New announcements for extension

kieran844 , It is worth remembering that even the S stock announcements were very jittery when they were first introduced. I think it was at least a year before they were comprehensively knitted together as they are now.

For the NLE, I reckon they will just add the new stations on just as the Jubilee line announcements were updated to announce which side the doors would release.

I believe the platform announcements you are referring to are spoken by Elinor Hamilton who is also the voice behind the automated Customer Service Update announcements amongst many others.

Example of a difference I discovered last month. Line A--this train terminates at ... Stratford; Line B--This is a ... line train to ... Cockfosters.

As i know there is still one 95 with the original announcements and i think a complete redo of the announcements would be best since as you say the execution is worse since they kept the station but changed details however they could have executed it better without it sounding bodged

I actually believe the jubilee line is the only one which follows that style of announcements, i.e. it is the only one which does not state it is a "Jubilee line train to x"

Also regarding the jubilee line, why does it sometimes skip “this station is X change here for Y” and got straight to “this train terminates at Z”?

It's important to remember that the Passenger Information System on the 96 stock and all the computer related systems were products of the 90's. I believe the 96 stock PIS is just a stack of messages (updated several times but still the same system) that can be prone to interruptions or skipping if other comms are in use at the same time.

Celia did not record the new announcements for the Battersea extension. You may think that they could just have someone else do the battersea extension (like the new announcements on the Central line including TFL rail which Sarah Parnell now does but the parts that stay the same is still Emma Clarke) but you have to remember that these announcements will be at all stations when they say “This train terminates at Battersea” and also the announcements will soon include Crossrail (refusing to call it Elizabeth Line) so sadly she will not be on the Northern line for much longer but she may still be on the Jubilee for a while.

Really? I travel to/from Canary Wharf quite regularly and I've never noticed announcements for it being less frequent than for any other station.

I thought all announcements were done by Sonia.

More disturbing are the Thameslink announcements, when a woman's voice suddenly changes to a man for the next bit!

Why is that 'disturbing'?

They are by no means modern.

TFT displays as on the Class 345s are the current standard for trains.

Just looked up the 95TS and S stock CIS plans. Not identicsl styles.
On the Northern line 95TS the audio and visual Tottenham Court Road interchange message will be "Change here for Central line and the Elizabeth line." and the Moorgate one will be "Change here for Circle, Hammersmith and City and Metropolitan lines, the Elizabeth line and National Rail services.".
Yes the audio recordings are done. No, I don't know who! Sounds fairly similar to the existing ones.

On the S stock the audio and visual Moorgate announcement will be "Change for the Northern line, the Elizabeth line and National Rail services."
In the multiple different Liverpool Street ones that depend which way the train is going and whether it is Circle, H&C or Metropolitan line, "the Elizabeth line" will replace "TfL Rail".
As normal, the S stock only gives the interchanges in the station approach message, not the at station announcement so as to save on dwell time and as far as reasonably practicable comply with RVAR subject to any itchy finger on the Close button!

For S stock, initial request was to treat the Elizabeth line as just another Tube line and put it in alphabetical order with any others. But with the audio files provided and no will or funds to record more, the audio edits sounded better in the style above. So the de facto generic treatment is 'Change for [LUL lines in alphabetical order], the Elizabeth line, London Overground and National [and International] Rail services.' Omit whichever isn't present of course.
Similarly there when the change from Tramlink to London Trams was made for Wimbledon, the request was to put this TfL mode ahead of National Rail. Again this didn't sound too good with the available audio files so it's been left in the order '... National Rail services and London Trams.'.

Thanks for confirming and good to hear most of the original Celia recordings will live on! The variation you refer to for the changes to scripts at stations such as Euston was in fact voiced by Celia but at a different time; in hindsight they should have probably asked her to record those bits after refamiliarising herself with her original work so as to match the pitch! My thinking was these were recorded in the early-mid '00s around the same time she recorded the Jubilee line announcements, but were then never used (save for a few trains such as this one, which have since reverted back). Then an additional tranche (such as the new Bank recording) was done around 2015/16 when the system was updated, which also reused some of previously axed ones from the early-mid '00s

I am guessing you've previewed them from a computer? How will they get the new updates onto the trains I wonder? Will someone have to go around and insert a new floppy disc(!), or are they loaded on by transmitting from a laptop directly onto each train via a cable?



You're along the right lines! I recall during the ELL closure of used to play the original "Change here for the East London line" followed by a newly recorded phrase "replacement bus service" bodged on to the end.