ATOS Anne Announcements - Publicly Available?

[Peter0124]

Hi, Before you post, yes there are plenty of recordings on youtube of announcements at stations.

But what I am specifically looking for is the audio files associated with Anne's announcements. Is it possible to get access to them to make custom announcements for personal use? Ive always liked her voice in an unusually musically kind of way despite her not being a professional voiceover artist. And I actually do record the announcements at stations when I visit England.

A bit like how a thousand Alison Mackay Announcement snippets became publicly available after someone FOI'd Scotrail for them I believe.

It would be good if Anne's announcement snippets were also publicly downloadable too. Appreciate anyones help here if they know where or how I can get access to them.

Thank you

 

[james_the_xv]

ATOS Anne Station Announcements - a Freedom of Information request to Network Rail Limited

I’d like to request a copy of all the ATOS Anne announcements which are used at Network Rail managed stations as well as many TOC-managed stations. I am requesting on the basis that a previous request(s) for the Anne announcements have been successful. I understand these will be made of many...

www.whatdotheyknow.com

Quick google bought this up

 

[Peter0124]

Thank you, Ill probably need to submit a new one though as the download link doesnt work

ATOS Anne Station Announcements - a Freedom of Information request to Network Rail Limited

I’d like to request a copy of all the ATOS Anne announcements which are used at Network Rail managed stations as well as many TOC-managed stations. I am requesting on the basis that a previous request(s) for the Anne announcements have been successful. I understand these will be made of many...

www.whatdotheyknow.com

Quick google bought this up

 

[JordR]

Not only doesn't work, but it displays the email address of the previous requestor in full. Probably not ideal!

 

[PlatformEdgeVT]

Hi, Before you post, yes there are plenty of recordings on youtube of announcements at stations.

But what I am specifically looking for is the audio files associated with Anne's announcements. Is it possible to get access to them to make custom announcements for personal use? Ive always liked her voice in an unusually musically kind of way despite her not being a professional voiceover artist. And I actually do record the announcements at stations when I visit England.

A bit like how a thousand Alison Mackay Announcement snippets became publicly available after someone FOI'd Scotrail for them I believe.

It would be good if Anne's announcement snippets were also publicly downloadable too. Appreciate anyones help here if they know where or how I can get access to them.

Thank you

There is an announcement generation website with ATOS Anne and more, and you can download the files you create. Some stations are missing or sound glitchy in sound, however.

UK Rail Announcement Generator

Generate various station and on-train announcements for the UK rail network using raw audio recordings.

rail-announcements.davwheat.dev

is the link.

 

[XAM2175]

You could send a message to : https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/harry_evans_2

 

[stadler]

Here is the link to download the Atos Anne sound files:

*link removed *

Just click the link and it should allow you to download it.

 

[markymark2000]

Here is the link to download the Atos Anne sound files:

atos-anne-announcement-files-main

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

Just click the link and it should allow you to download it.

Is there any way to make the LICC programme work which is in that file? It keeps erroring and saying that it can't find any file.

 

[PGAT]

Some stations like London Victoria and St Pancras have multiple different sounding recordings, but I can only hear them being said once, where are the other ones?

 

[MrJeeves]

There is an announcement generation website with ATOS Anne and more, and you can download the files you create. Some stations are missing or sound glitchy in sound, however.

UK Rail Announcement Generator

Generate various station and on-train announcements for the UK rail network using raw audio recordings.

rail-announcements.davwheat.dev

is the link.

Yeah, nothing I can do about the audio issues. Probably some binary data within the audio which the system uses.

Here is the link to download the Atos Anne sound files:

* link removed *

Just click the link and it should allow you to download it.

Or here: https://gitlab.service.davw.network/davwheat/atos-anne-announcement-files

Easier to update with new stuff, and won't expire unlike Mediafire

Some stations like London Victoria and St Pancras have multiple different sounding recordings, but I can only hear them being said once, where are the other ones?

The audio clips were ripped some time before 2015 (probably 2013/14?) and are also incomplete. They're likely simply not included in the set of clips.

 

[DJ_K666]

Which one is ATOS Anne? Is it the current one that sounds a bit moody?

 

[MrJeeves]

Which one is ATOS Anne? Is it the current one that sounds a bit moody?

Depends what you mean by that! Just listen to some of the clips. I think it's safe to say she's the most popular announcer on the network.

 

[DJ_K666]

Depends what you mean by that! Just listen to some of the clips. I think it's safe to say she's the most popular announcer on the network.

Yep that's her. That's quite the toy. There's another thing you can do using Text Speak where you can program a pretty convincing voice (scarily so actually) to do the station announcements on your model railway and have accurate announcements for stations that don't exist. I might stick an IPhone speaker in the station building on my new layout, but I'm not at that stage just yet.

I do dimly recall the announcements at Milton Keynes sounded suspiciously like Boycie from Only Fools before Atos Anne came along

 

[BJMorley]

Hello,

It looks like the owner of the announcements have gone tribal and forced the removal of the publicly ATOS Anne clips, weirdly after a freedom of information request.

Does anybody have the file that could be sent privately? Even the mediafire file has been removed.

 

[MrJeeves]

weirdly after a freedom of information request

They weren't provided from an FOI.

 

[BJMorley]

They weren't provided from an FOI.

I thought that's the same files that are shared from the FOI linked above?

 

[MrJeeves]

I thought that's the same files that are shared from the FOI linked above?

They're from an annotation made by a user on the FOI request, but not from an FOI request itself.

The files were obtained through an unknown source, but not via FOI.

 

[bramling]

Hello,

It looks like the owner of the announcements have gone tribal and forced the removal of the publicly ATOS Anne clips, weirdly after a freedom of information request.

Sounds like a case of fighting a losing battle if this is true. Genie out of bottle and all that!

 

[stadler]

Hello,

It looks like the owner of the announcements have gone tribal and forced the removal of the publicly ATOS Anne clips, weirdly after a freedom of information request.

Does anybody have the file that could be sent privately? Even the mediafire file has been removed.

Atos Worldline got my Media Fire link taken down a couple weeks ago. It is a bit ridiculous as plenty of other sound files have been released and none of the other CIS providers have had any issue. The files are specific to the railway so it is not exactly like any other company would be able to get any commercial gain from these sound files. Plus hundreds of people have downloaded copies now so it seems a bit ridiculous for them to take it down. My old Media Fire link got over 300 downloads in one month. Atos Worldline are just being jobsworths.

I have uploaded them to another file upload site here:

*link removed *

This will probably get taken down soon so i recommend you download it now and save it to your computer.

If it gets taken down and anyone needs the sound files download again then feel free to message me.

The sound files have definitely not come from an FOIA request. Nobody seems to know exactly who the original person that got hold of them was. But somebody got hold of them and has been sharing them. They seem to have been going around for at least a year now.

 

[doa46231]

Atos Worldline got my Media Fire link taken down a couple weeks ago. It is a bit ridiculous as plenty of other sound files have been released and none of the other CIS providers have had any issue. The files are specific to the railway so it is not exactly like any other company would be able to get any commercial gain from these sound files. Plus hundreds of people have downloaded copies now so it seems a bit ridiculous for them to take it down. My old Media Fire link got over 300 downloads in one month. Atos Worldline are just being jobsworths.

I have uploaded them to another file upload site here:

Easyupload.io - Upload Files and Share Them Easily

Uplaod files easily and share them with your friends and colleagues. File upload solution for everyone. Upload big files and get a link to share effortlesly.

easyupload.io

This will probably get taken down soon so i recommend you download it now and save it to your computer.

If it gets taken down and anyone needs the sound files download again then feel free to message me.

The sound files have definitely not come from an FOIA request. Nobody seems to know exactly who the original person that got hold of them was. But somebody got hold of them and has been sharing them. They seem to have been going around for at least a year now.

Am I allowed to say that I cant stand Anne's voice.
In fact I've stopped using trains as she is all pervasive at my local station, Milton Keynes!
Am I the only one???

 

[bramling]

Am I allowed to say that I cant stand Anne's voice.
In fact I've stopped using trains as she is all pervasive at my local station, Milton Keynes!
Am I the only one???

Have to say I’ve never been keen. Her voice sounds very patronising, and she seems to get pronunciations wrong more so than some of the other voices we’ve seen over time. I’ve always assumed this is because she’s not a voiceover professional like many of the others, and it shows.

 

[PGAT]

I like Anne’s voice but unfortunately too many operators lazily splodge together recordings and call it a day (cough cough South Western Railway cough cough) and it sounds awful

 

[ComUtoR]

May I ask why and what this is needed for ?

I have no objections to the data but I'm curious as to why people want it. Does it have a practical use ?

 

[bramling]

May I ask why and what this is needed for ?

I have no objections to the data but I'm curious as to why people want it. Does it have a practical use ?

I’d imagine one practical use for the on-train announcements in particular is for those people who have produced routes for the various train driving simulators. I’ve never had a go myself, but to be fair looking at you tube some of these do look pretty good nowadays.

I’m not quite sure this is what the FOI is really intended for, but it’s no different to plenty of other requests where people request information which is outwardly atypical.

 

[Peter0124]

ATOS Anne announcements are actually like a niche form of music to me hence why I appreciate having the announcement clips. Very niche/unusual but its quite useful because I can remember loads of place names/stations, even in order just from listening to announcements.

Bizarrely though, the ATOS Anne announcements only sound good at a high volume, otherwise I actually don't like them!!

Alison McKay and Celia Drummond also provide nice sounding announcements though they are professional voiceover artists.

I don't really like any other announcer though. Especially the Scottish Female.

May I ask why and what this is needed for ?

I have no objections to the data but I'm curious as to why people want it. Does it have a practical use ?

 

[ComUtoR]

Thank you.

I've met the guy who makes announcements on one of the units I travel on and I hear them a little differently now I know him. I also played a small part in one of our units PIS and have a very specific memory each time they are played.

Good to hear form those who get a benefit from them.

 

[bramling]

Thank you.

I've met the guy who makes announcements on one of the units I travel on and I hear them a little differently now I know him. I also played a small part in one of our units PIS and have a very specific memory each time they are played.

Good to hear form those who get a benefit from them.

I might add that the very original digitised announcements on the Central Line were done by a lady called Janet, and I know a few people who find her voice particularly pleasing to the ear. This doesn’t really float my boat, but nonetheless she does have a soothing sounding voice which intimates words well. As an aside, these announcements being novel at the time gained the unfortunate handle of Sonia (gets on your nerves), but this wasn’t actually the lady’s name who did them.

I must admit I was pleased someone managed to capture the original (Julie Berry) class 365 announcements. Not because they’re anything particularly special in themselves, though again they are well done, but hearing them does manage to take me back to the happy days of 365s on the GN route, especially in their early days. It’s a well known thing that sounds can trigger memories, as can smells.

 

[stadler]

Am I allowed to say that I cant stand Anne's voice.
In fact I've stopped using trains as she is all pervasive at my local station, Milton Keynes!
Am I the only one???

Yes i am not much of a fan of her. She is not the worst voice. I can think of lots of other railway voices which are much worse than her. But she is certainly not the best either. She is not a professional voice over artist so i suppose she is not going to sound as good as some of the others.

You will be very glad to know that Anne is gone from Milton Keynes Central now. The new Ivona Amy (Text To Speech) voice has replaced her. She got replaced just a few weeks ago.

I actually really like this new Ivona Amy voice. I think that considering she is a Text To Speech voice she sounds very good. AGA and LNWR and WMR have all used her to replace Anne at their stations.

 

[route101]

ATOS Anne announcements are actually like a niche form of music to me hence why I appreciate having the announcement clips. Very niche/unusual but its quite useful because I can remember loads of place names/stations, even in order just from listening to announcements.

Bizarrely though, the ATOS Anne announcements only sound good at a high volume, otherwise I actually don't like them!!

Alison McKay and Celia Drummond also provide nice sounding announcements though they are professional voiceover artists.

I don't really like any other announcer though. Especially the Scottish Female.

Yes, I am not a fan of the Scottish Auto announcers. It would be strange if they rolled out Anne north of the border though. I do remember when Glasgow Central and Queen St had manual announements.

 

[satisnek]

Ivona Amy? Is that who's replaced Anne on the Snow Hill Lines? Being a Text To Speech thing it's only as good as what bozo-brain types into it. For a time, Birmingham Snow Hill was blessed with: "... the xx:xx West Midlands Railway service to Worcester Foregate Street via Stourbridge jay . . . And Kidderminster calling at ..." with Stourbridge Junction said correctly in the list of calling points. And more recently at Kidderminster I've heard the inevitable mis-pronounced Cradley Heath and Rowley Regis - presumably it's necessary to use special spellings in order to get the pronunciation of certain station names correct?

You can count me in as an ATOS Anne fanboy. She has always sounded very clear and natural to my ears (although the bit about request stops on the North Warwickshire Line was a bit clunky, possibly owing to the way it was recorded) and not being a 'professional voiceover artist' must have offered good value for money to the rail industry. I've always thought that 'voiceover artist' is a 'money for old rope' occupation. I was told that I had a clear voice when I did hospital radio - it's not exactly a rare talent.