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Different Station Announcements being made at the Same Time

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Tracked

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I've been in Bristol this week, travelling to Bath and Gloucester, and one of things I've found a bit irritating on Temple Meads has been the different announcements on the station being made at the same time.

Not sure if it was the same on the few days beforehand, but yesterday morning on platform 3 one was being made from platform 3 and one from platform 5, and quite often they were overlapping each other, they both seemed a mixture of service announcements and things like the "Say it, See it, Sorted" & Derby resignalling ones.

Have never noticed it at stations before - possibly this is down to me not having the time/the need to pay attention - but the same thing was happening at Birmingham New Street yesterday lunchtime. When it was happening I found it a bit hard to separate the two for a few seconds (I should add I have hearing problems in one ear), which isn't helped when there's the noise of trains arriving/leaving thrown into the mix. It just seemed the sort of thing you'd think station managers could manage a little better, apologies if someone's down a thread about it before, I couldn't find one.
 
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jamesst

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I seem to remember Birmingham had both male and female announcements to differentiate between the two?
In the case of automated announcements I'm not sure station managers have much if any control over them
 

swt_passenger

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Happens all over the place once you look for it. Southampton has only four platforms but they are in three zones P1, P2&3, P4 and two different voices for the service announcements, male and female. One voice is used for the outer platforms and the other for the island.
 

Lucan

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I've been in Bristol this week, travelling to Bath and Gloucester, and one of things I've found a bit irritating ..has been the different announcements on the station being made at the same time.
Sounds like you were travelling to Bath and Gloucester at the same time, so you must have needed the two announcements :)
 

pdeaves

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It happens at all sorts of stations, unfortunately, seemingly triggered by 'time before departure'. Thus, at Swindon when there are two departures at the same time (opposite ways!) there is silence for ages, then simultaneous announcements.
 

Parallel

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Cardiff Queen Street is another, especially on the island platforms. It used to be global English announcements only, but then a politician complained and now all the announcements have been zoned on each platform to include Welsh and English, and as a result, it can be very difficult to hear if both island platforms (3&4) are playing at the same time. I would probably better if these were zoned together, 1&2 were zoned together, and 5 was on its own.

Bath isn't too bad due to the platforms being quite far apart with no canopy/roof over the track but Bristol can be very difficult to hear, especially on platforms 3-6.

Some stations i.e. Chester & Brighton have the platforms zoned, yet have a selected announcements playing in the main concourse/ticket office areas. Global announcements have their advantages - For example you will know which platform your train is leaving from regardless of which part of the station you are on which is helpful - But if there are a lot of trains departing, it could get annoying with a constant splurge of verbal diarrhoea. Global would probably be best for interchange stations with no more than 5 platforms and a moderate level of trains. Any larger stations or stations with a very high volume of trains could probably do with being zoned.

I think the balance at Cardiff Central works fairly well, with platforms 0-4 being zoned together, and valley lines 6-8 being separate. Imagine if it was all global... They'd have to change the announcements halfway through to get them all in! :lol: "Platform 3 for the 12:26 Great Western Railway service to Merthyr Tydfil. Calling at Bridgend, Llanfairfechan, Bangor, Southampton Central and Coryton. Platform 8 for the 12:31 Arriva Trains Wales service to Nottingham." :lol:
 
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