"Filleted" announcements with non-essential information removed

[ccityplanner12]

Announcements at London Waterloo drop "Platform" & "South Western Railway service to", so instead say
"5 for the 15:53 Strawberry Hill via Kingston; calling at Vauxhall, Clapham Junction..."

Waterloo has over 20 platforms & serves trains on long routes. Intercity trains here in the south typically start off fast, skipping huge stations like Clapham Junction, but by the end of the route they are calling at stations in the middle of nowhere, such as Ashurst NF or Moreton Dorn, as well as decidedly suburban ones such as Branksome and Parkstone.

The voice used for these announcements is a digitised version of Celia Drummond which sounds like she is about to faint.

I think it reflects well on South Western Railway as they have foregone their vanity & dropped their name from the announcements at their main London terminus. I know the station is managed by Network Rail but I only know the "Queasy Celia" voice to be used at stations served primarily by SWR trains.

Are there any other stations that have such "filleted" announcements?

 

[MarkyT]

They might use the word "track" instead of platform to save a syllable instead of just launching straight into a number... I like the concept though!

 

[416GSi]

That's a good idea, I hope more TOC's adopt that approach.

Personally I would prefer:-

"Platform 5, 15:53 Strawberry Hill via Kingston; calling at...."

I.e. Drop the 'for the' but keep platform as this will give the passenger a couple of seconds to recognise an announcement is being made before the importance information is given as well as keeping the same number of syllables in the original revised version.

 

[imagination]

Meanwhile, "As part of the improvements to the Great Western Railway network, this area has now been equipped with high voltage overhead line equipment. For your safety, please keep well away from these power lines. Especially be careful when carrying long items", after being filleted to remove the non-essential information, would leave "."

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be an approach that has been widely adopted.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Meanwhile, "As part of the improvements to the Great Western Railway network, this area has now been equipped with high voltage overhead line equipment. For your safety, please keep well away from these power lines. Especially be careful when carrying long items", after being filleted to remove the non-essential information, would leave "."

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be an approach that has been widely adopted.

Where did you hear that announcement? I haven’t come across that one.

 

[pdeaves]

Where did you hear that announcement? I haven’t come across that one.

It's all over the Western, on stations and on trains. It only seems to play when there's a gap that 'they' want to fill with noise!

 

[LowLevel]

Happens in the North West - trains are announced as for example 'platform 2 for the 1005 to Victoria calling at...'

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's all over the Western, on stations and on trains. It only seems to play when there's a gap that 'they' want to fill with noise!

Are they not still leaving their "cases and parcels unattended on the station" over there, then, or "see[ing] it, say[ing] it and sort[ing] it"?

This approach is quite common elsewhere in Europe, particularly on board where, e.g. in Switzerland, you'll get the full "The SBB train crew welcome you to the InterRegio to Nyon, Lausanne, Sion, Brig and wish you a pleasant journey, next stop Geneva" in 3 languages on an IR or above, but you'll just get "S1 to Lausanne" and the stop names called with nothing other than a "bing bang bong" preceding them on a Regio or S-bahn.

 

[Parallel]

Platform 6 and 7 at Cardiff Central used to be just “Platform 6 for the 12.01 service to Bargoed” but a few years ago, it was changed and ‘Arriva Trains Wales’ is now announced.

 

[headshot119]

Platform 6 and 7 at Cardiff Central used to be just “Platform 6 for the 12.01 service to Bargoed” but a few years ago, it was changed and ‘Arriva Trains Wales’ is now announced.

Unless "That guy" is on. PLATFORM 6 TREHERBERT. 7 YOUR PENARTH

 

[jopsuk]

When there's only one operator at a station (eg Waterloo other than when there's engineering) it makes absolute sense to ditch the operator name.

Not convinced about dropping the word "platform", it's useful as a "signal" word

 

[Ibex]

Announcements at London Waterloo drop "Platform" & "South Western Railway service to", so instead say
"5 for the 15:53 Strawberry Hill via Kingston; calling at Vauxhall, Clapham Junction..."

Waterloo has over 20 platforms & serves trains on long routes. Intercity trains here in the south typically start off fast, skipping huge stations like Clapham Junction, but by the end of the route they are calling at stations in the middle of nowhere, such as Ashurst NF or Moreton Dorn, as well as decidedly suburban ones such as Branksome and Parkstone.

The voice used for these announcements is a digitised version of Celia Drummond which sounds like she is about to faint.

I think it reflects well on South Western Railway as they have foregone their vanity & dropped their name from the announcements at their main London terminus. I know the station is managed by Network Rail but I only know the "Queasy Celia" voice to be used at stations served primarily by SWR trains.

Are there any other stations that have such "filleted" announcements?

This has been discussed in the automated announcements forum, the lack of “Platform” and “South Western Railway service to...” is apparently a fault and not intentional!

 

[stuart]

I was passing through Waterloo this evening and clearly heard the word "platform" at the start of an announcement.

 

[Starmill]

London Blackfriars has similarly "filleted" announcements. For example when announcing this train, it said this:
"Platform two for the seventeen thirty four Thameslink service to. Calling at London Bridge, East Croyon and. This train is formed of twelve coaches."

 

[Taunton]

"Hello I'm Chloe from Network Rail. The company has paid for a 60 second ad on the radio here about Bank Holiday engineering work, and it's my job to fill up the time. So I'm going to drone on and on and on about 'essential' engineering work being done over the Bank Holiday, without giving any details at all about what might be disrupted, even though there is plenty of time to do so if I didn't drone on and on and on ....".