please empty your brain below
“Carry water at all times.”

Christopher Bellew | Homepage | 27.02.24 - 7:13 a.m. | #

I can't remember the exact wording, but there's one played on the Elizabeth line Shenfield bound trains along the lines of "passengers who have not arranged step free access should alight at Whitechapel and speak to a member of station staff". That could certainly be better worded. There's a similar one going westbound advising passengers to alight at Bond St.

JP | 27.02.24 - 7:16 a.m. | #

Safety announcements often arise due to a particular incident. A child recently lost toes when their foot got caught by an escalator and there have been instances of scarfs being trapped in train doors.

However TfL have no idea whether their constant stream of announcements have any impact on passenger behaviour.

gruntbuggly | 27.02.24 - 7:27 a.m. | #

at Paddington:
"for the safety and convenience of passengers with heavy luggage, please use the lifts provided" feels like it could be better worded. Am I supposed to use the lift to make room for those with luggage on the escalator?

Martin | 27.02.24 - 7:28 a.m. | #

Bus announcement at bus stop non-adjacent to a cycle lane: “Caution: beware of cycle lane when alighting”.

Bus now follows cycle lane and disgorges passengers directly into lane for next 4 stops: no warning announcements.

Bus 158 but this is common.

Dan | 27.02.24 - 7:32 a.m. | #

That ‘no Oyster beyond West Drayton’ message played on my Crossrail train to Heathrow the other day *after* Hayes & Harlington, ie. after anyone might have changed trains and still required the message. Argh.

Rich Thomas | 27.02.24 - 7:39 a.m. | #

This week Watford High Street and Bushey have repeatedly been playing erroneous messages announcing that the stations will soon be part of the Mildmay and Windrush lines.

DeDomenici | Homepage | 27.02.24 - 7:43 a.m. | #

“Please take all personal belongings with you when leaving the train”

But most of my personal belongings are at home…

Kirk | 27.02.24 - 8:19 a.m. | #

My pet irritant is an automated announcement stating 'this train is currently being held at a red signal'.

For starters, for most tube lines this is inaccurate as the automated lines and sections don't have signals (Central line arguably excepted). So it doesn't give pedants like me any confidence in the announcements.

More to the point, it is meant to reassure passengers underground that nothing abnormal is happening and there is no need to panic. An automated announcement does not reassure. It is a situation where you really want to hear a human voice. An automated announcement in such situations sounds more like a dystopian horror featured in Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy.

Pedantic of Purley | 27.02.24 - 8:42 a.m. | #

Hats and scarves. I have never lost one of these while wearing it, but I have often dropped or lost one while it is elsewhere about my person (in pocket, hand or bag).

Malcolm of Kent | 27.02.24 - 8:46 a.m. | #

I was on a District train the other day and "Please give your seat to others who might need it more." was playing repeatedly. A woman opposite me was getting very worried because she couldn't find anyone willing to take her seat off her. In the end a man seemingly significantly older than her said she would be fine to carry on sitting down.

ap | 27.02.24 - 9:15 a.m. | #

At Stratford: "This station has a no smoking policy"

No it doesn't. Station management have no discretion to make a policy about something which is illegal. Potentually giving smokers the impression that it's only a local policy is less than helpful as a deterrent.

Rob | 27.02.24 - 9:45 a.m. | #

I was recently on the Victoria line, and while waiting in a station, the driver furnished us with, "The time is 10.47 and this is a delay. Now would be a good time to change carriages to line up with your exits and changes." When we moved off again, he finished with, "The time is 10.51, and that was a four-minute delay."

Gunnersaurus | 27.02.24 - 9:45 a.m. | #

Whatever happened to the public information films which used to entertain us on the telly ?

kev | 27.02.24 - 10:24 a.m. | #

The usual comment that these announcements aren't noticed by those listening with headphones, deaf and hard of hearing, staring at their phone or have heard the announcements so often that their brain tunes them out.

Why use the wording 'no smoking policy', smoking is either permitted or it isn't.

This post applies to those who lived in the 'before times' when the main source of noise was the track joints, creaking of the rolling stock and the compressors.

Still Anon | 27.02.24 - 10:27 a.m. | #

The "stratford station has a no smoking policy" isn't entirely stupid, as lots of the station is outdoors, and I'm not sure it'd be technically illegal to smoke there. "but smoking is not permitted anywhere in this station" is probably better.

Alistair Twin | 27.02.24 - 10:48 a.m. | #

outside or not, the TfL byelaws prohibit smoking on their premises - so it's technically illegal to smoke there.

martin | 27.02.24 - 10:53 a.m. | #

I suspect the by-laws forbid smoking anywhere, though the provisions of the national legislation may not.

David B | 27.02.24 - 10:54 a.m. | #

Martin: 'If you are travelling with heavy luggage, please use the lifts provided' seems to cover it.

Jonathan Wadman | 27.02.24 - 10:59 a.m. | #

Embankment had a serious incident back in the 1970s, at the end of episode 2 of the Doctor Who story "The Tube of Doom", when Tom Baker's scarf fell onto the track, enabling the Ziltons to climb up it and attack him.

That's why they only play the message there.

Mikey C | 27.02.24 - 11:12 a.m. | #

A couple of weeks ago I was also at Whitechapel with a german friend changing from the now Windrush line to the Lizze. Having heard the escalator announcement my friend asked, in german, why it was safer to carry animals on an escalator than go down „pet free“. It is not just the words, but the intonation of the announcement that easily allows you to come to this conclusion. Perhaps we missing some HSE trick here to reduce accidents. I can see it working with a hamster, less so with a Labrador.

Keith the Kraut | 27.02.24 - 11:15 a.m. | #

As I've become an old person, I've instinctively learnt about handrails as security. I think it is a superfluous announcement.

Andrew Cee | Homepage | 27.02.24 - 11:21 a.m. | #

“Please use all available doors”.. I’ve really tried but never made more than halfway through the second carriage before the doors close.., that’s a lot of doors to use.

Steve Green | 27.02.24 - 11:40 a.m. | #

The “carry pets on escalator” announcement was turned into a joke in the Paddington movie (which you probably know but I’m describing anyway). The bear needed to head down the escalator, read the sign that required pets to be carried and freaked out because he didn’t have a pet and couldn’t comply. He ended up snatching a dog from a lady to finally be able to safely go down the escalator carrying a pet.

Renata | 27.02.24 - 12:25 p.m. | #

WRT the announcement about hats and scarves - last May I lost a baseball cap exiting a Victoria train at Kings Cross St Pancras, as a train barrelled into the opposite platform and the resulting draught tore my hat from my head, sending it spiralling along the top of the train I'd just left and into the tunnel, never to be seen again.

It did give me an excuse to buy a nicer replacement though, so it wasn't all bad. I'm much more careful with the new one!

Jamesthegill | 27.02.24 - 1:10 p.m. | #

On the Victoria Line there used to be - maybe still is - an automated announcement at Green Park to 'alight here for Buckingham Palace'. I wondered how often the Queen travelled on the line and needed to be told where to get off. On the other hand, since she didn't use the tube very often perhaps she needed the reminder.

Peter | 27.02.24 - 2:01 p.m. | #

Kings Cross: Please stand behind the yellow line. (pause) That includes you M....!

A few seconds later a platform attendant, presumably called M walked past, grinning.

Made me smile too.

Cornish Cockney | 27.02.24 - 2:15 p.m. | #

The pet-announcement seems not only to suggest the carrying of animals is compulsory, but also that each passenger must have more than one creature with him/her.

Along comparable lines, our local pool has a notice proclaiming that swimmers must supervise non-swimmers and childen at all times. What, each one to supervise all of them - how does that work?!

cau1khead | 27.02.24 - 3:49 p.m. | #

I recently travelled on an early morning district line train and there were no announcements. The platform announcements were also turned off due to nearby residents complaining.

Running_Correspondent | 27.02.24 - 4:03 p.m. | #

See also "use all lanes" or "use both lanes" on a main road.

Ian | 27.02.24 - 6:07 p.m. | #

I hate the East London line short platform announcements between Shadwell and Canada Water. Why does it need to tell the people in the front that the rear doors won't open?

I'm sure there's some trains where it only announces it in the relevant part of the train

lumma | Homepage | 27.02.24 - 6:34 p.m. | #

The announcements at Victoria Underground Station there is an announcement instructing people with buggies or heavy luggage to "use all the lifts". This seems to lead to unnecessarily lengthy and convoluted routes to the platforms, indeed impossible routes if you interpret this as meaning use each lift once and only once.

Tunnel Bore | 27.02.24 - 9:01 p.m. | #

'If you need to be told to take your personal possesssions with you, you are very silly,'

kev | 27.02.24 - 9:04 p.m. | #

The 'Please stand behind the yellow line' has a variant which mentions 'until the train comes to a complete stop' if my memory serves me right.

Peter, it's also very odd on northbound trains especially considering how Victoria is marginally closer to Buckingham Place than Green Park.

With regards to the pets announcement, if only all passengers were sensible enough to use their Patronus Charm to comply with the obligation.

matthieu1221 | 27.02.24 - 9:28 p.m. | #

The ‘please use all available doors’ announcement reminds me of quantum theory. It might be that all passengers disaggregate into particles that can pass through all doors at the same time and then re aggregate inside the train, this being a huge experiment. It would happen so rapidly that no-one realises it happens. And you can’t know both when and where it happens. Only when the announcements stop will we know the experiment has finished. Maybe in hundreds of years’ time.

Herbof | 27.02.24 - 10:21 p.m. | #

Pre-pandemic, at a Goblin line station I used the ‘information’ button to ask if trains shown on the display every time they were due as “delayed” had really been cancelled and when passengers would be told. A grumpy voice on the other end said they’d stopped making announcements “because you lot complained about them” — at which point all the displays went to “service suspended”. When I later queried this with TfL they claimed a) there was no policy not to make announcements and b) the change of display was “a coincidence”.

Labourer | 27.02.24 - 11:49 p.m. | #

"This train terminates here. All change please, Please ensure that you have all your belongings with you when you leave the train."
At non terminus stations feel free to leave all your personal belongings on the train.

Northernliner | 28.02.24 - 12:44 a.m. | #

At The Angel yesterday. Parents please do not carry children on your shoulders.

Freddie | 28.02.24 - 6:57 a.m. | #

"Please stand behind the yellow line" has always presented a conundrum to me: at any point, "behind" the line, from my vantage point, must be the other side of the line. Then, from that other side, it means back on this side, ad infinitum.

MartinG | 28.02.24 - 7:51 a.m. | #

Regular announcement at Euston railway station:

"Pickpockets operate at this station. So please keep your possessions with you at all times". But if you left your possessions somewhere and someone then stole them that... wouldn't be pickpocketing?

Muldoon | Homepage | 28.02.24 - 9:39 a.m. | #

Also entirely superfluous filler words such as:

“Please be advised that….”
“Passengers are reminded that…..”

The information can be relayed without these, but one could argue that they are a sort of alert that information is coming (although I’d prefer a ‘bing bong’ instead).

Also mismatched pronouns:
“Passengers are reminded to keep their belongings with you at all times.”

Stephen | 28.02.24 - 8:24 p.m. | #

Have to say i was totally stunned when i heard the announcement about scarves and hats. The mainline TOC ones are bad enough but this one is plain daft.

Nicholas Lewis | 03.03.24 - 8:53 a.m. | #

And then there's the see it sod it announcement that tells you to call BTP from a tube train where there is no mobile signal.

drhhmb | 03.03.24 - 7:38 p.m. | #

The one about Oyster beyond West Drayton annoys me every time I'm on a Lizzy Line train to Heathrow.

Fluffymitten | 13.03.24 - 6:08 p.m. | #











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