Great Western Coffee Shop

I've been away for 2 weeks and when I got back to work yesterday I noticed that Phil Sayers announcements had been replaced by a new female voice. It wasn't Celia and it wasn't the voice at Paddington and others. I haven't heard that voice before. Don't yet know if it's being used at other SWT stations.

I presume the new voice has been commissioned because of the change of franchise coming up and that the name of the new franchise operator has already recorded. As Phil passed away last year it would not have been possible to announce the new name using the existing recordings.

I noticed today both AM and PM and yesterday evening that the new automated announcements at Waterloo are suffering with teething problems. A platform announcement will be made and often there is either a long pause before continuing or a long pause whilst reading out a list of some stations served and missing out others.

It is Celia, however she has re-recorded everything and sounds quite different. It is an upgraded system SWT have been slowly implementing, this is the latest addition however it is the first for a few months. It is at a number of other stations including Eastleigh, Winchester and Southampton Airport Parkway. It does seem to be a bit unreliable mind.