Dr_Paul
Established Member
- Joined
- 3 Sep 2013
- Messages
- 1,358
A train up to Waterloo yesterday... and not one 'Sorted' announcement. Yay! And only one on the return journey. This almost made up for the foul weather.
It's not just on the train. Sitting at Derby station listening to the constant mind numbing announcements going around on a loop. It was like mental torture. Watch out for slippery surfaces don't forget the 3 sss's on and on. Then you get on the train it's endless.
EMT stations are quite something. The auto announcer is prattling on for longer than there is silence, even when it's not announcing trains. The engineering work announcements are excessive and go on to long in far too much detail. The people they use for the EMT announcements are also often difficult to understand so even if you want to be told not to eat the soap you can't really make out what's being said anyway. I now always ensure my earphones are with me if I am going via an EMT station which kinda defeats the purpose of these announcements anyway.
I am fed up with that 'sorted' security announcement that goes off on every train up to Waterloo on which I travel as the train leaves the stations and sometimes in between stations, and is also regularly repeated over station tannoys. The woman announcer's simpering voice is bad enough, and the use of the word 'sorted' -- used here in the slang London term for 'sorted out' or 'dealt with' -- is even more annoying. But even if it were presented in a less irritating manner, would not the endless repetition be self-defeating, being just one more part of the almost continual aural clutter that plagues railway journeys these days?
Saw exactly this at Guildford last Thursday evening. Departure screens were showing an up then a down train from platform 4 departing only 1 minute apart, which obviously wasn't going to work, so I was expecting a correction. Sure enough, about 5 minutes beforehand, the up train was switched to platform 3, with a (manual) announcement along the lines of "this is a platform alteration - for passengers on platform four, the xx.xx train to London Waterloo will now depart from platform three".The main issue here is that passengers tend to ignore all PA announcements because they are sick of them and used to repetitive security announcements (and rightly so); they then don’t notice what is for once an important information. And then it’s the TOC’s fault if they get the feeling that the platform alteration wasn’t announced (and honestly for once I’d agree).
...what about.."if you are feeling unwell, please carry a bottle of water"I'm afraid I haven't read the whole of the thread as it'd be too frustrating to remind myself of all the announcements... but in order of my most hated, and in full agreement that the door noises definitely do not need to be as loud as they are:
- "Please stand behind the yellow line". Usually exclusively used when there isn't actually anybody standing in front of the yellow line. This was infuriating enough at Gatwick when the platform announcers insisted on it once every train, and some silly "message from the CCTV control centre". Gatwick appears to have improved, but unfortunately it seems they just moved the problem to London Bridge - where it's now as many as eight or ten times for every single Thameslink departure. It is so incredibly frustrating at times! I almost want to scream "WE ARE!" back at them...
- "See it, say it, sorted." This is now at the stage where if I do see something untoward, I daren't tell a member of staff in case it takes them away from the very important job of constantly telling people to talk to a member of staff! Or at St Pancras, the very important job of guarding the Tensabarrier...
- The "you can use contactless" announcement at Gatwick....They never bothered to tell anyone they couldn't use it when everyone assumed they could...The particularly annoying thing about this one is that it's a recorded human voice, so when they say "can I have your attention", you're expecting something actually useful to be said...
- "Change for other National Rail services" - what's the point of that if you're not going to say which ones?
- "Delayed by approximately 17 minutes" - if you're going to quote a precise figure, don't say approximately! If you don't know what the figure is, say "currently delayed by 17 minutes", or say "approximately 20 minutes", which is an actual approximation...
oh really???Then it’s worked. It’s supposed to be an ‘earworm’ Ie something that works it’s way into your subconscious and that makes you remember it in the unlikely event that you see something suspicious.
...what about.."if you are feeling unwell, please carry a bottle of water"
would have perhaps been fitting in the middle of blazing hot summer, but it's now december,
..aaah, but you have to make sure you drink the correct amount,for the correct temperature.Otherwise you run the risk of getting fluid retention and causing increased risk of heart failure.If that’s on a train that’s not even a particularly useful announcement. It’s not very useful advice if you’re already on a train feeling unwell...
What’s it got to do with being unwell anyway? Everyone should really be carrying a bottle of water on all but the shortest of journeys anyway, it’s just healthy...
TfL probably have it right...they have a weather-targeted campaign telling people to carry water on every journey regardless.
What people need to remember is that although annoying for you most of the announcements are useful for PRM. They can cut out the ‘see it, say it, sorted’.
However PRM need the announcement of all calling points (it is a reminder of how many station calls there are before they need to alight) they need the ‘the next station is ....’ as the train approaches a station along with ‘change here for.....’
one thing that would be useful is to standardise door opening and hustle alarms (there are different alarm sounds for the same thing) and bring the volume of the announcements down slightly.
Then it’s worked. It’s supposed to be an ‘earworm’ Ie something that works it’s way into your subconscious and that makes you remember it in the unlikely event that you see something suspicious.
Volvo buses tend to make that noise when the handbrake is released.I wondered about that, and some years back asked about it on a bus forum. A bus driver replied that it's nothing to do with a warning horn, but is something mechanical, I forget precisely what, that automatically goes off when the bus starts.
I quite appreciate being informed that a ticket check is underway as it gives me time to dig them out.
I do find it vaguely amusing that 'Sorted' implores us to report anything 'unusual' rather than 'suspicious'. A few weeks back I saw a pair of 450s going through Hampton Wick on a diverted Reading to Waterloo service... now that's 'unusual' but hardly 'suspicious'.
It is importsnt that stations are announced several minutes before arrival, as well as on arrival. Otherwise how do passsengers. for whom it will take longer to disembark, or simply have lots of bage to carry off, know to get ready?
How on Earth did we all manage before announcements became standard?
It is importsnt that stations are announced several minutes before arrival, as well as on arrival. Otherwise how do passsengers. for whom it will take longer to disembark, or simply have lots of bage to carry off, know to get ready?
oh really???
I doubt their superiors for having ulterior motives(like keeping themselves in gainful employment by creating problems where none existed)
Not really, such announcements make no more likely or unlikely to report anything, I just find them -- and especially 'Sorted' -- infuriating, like a repeated inane jingle on the wireless.
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First the annoying - it was a little while ago, and there was disruption at Waterloo (no surprise there in recent times...) and there was this overly cheerful "Hello! Hi there! Are you having a nice day? Going anywhere nice?" recorded announcement. At least one fellow passenger said what I, and no doubt others, were thinking: "No, I'm trying to get home after a long day at work and your bl***y trains aren't working properly again." Heard that one a couple of times, never did hear what they were trying to flog us.