On a trip to the south last week I was intrigued to hear two digital
announcements booming out at at the same time at Brockenhurst in the New
Forest. Admittedly one voice was female and one male, but it was somewhat
confusing! Is this typical of the area? Nice station I thought though, and
the chap in the ticket office was exceptionally helpful.
--
Androo
(Remove your clothes to reply)

androo wrote:

> On a trip to the south last week I was intrigued to hear two digital
> announcements booming out at at the same time at Brockenhurst in the New
> Forest.


I was waiting on Basingstoke station last Wednesday and heard three
simultaneous digital announcements. One on platform 1, one on 2/3, and
one on 4/5. Beat that! :-)

Phil H

androo wrote:

> On a trip to the south last week I was intrigued to hear two digital
> announcements booming out at at the same time at Brockenhurst in the New
> Forest. Admittedly one voice was female and one male, but it was somewhat
> confusing! Is this typical of the area? Nice station I thought though, and
> the chap in the ticket office was exceptionally helpful.


Fareham has two different ones.

Male for the Southampton/Eastleigh platform, and Female for the
Portsmouth Platform. And she sounds very 1950 BBC announcer like too !

androo wrote:

> On a trip to the south last week I was intrigued to hear two digital
> announcements booming out at at the same time at Brockenhurst in the New
> Forest. Admittedly one voice was female and one male, but it was somewhat
> confusing! Is this typical of the area? Nice station I thought though, and
> the chap in the ticket office was exceptionally helpful.


I've always thought that this is a deliberate feature. For example, at
a busy station (for some reason I suspect that a station in the New
Forest would not be that busy, so this wouldn't apply), there may well
be more than one announcement going on at once. For example, an up
train and a down train might be at the station at the same time. If
both trains were announced by the same voice, the scope for confusion
would be great. If, however, the up train is announced by a female
voice, and the down train by a male voice, then passengers will much
more easily be able to 'tune in' to the specific one they want.

I'm not an experimental psychologist, but it wouldn't surprise me at
all if people were found to be much better at discriminating between
two different voices than between two arbitrary non-voice sounds that
were 'different by the same amount' (make up a metric :))

-- 
Larry Lard
Replies to group please

I dont know if it is still the same, but in the 70s at East Croydon I
remember 3 simultaneous recorded announcements. I remember being
totally confused and wondered if the locals actually took any notice of
any of them, especially as in those days of corporate BR they had the
choice of 3 or 4 services to London terminii every 5 minutes in the
morning rush hour.

Standard male announcer for SWT network and mostly Southern network along 
with Birmingham New Street, and FGW stations such as Newport, Bristol Temple 
Meads and Swindon is Phil Sayer.

I suspect the 450 and 444 fleet has his voice as well.  I did have the 
female voice announcer somewhere but know of the Circle/District (Edgware 
Road), Bakerloo and Victoria Line lady as well she is Emma Clarke voice over 
for Real Radio and GWR stations.

HTH

"androo"  wrote in message 
news:KrCcnSWe5OiL4J3eSa8jmw@karoo.co.uk...

> On a trip to the south last week I was intrigued to hear two digital
> announcements booming out at at the same time at Brockenhurst in the New
> Forest. Admittedly one voice was female and one male, but it was somewhat
> confusing! Is this typical of the area? Nice station I thought though, and
> the chap in the ticket office was exceptionally helpful.
> --
> Androo
> (Remove your clothes to reply)
>
> 

Tim Scott wrote:

> Standard male announcer for SWT network and mostly Southern network along
> with Birmingham New Street, and FGW stations such as Newport, Bristol Temple
> Meads and Swindon is Phil Sayer.


Bristol Temple Meads has been a woman for quite a few months now,
though I do remember when it used to be a man.
At Bristol Parkway, one platform has the woman announcer as heard at
Temple Meads, and the man, which I assume is this 'Phil Sayer' chap for
the other one.
All "Keep your belongings with you etc. seem to be done by the man."
Apparently people are more likely to follow instructions by a male
voice and listen to information from a female voice. Which probably
explains why the male voice does the information announcements.

Tim Scott wrote:

> Standard male announcer for SWT network and mostly Southern network along
> with Birmingham New Street, and FGW stations such as Newport, Bristol Temple
> Meads and Swindon is Phil Sayer.


Bristol Temple Meads has been a woman for quite a few months now,
though I do remember when it used to be a man.
At Bristol Parkway, one platform has the woman announcer as heard at
Temple Meads, and the man, which I assume is this 'Phil Sayer' chap for
the other one.
All "Keep your belongings with you etc. seem to be done by the man."
Apparently people are more likely to follow instructions by a male
voice and listen to information from a female voice. Which probably
explains why the male voice does the instructions announcements.

crazy_horse_12002@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

> 
> I dont know if it is still the same, but in the 70s at East Croydon I
> remember 3 simultaneous recorded announcements. I remember being
> totally confused and wondered if the locals actually took any notice of
> any of them, especially as in those days of corporate BR they had the
> choice of 3 or 4 services to London terminii every 5 minutes in the
> morning rush hour.


For the most part, they don't take any notice. A train's destination can
be announced, twice, and people will still ask the platform staff "is
this going to Victoria/Brighton/whatever?" 

-- 
John Ray, London UK.

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 17:29:46 +0100, Tim Scott wrote:


> Standard male announcer for SWT network and mostly Southern network along 
> with Birmingham New Street, and FGW stations such as Newport, Bristol Temple 
> Meads and Swindon is Phil Sayer.


And congratulations to him for being audible above the idling noise of a
dmu standing at the platform. Whatever female voice is used can't
compete with the engines.

However, *every time* one of the cancelled train announcements at BNS
starts with "I'm sorry to announce that..." the only thing it makes me
think is: how can a machine be sorry?
-- 
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p12598506.html
("Toffee apple" 31 017 at Colchester, 16 Apr 1980)

Chris Tolley wrote:

> However, *every time* one of the cancelled train announcements at BNS
> starts with "I'm sorry to announce that..." the only thing it makes me
> think is: how can a machine be sorry?


At least at Leeds the voice says '[Name of TOC] apologises for the 
delay..." etc but it strikes me that a machine is more likely to express 
sorrow and regret than the average TOC!

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 12:31:34 +0100, "androo"
 wrote:


>On a trip to the south last week I was intrigued to hear two digital
>announcements booming out at at the same time at Brockenhurst in the New
>Forest. Admittedly one voice was female and one male, but it was somewhat
>confusing! Is this typical of the area? 


Many of the new automatic announcements use male and female voices on
different platforms; I've heard this at Guildford and Reading. I
assume it's to make it easier to understand if multiple announcements
are being made at the same time.

Duncan

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 19:43:44 GMT, Chris Tolley 
wrote:


>However, *every time* one of the cancelled train announcements at BNS
>starts with "I'm sorry to announce that..." the only thing it makes me
>think is: how can a machine be sorry?


I haven't heard the one at BNS, but the ones I've heard at other
stations have always started "We are sorry to announce...".

"Tim Scott"  wrote in message
news:8-CdnVgb8MGYWZ3eRVnyvw@pipex.net...

> Standard male announcer for SWT network and mostly Southern network along
> with Birmingham New Street, and FGW stations such as Newport, Bristol
Temple
> Meads and Swindon is Phil Sayer.
>


Having been used to the Wessex Woman at Gloucester I admit to finding it
'interesting' to hear the man at Swindon, especially the "Swindon, this is
Swindon' at the start of some of the announcements. They also have a woman
(different from the Wessex Woman) but that didn't seem to be used that
often.

On 15 Aug 2005 07:24:27 -0700, "Larry Lard" 
wrote:


>I've always thought that this is a deliberate feature. 


Clapham Junction has it, as I recall, so it's probably a standard SWT
thing - all their stations that I can think of have the same system.

I think BNS does as well, though I've only heard the male variant of
late.

Neil

-- 
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

"Chris Tolley"  wrote in message 
news:qiy9slnapgpd$.1ydardcikxbi.dlg@40tude.net...

> However, *every time* one of the cancelled train announcements at BNS
> starts with "I'm sorry to announce that..." the only thing it makes me
> think is: how can a machine be sorry?


Not as bad as South Eastern Trains's system. Depending on the delay you 
either get a simple "sorry", or "I am *very* sorry", or - best of all - "I 
am *extremely* sorry".

FWIW there system too has both male and female, though the female voice 
seems to be heard most - which is a pity as IMHO it's one of the worst on 
any system anywhere, whereas the male one is one of the best.

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 21:50:18 +0100, "Pete_uk"
 wrote:


>Having been used to the Wessex Woman at Gloucester I admit to finding it
>'interesting' to hear the man at Swindon, especially the "Swindon, this is
>Swindon' at the start of some of the announcements. They also have a woman
>(different from the Wessex Woman) but that didn't seem to be used that
>often.


I believe that the male voice at Swindon is used for platforms 1 to 3,
while the female just announces services from platform 4.

Duncan