Your help please! Train announcement in a song...

[antharro]

Ok, this is a pretty odd request. I was listening to the song "Two Divided by Zero" by the Pet Shop Boys. It's on their first album, "Please". At two minutes in is a station announcement for a train. I've listened to it more than a dozen times and had a friend listen too to see what we can work out.

Our best guess is that it's the announcer at Victoria, and he's announcing:

"...at platform 9 is the 1427 _______ (Epson Downs?) service, calling at ____, _____ (Clapham Junction?), Wandsworth Common, Streatham Common, Norbury..."

Our second guess is it's at Clapham Junction, but that wouldn't match up with two stations being called before Wandsworth Common.

The only other bit we could figure out is it sounds like the first station is "St. ____" and the second one sounds a bit like "Datchet", which completely throws out the previous ideas and I think is very unlikely.

Any chance some of you guys could have a listen and see what you think? I'd also appreciate the knowledge of people who have timetables from NSE in 1985 and could see if there was a train that matched that calling pattern.

For those of you who have Spotify, it's: http://open.spotify.com/track/64MccFRFPz3xAxwwTLp1hu

Alternatively, it's on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oDhGiNKsyM

Thanks!

 

[Eagle]

First one's Battersea Park, pretty sure of that. (I could see how it would sound a bit like, say, St Marks or something.)

Looking at the discography, this would have been recorded in 1985?

 

[antharro]

Yes! "St. Marks" is what I heard, too. And you're quite right, recorded in '85, released in '86. I'll amend my original post, thanks.

 

[EM2]

Funnily enough, I have just bought this album on CD, to replace a very old cassette version.
I'll have a listen tomorrow.

 

[causton]

Definitely 'The Epsom Downs service, calling at Battersea Park, Clapham Junction'...!

 

[EM2]

Finally got the chance to listen to this, and concur with the other posters who say it's the Epsom Downs service.
I'd forgotten what a great song it is, and was also surprised that having not listened to it for at least ten years, I still know all the words!

 

[antharro]

Thanks for all the replies. I can now quite clearly hear exactly what's announced. The announcer's speech patterns aren't quite as regular as the automated announcements we're used to (for the most part anyway!), so it took me a while!

EM2 - it's an excellent song indeed, as its the album it first appeared on. The version on Pandemonium is also excellent. Mind you, so's the entire concert!

 

[table38]

Here's another (easier!) one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaOr_c0DMKg&t=3m35s