Announcements going downhill

I noticed that while the District was suffering in the wake of this week's fire
there was an automated announcement clearly added by someone who didn't pass their English exam.

"There is delays..."

I was amazed nobody demanded it was changed because to me it sounded as if TfL doesn't care about getting things right.

Some people couldn't care fewer about grammar.

I think that the 2024 tube stock's system may be advanced enough not to need to rely on an onboard library of words and phrases.

As a regular traveller on the 345's, it's not the quality of the announcements that bothers me, it's the sheer quantity.

I try and filter them out. Maybe should try headphones!

The quality of signage is also taking a turn for the worse. For example they put up some signs at Euston recently, over the newly widened ramps from 8-11... Might as well have written it in microdot. Can barely read them from the NR gateline. There used to be someone who went around stations planning all the signage - in the 70s and 80s they did an excellent job, but more recently... I don't know... just seems lazy and no care taken. There's signs hanging in front of DMIs, for example. Places where you might need to make a decision on which platform is most expeditious for you, but there's no information.
Network Rail isn't much better TBH. I recently had a run in with the departures board at Liverpool Street - that's an esoteric beast at best. At worst it's a total nightmare. Split into an east and a west section, which apparently (I had to ask) relates to the direction that the service termination generally tends towards. Not divided by operator, not "two different bits of a station" - there are often the same platforms shown on the east and west boards... So you know you want the 13:19 to get somewhere to the north of London, but you have to scan the entire board to find that there are TWO 13:19s going to different places, one described as east, the other west.

Conversely, additions and modifications to the visual and audio announcements on the Northern line trains have rendered them so verbose that they overrun the available dwell time at stations and between stations and get out of step. The visual ones are particularly bad but the audios aren't perfect either.

"This train terminates at x" still perfectly suffices on the Jubble, what's wrong with "...terminates at x via y" on the Northern?
I don't understand this obsession with announcing the line on the train.. with all the platform train announcements saying the line before the destination, does the information need to be told multiple times?

South of Kennington, there's only Balham or Stockwell with interchanges. The last update made the Balham announcement less verbose - "National Rail services" as opposed to "mainline suburban rail services". I can only imagine it's the destination announcement that's making it run over. (Perhaps "This is a Northern line train (via Charing Cross) terminating at Mill Hill East" in the peaks?)

It's quite amusing how, the distance between Embankment and Charing Cross is so small, that often by the time the doors open at Charing Cross northbound the SDO announcement is still playing

If this were main line TOC operated and LU treated as a TOC you'd get "this is the London Underground < X line > service ... ......." Etc every time

There are new announcements on most of the deep level trains. 'When you see something that looks unusual speak to a member of staff or text British Transport Police on 61016 and we'll get it sorted. That's 61016. See it, say it, sorted.'

I always cringe a bit at Baker Street: "All doors on this car will not open" It takes me a moment to parse the meaning. "No doors on this car will open" or "All doors on this car will stay closed" would would quicker for me to understand.

It's a good way to make the number memorable, isn't it? Like WHItehall One-two one-two.

Was anyone else reminded of "That's K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M..."?

Most operational staff will naturally say 'six-one-zero-one-six' because that is the appropriate standard for speaking numbers in safety critical communications - it's a surprisingly hard thing to unlearn.

However, I've heard 'six-one-oh-one-six' (with even spacing) in plenty of places too - it's arguably more accessible as most people will say 'oh' and not 'zero'.

LU's distinction seems to be 'six (pause) one-oh-one (pause) six', which is indeed new (and, arguably, wrong - for an organisation that has done lots of research into how people respond to announcements, highlighting the '101' part is arguably not the best idea.

You mean it's not 0118 999 881 999 119 7253?

081 811 8181