucement; on stations/trains where smoking is a problem an occasional "please do not smoke" may be appropriate, but otherwise signage is more than sufficient), outright advertising (such as the "you're a monkey if you booked on another website" that my local TOC had recently, and the advertising disguised as service information; I've heard announcements along the lines of "This is important information for passengers travelling to <event> this weekend. Our trains are likely to be busier than usual, so why not upgrade to first class for only £<price>!").

Other announcements are far too frequent. There's absolutely no need for the "Be suspicious of your fellow passengers at all times" or "remember the 3 'S's" (Service Suspended, Suckers!) announcements to play every 30 seconds at small stations with an hourly service. Every 10-15 minutes is more than sufficient. Even at busier stations, every 5 minutes is plenty.

Even the "useful" train-related announcements are often overly frequent and have an necessary level of detail; pretty much nobody cares about the "at seat service of light refreshments", (aka overpriced soggy sandwich trolley) that's on every train, it's only worth mentioning if it's missing for some reason, so that you get "the next train to arrive on <platform> is ..." followed almost immediately by "the train now arriving on <platform> is ..." repeating the exact same information. The fact that the "first class accommodation is towards the front/back/center" is so frequently wrong (and sometimes impossible; such as when a 2/3-unit train is announced as having "first class towards the front") that it's best ignored just goes to show how little thought actually goes into this stuff.

The announcements on the trains are just as bad, full of pointless fluff and fake pleasantries, with the occasional legal threats ("passengers found smoking or putting their feet on the seats will be handed over to the police for summary execution" or similar), made even worse by the fact that on-train PA systems barely work most of the time, often rendering the whole rambling tirade inaudible or filling it with painful-to-listen-to feedback. This is the very system that's supposed to be the primary way of disseminating information to passengers in an emergency!

Basically, as you can tell, I feel strongly on this subject. Having experienced train services across most of Europe, it's always struck me how concise and to-the-point everywhere except the UK is. It's not uncommon for an announcement to be in 3-4 languages and still be less than half the length of the equivalent UK announcement with all the useful information. The standard of passenger information is also vastly better in other countries, with things like displays showing connecting departure information for the next station in vestibules, announcements as to whether/which connections have been held when the train is running behind time and the ubiquitous everywhere except the UK practice of announcing which side the platform is on as the train approaches a station...

Decision makers at UK TOCs really need to get out see how much better the rest of the world treats their passengers.

Bravo, sir - post of the week!

It's always good to see someone railing against the plethora of pointless and unnecessary announcements, though I suspect no amount of ranting will have any effect. I started a very similar thread 6 years ago and if anything the announcements seem to be getting longer rather than shorter!

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/annoying-unnecessary-on-train-announcements-a-rant.45454/

 

[Taunton]

Things that are completely unnecessary include "Due to today's wet weather..." (which I've heard regularly on entirely dry days) "

Southern are the same. During a sleet storm last winter there was "when it is very hot weather outside, always have a bottle of water", repeated every two minutes. Presumably on hot summer days they will show messages to always bring your snowshoes.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I changed trains at Cardiff Central yesterday, and was enjoying a quiet coffee in Upper Crust when a repeated announcement was made: "Will the Superintendent please go to the depot".
It went on and on, annoying everybody. You couldn't engage in normal converstion while it was on.
It then changed to "Fire has been discovered on the station".
Eventually a real voice came on to say there was no fire and to disregard the announcement because it was a test.
But both announcements kept going for maybe 10 minutes, before they finally subsided.
For me, the test failed miserably.
You should not bombard the public with possibly distressing fake emergency announcements.
If they must conduct such tests, they should be out of hours.

Glad to see the IEP on-train announcements were just about right - clear, timely and non-repetitive.
Later I used an ATW 175, and we were back into pointless repeated announcements about litter/security/not smoking/low platforms/belongings and Thank You.
Just give thanks we don't have to hear the whole lot repeated in Welsh.
Then onto a 158 whose PIS was incapable of doing more than scrolling "Welcome to Arriva Trains Wales".
I don't really understand why the railway finds it so difficult to get the little things right.

 

[Taunton]

One of the annoyances is the desire to progressively extend messages as time passes. Station arrival announcements had "Doors will open on the left hand side" added. Then after a while that was further extended to ".... in the direction of travel". Whoever can have been confused by the previous arrangement. Furthermore, such messages, being preset, cannot handle arrivals at variable platforms, so at the one station where it might assist by saying which side the platform is today, it has to be left out.

 

[sheff1]

For me, the test failed miserably.
You should not bombard the public with possibly distressing fake emergency announcements.
If they must conduct such tests, they should be out of hours.

If the test is merely to check the alarms are working there is nothing wrong with conducting it 'in hours' as long as an announcement is made, immediately prior, that it is a test.

I agree that in this case the test failed miserably as, if an alarm had been going off for 10 minutes without any prior warning, then the station evacuation procedures should have been implemented.

 

[sheff1]

One of the annoyances is the desire to progressively extend messages as time passes. Station arrival announcements had "Doors will open on the left hand side" added. Then after a while that was further extended to ".... in the direction of travel". Whoever can have been confused by the previous arrangement. Furthermore, such messages, being preset, cannot handle arrivals at variable platforms, so at the one station where it might assist by saying which side the platform is today, it has to be left out.

At any station where variable platforms are a possibility either the message should be made manually or there is the ability for ontrain staff to trigger the appropriate pre-recorded announcement once the platform is known. Both options are commonplace in other countries.

 

[ooo]

at seat service of light refreshments", (aka overpriced soggy sandwich trolley) that's on every train, it's only worth mentioning if it's missing for some reason

Personally I think catering facilities are worth a brief mention such as "a buffet is available on this train" for example as not every train has one. Also some trains have different types of facilities such as buffets or trolleys so it helps to tell people what they can expect. Some catering announcements can be particularly excessive through especially when staff seem to list every single product they have

 

[Wombat]

I heard a new one on SWR this morning - an announcement along the lines of "This is a test of the PIS system. One, two, three, [...], nine, ten". I hadn't heard that one before, but it was repeated every couple of minutes through most of the journey. Genuinely excellent audio quality; I wish all on-train announcements had such clarity.

Wry amusement at Bank on the way home today via Waterloo & City. There was a queue on the walkway all the way down to the platforms (very rare in my experience) due to a train fault. Every couple of minutes we were treated to the automated announcement that "There is a good service on all London Underground lines", alternating with announcements from station staff that the W&C line was borked.

 

[Mugby]

On Pendolinos, I find it annoying that "Welcome to this Virgin Trains service to ......" is repeated twice after the train has departed from each station.

I can't quite understand the point of reading all the calling points and ultimate destination after the train has departed, if anyone does happen to be on the wrong train, it's a bit too late to make them aware after it's left the station.

 

[fowler9]

I think a large proportion of society are to blame for the things they moan about, if the TOCs and various other organisations don't make constant announcements they are putting themselves at risk of being sued in our litigious society. If they don't continuously tell people they could die at any second some clown will put a claim in for something they stupidly did themselves.

 

[hassaanhc]

I heard a new one on SWR this morning - an announcement along the lines of "This is a test of the PIS system. One, two, three, [...], nine, ten". I hadn't heard that one before, but it was repeated every couple of minutes through most of the journey. Genuinely excellent audio quality; I wish all on-train announcements had such clarity.

I heard a similar message at Twickenham station back in September

 

[Chris M]

Wry amusement at Bank on the way home today via Waterloo & City. There was a queue on the walkway all the way down to the platforms (very rare in my experience) due to a train fault. Every couple of minutes we were treated to the automated announcement that "There is a good service on all London Underground lines", alternating with announcements from station staff that the W&C line was borked.

Not uncommon, as the service messages are broadcast centrally, taken time to update (when an incident is developing it's nobody's priority to change it) and is largely political. I recall one when the eastbound Central line train I was one had been stationary at Bethnal Green for about 5 minutes in the middle of the evening peak, several repetitions of the good service message before we got a manual announcement saying that there was a passenger with a head injury on the train and they couldn't be moved until the paramedics arrived. At that point about a third of the passengers (including me) decided to seek an alternative route home, it was only as I was leaving the station did the message eventually acknowledge the line was suspended.
The best though was a few years ago when the announcements on each platform at Shepherd's Bush Market repeatedly disagreed with each other about whether there was a good service or minor delays on the Central line. I was there nearly 15 minutes (it was early Sunday evening iirc) and heard both versions every few minutes throughout that time.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

One of the annoyances is the desire to progressively extend messages as time passes. Station arrival announcements had "Doors will open on the left hand side" added. Then after a while that was further extended to ".... in the direction of travel".

I have seen an instance on the Victoria Line whereby a passenger who was leaning on the bulkhead facing the back of the train turned to her left when the announcement stated that the doors would open on the left hand side of the train...

 

[PHILIPE]

I changed trains at Cardiff Central yesterday, and was enjoying a quiet coffee in Upper Crust when a repeated announcement was made: "Will the Superintendent please go to the depot".
It went on and on, annoying everybody. You couldn't engage in normal converstion while it was on.
It then changed to "Fire has been discovered on the station".
Eventually a real voice came on to say there was no fire and to disregard the announcement because it was a test.
But both announcements kept going for maybe 10 minutes, before they finally subsided.
For me, the test failed miserably.
You should not bombard the public with possibly distressing fake emergency announcements.
If they must conduct such tests, they should be out of hours.

Glad to see the IEP on-train announcements were just about right - clear, timely and non-repetitive.
Later I used an ATW 175, and we were back into pointless repeated announcements about litter/security/not smoking/low platforms/belongings and Thank You.
Just give thanks we don't have to hear the whole lot repeated in Welsh.
Then onto a 158 whose PIS was incapable of doing more than scrolling "Welcome to Arriva Trains Wales".
I don't really understand why the railway finds it so difficult to get the little things right.

ATWs equivalent of Inspector Sands. I complained a few years ago but ATW said it was a Health and Safety message.