Tower Hill announcment chaos

This is why I just listen to my mp3 player, I still flick one ear piece out though whenever there is an announcement since I play my mp3 at a suitable level to hear the announcements...just.

As opposed to Paddington Circle where the announcements are brief, helpful (this train is.....the next is.....next Circle in x minutes), all done in a jovial way: even 'ticking off' photographers with flash is done positively.

So it can be done.......

Tower Hill is especially bad, with a combination of what appear to be station pre-programmed DVAs and locally-recorded messages on rotation, plus train-activated on approach announcements stating the destination (twice for each train). The latter are often preceded by station recorded PAs stating that the TDs (and thus associated anouncements) are showing incorrect details and should be ignored. This has been going on for months yet no one has the gumption, authority or ability to either fix these or turn them off. We are asked to use "all the doors" to board our train, I myself have only ever managed to get on via one; and also stand behind the yellow line "at all times" (what, even when the train has stopped?). One particulary annoying locally-made recorded message is the heavilly-accented statement that "SMOKING....is NOT ALLOWED.....on ANY....London Underground STATION or TRAIN......". Despite LU's alleged decision to reduce the number of routine PA messages, at Aldgate East last night someone was already banging-on about next weekend's engineering work - and this was on a Tuesday!

Have to totally agree with HB, Tower Hill must be the worst station on the DR for playing announcements constantly.

As a t/op, I have a little system for dwell times which - broadly - means that I start to close the doors after Sonia has had her bit. This is useful because, at the busier interchange stations, Embankment for example, you get a longer time as she rattles on about the Northern and Bakerloo and during peak, Riverboat services but quieter stations such as Sloane Square, you just get the station name and destination.

The important thing is, I have to listen to Sonia to know when she is done, but at Tower Hill with the constant platform announcements, this is impossible - literally. Especially on the EB, the WB (not from the bay) isn't as bad - I guess they ran out of speakers at that end of the platform!

Apart from anything else, I actually think the sheer volume (as in number, not decibel) of announcements here, borders on dangerous. We know people don't listen to announcements because they've heard them thousands of times before, and they won't listen when we have to tell them something they seriously have to know.