Interesting responses - I am glad that I am not the only one who has been left confused by the announcements!
Funnily enough, a few days after posting this thread I boarded the 1307 Edinburgh to Plymouth Cross County train at Birmingham New Street and fell victim to another variation of automated announcement. For those who don't know (I didn't!) this particular train goes as far as Gloucester as two four-car units, where it splits into two separate units with only one of those units continuing onto Plymouth. The New Street automated announcement stated that passengers wishing to travel beyond Gloucester should be in the rear four coaches, which was of no use to me as a newbie to the station. Alas, I waited at the wrong end and enjoyed a coach almost to myself to Gloucester where I had to transfer onto the other, rear, set.
It was then that a 'helpful' conductor announced over the tannoy that only the front four carriages were continuing onto stations towards Plymouth. Fantastic I thought - the automated announcement must have been wrong and I won't have to give up my seat. Wrong. Luckily a different conductor walked through the carriage, and informed me that the train reverses upon leaving Gloucester, so the 'front' is now at the other end. I made it onto the other set in time (and got a seat) thanks to the other conductor, but was left surprised that the original conductor would make such a confusing tannoy, assuming it to be common knowledge that the train reversed at Gloucester.
Thank you for posting that, it is nice to see some evidence to back up my semi-frequent assertion that guards provide a very useful customer service role, checking the destination on your ticket and advising that you are in the wrong part of the train being a good example. Don't
DOO▸ it, keep the guard. It would be even better if the railways would only detach units in service if they have
UEGs▸ (Unit End Gangways), such as 158s and 377s. Then the guard could simply direct passengers to walk through to the correct part of the train before it reaches the split point, with no risk of the passengers being left on the platform while trying to change units. In fact, as I've often posted, I think scheduling units that don't have UEGs (and/or a helpful guard) to split-on route should be prohibited in franchise agreements.
I had my first trip on one of the new cl.387's yesterday evening from Hayes into Paddington (and very impressed I was). At the first stop (Southall) the announcement states "due to short platforms, the doors in the coach 8 will not open here" followed by "this is coach x of 8". Presumably each coach tells you what it's number in the consist is, but I couldn't be bothered moving to the next carriage to confirm!
This also happens on many
SWT▸ and Southern trains. Very handy when trains split en route or at short platforms.
That's interesting, the
GWR▸ 387 was the first train I had heard such an announcement on. A pretty good idea which is genuinely helpful to passengers - a rare occurrence on the railways!
I can't recall hearing those announcements on SWT, but I think I remember it on Southern's class 377s (which makes sense, I suppose, with 377s and 387s both being Electrostars it seems logical that both would have a similar passenger information system).
