Do they use tape recorders or did they in the past? Or do modern ones store the daily annocements on ROM chips and play back according to a built in electronic timetable?

Once at a station I noticed that the train annocement had been speeded up? Why did they provide this tempo adjustment facilty? could it be if the annocment was put out a bit late a better way of allowing people to hear the full annocement b4 boarding a train they was unsure of where it was heading?

I take it that all modern customer information systems are now computerised with manual updates if neccassary. How does the information system display board know that a train is going to be say 2 mins late? Does it find out this from the variuos automatic modern radio systems used on the lines similar to the one for automatic control of say metro line trains without drivers where trains know where they currently are and more importantly where they should be at that moment in time?

But with few exceptions (i.e. a handful of stations in southern California, I believe), virtually every Amtrak station uses live human voices. The same goes for the announcements you'll hear while you're actually traveling on an American train.

In recent years, the rapid transit and subway systems in a few U.S. cities have begun using (or at least experimenting with) digital announcement and electronic noticeboard systems. So have some suburban commuter rail lines.

But it's not widespread -- and certainly not "standard equipment" as it is at most stations of, say, the London Underground.

There are some major problems with the current Great Western ones. Example board:

Time now: 10:54
1st 10:50 LONDON PADD expected ON TIME
2nd 10:54 WESTBURY expected 11:03
3rd 10:57 PORTSMOUTH expected 10:58

And that's a typical display - third train coming before the 2nd, trains which are obviously late by the current time reported as on time.

They also don't take into account: bi-directional lines, section running times, headways, or reality.

In some parts of Europe and Japan, they still do. Trains arrive and depart so precisely on schedule that you can set your watch to them. That's why I doubt that such a system will ever be widely used on Amtrak (or, for that matter, the New York City subway system).

In Amtrak's case, the distance between stops is often too huge. A train will speed up, slow down, lose time, gain time, and then lose it again -- all before it reaches the next station. If you installed a digital display at say, Toledo, the arrival time would be constantly refreshing itself, shifting back and forth. It would drive waiting passengers crazy.

As for installing those creepy digital voice announcements in train stations across the nation... It's the only thing I hope Amtrak will never have enough money to do.

I once saw on EBay a CD that said it contained train annoncements used by Amtrak stations. Perhaps these were the "Disneyland" announcements. It got quite pricy so I bet it was rare, not for the public item.

On board announcements over the PA system are often garbled and unintelligible. As MPALMER said the "old fashioned way is the preferred way to go".

quote:

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Originally posted by RRRICH:
On my trip last summer, the N-bound Surfliner from SAN to LAX used "Disneyland-style" announcements on board

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How do these things work on the surfliner? Does a crew member punch a button to start a station announcement or are they automatically timed in some way, if so, to what?

It originally appeared in the Fredericksburg, Virginia, newspaper.

Steve Dunham

(THEME)--May I have your attention please, we are now arriving into: Fullerton. Thank you for choosing Amtrak.

I like that, call it "disneyland" but it gives the train a better feel instead of some 60 year old man saying, "fullerton, fullerton..please detrain for passengers getting off in fullerton.

Amtrak Pages-Click Here

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JONATHON D. ORTIZ
EMD455@Blue-Rail.com

These announcements were made "in house" by an Amtrak employee who also worked as a locomotive engineer and disc jockey/radio announcer. You would know his name but I won't say it. The recordings are digital. On board the Surfs, there is a control panel inside the electrical locker in the Lounge Car. On that panel, a crew member will input the train number, such as 775, which will then program the announcement system. It knows which trains terminate in LAX, or continue on to SBA or SLO. In stations, there is a console where an agent can manually input the command for an announcement, such as an arrival or departure, or that "southbound trains may be delayed" or track assignments such as at FUL, OSD or SOL where there are two tracks. By producing these recordings in house, Amtrak saved a lot of money. The Amtrak employee who did the work has a recording studio in his house. And when the onboard system malfunctions, crews will sometimes shut it off to avoid confusing the passengers and do the announcements verbally.

Hope this helps answer some of these questions.

Or even better I could hook up monitors to display the track and destination info and change that around. So I could have it display The Coastal Starlight is 20 minutes late. That would be so cool to do this at my house.

One system I saw, which was actually for the Glasgow area of Scotland, showed a map of stations in a kind of network diagram. The announcer clicked on the station(s) she wanted to play the announcement to, and then either selected a pre-recorded announcement, or made one manually. I believe the live announcement was actually recorded and played when she "ok"-ed it.