Hola!

Does anyone else find the announcement precursors at Charing Cross
immensely irritating? "A warm welcome to you from Charing Cross, in the
heart of London". GAH! Who are they trying to kid?

/rant

Meh

Also, my favourite in the days of slam-door EPBs, the same announcer
came up with something on the lines of "Please join the front four
coaches only at platform 4 for the service to ... no, I said the front
four coaches only ... will the party, I think they are boy scouts or
something, please get off the rear train, which is not in service, and
join the front four coaches ..."

Of course, the boy scouts might have had an easier time complying with
the first announcement if there was some obvious marking to distinguish
which end of the train was the front.
--
Mark Brader "One might as well complain about the Sun
Toronto rising in the daytime instead of at night,
when we need it more." -- John Lawler

Mark Brader wrote in
:

Also, my favourite in the days of slam-door EPBs, the same announcer
came up with something on the lines of "Please join the front four
coaches only at platform 4 for the service to ... no, I said the
front four coaches only ... will the party, I think they are boy
scouts or something, please get off the rear train, which is not in
service, and join the front four coaches ..."

Of course, the boy scouts might have had an easier time complying with
the first announcement if there was some obvious marking to
distinguish which end of the train was the front.

I'd take "front" to be furthest from the barrier / buffer stops. The
difficulty is sometimes determining where the rear train ends and the front
train begins, especially if the two trains are so close together that they
are virtually coupled together: the use of signs on the platform "Front
train begins here" is by no means universal in this situation.

In article ,
Martin Underwood wrote:

I'd take "front" to be furthest from the barrier / buffer stops. The
difficulty is sometimes determining where the rear train ends and the front
train begins, especially if the two trains are so close together that they
are virtually coupled together: the use of signs on the platform "Front
train begins here" is by no means universal in this situation.

It's a while since I regularly used Southern Region (oops what a
giveaway), but the pre-recorded announcements at Victoria for the Ramsgate
/ Dover trains used to urge customers to join "the front eight coaches,
furthest from the ticket barrier" or "the rear four coaches closest to
the ticket barrier".

Nick
--
So when is Tony Blair going to start treating *us* with respect ?