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Yes, I agree she was a very good announcer. She died earlier this year aged 86. I posted an obituary for her on the RailUK Forum. You can read it here: www.railforums.co.uk/threads/br-announcer-angela-peberdy-has-died.262735/

@@robertpayne7649 Thank you for the link. She passed away on 30th January 2024 in Geneva, Ohio. BC Radio 4 broadcast its feature about Angela Peberdy's life during their Last Word obituary programme on 16th February 2024. _PS do like your banner picture of Havant (London-end)._

This was programmed into the system when it was installed in 1988 for use when services from Cannon Street or Charing Cross were diverted into Victoria due to operating incidents or weekend engineering works. There was never a booked service to Gravesend via Woolwich in the normal timetable whilst this system was in use. This recording was of a train I created on the Ditra computer during a boring night shift in the control room in the early 1990s.

The speaker shown was made by a company called Davenport. These were originally in widespread use on the Southern Region of British Rail from the 1970s to the 1990s. The actual photograph was taken by me at Sheffield Park station on the Bluebell Railway in the early 2000s as by then they had mostly disappeared from the former British Rail stations and I needed a suitable image for my uploads of British Rail recorded announcements to RUclips.

@@robertpayne7649 Oh nice!! There's an old speaker branded as Davenport at Preston station but it's of a different design and no longer in use; it did used to have those speakers as well though but they got took down many years ago and replaced with horns which remained in place until the system was fully replaced in 2006-7ish. Leamington Spa station still has the Davenports in use though on the modern day KeTech system!!

You were lucky that the announcements at Dover Priory lasted until the early 2000s. East Croydon had the same system installed in 1985 and by the early 1990s it had already been replaced by a new (and boring!) system. Here is an example of the original system at East Croydon ruclips.net/video/zB9CSm1XmxY/видео.html

Three Bridges had two 32 track tape machines in the 1980s. One was located on platforms 1 and 2 and the recordings were provided by Gordon Reid. The other was located on platforms 3 and 4 and the recordings were done by Angela Peberdy. The machine on platfroms 3 and 4 also played out the announcements for platform 5. Each track was divided into two parts - the first section was the "pre" announcement that was played before the train arrived and the second section was the "main" announcement that was played when the train was at the platform. When a train was a few minutes away, the platform staff had to input the relevant track number into the machine and then manually trigger off the announcement (there was no automatic system although some stations in the London area had this facility). After the "pre" announcement had played, the machine paused the playout until the play button was pressed again which triggered off the "main" announcement. There were not enough tracks to cover all of the stopping patterns for all of the platforms so some of the announcements used the phrase "This platform" rather than for example "Platform 1". This meant that these announcements could be used on adjacent platforms. You just had to pay attention as to which set of loudspeakers the announcements were coming out from and check the departure indicator. So this particular Three Bridges announcement could be played out on either platform 1 or 2.

@@robertpayne7649 Oh wow that is so cool! Thanks for the reply 😊

Hi Zac, Unfortunately I never got round to recording any announcements for the service from Tunbridge Wells Central to Eridge. There would certainly have been a Robert Lister announcement for this line at Tonbridge and an Angela Peberdy one at Tunbridge Wells Central. I do have a general request on the "About" section of this RUclips channel for anyone who has any old recordings of BR recorded announcements to email me, so they come to light in the future. John Elgar (the voice at London Victoria) never recorded these stations as the stations where his voice was in use never had services that ran from Tunbridge Wells Central to Eridge. Best wishes, Robert.

@@robertpayne7649 Hi Robert - thank you so much for the information and the prompt reply - it may help. I wish you well in the ongoing search. And thanks again for sharing. With Best Wishes Zac

Yes, unfortunately the British Rail person who wrote the script for this announcement typed it out as "Oxenholme, The Lake District" rather than "Oxenholme The Lake District" which is how it was officially known when it was renamed in 1988. So when Infomat at Mitcham received the script, they must have assumed that BR had opened a new station further up the line called "The Lake District" and so got Robert Lister to record them as two seperate stations!

@@robertpayne7649 . I dont suppose you would happen to have any recordings of Robert Lister announcing any Woodside and Addiscombe services.... or even better, any recordings of the Bingham Rd, Coombe Rd , Selsdon/Sanderstead trains. That would be most awesome if you did 😀😀

@@GNTel313 All I can find is an Angela Peberdy Addiscombe service announcement on platform 1 at London Bridge which you can hear on this link: ruclips.net/video/mOutGN_G9pQ/видео.html Unfortunately I never managed to get a recording of Robert Lister announcing a through train to Addiscombe. Also bad news regarding the Bingham Road to Sanderstead line - another line which I failed to record! However, I've got a request on the "About" section of this RUclips channel for anybody who has any old recordings of prerecorded announcements to get in touch via my email address so something may come to light one day.

@@robertpayne7649 many thanks for sharing the link. It's great to hear. Here's hoping that someone has a recording of the Bingham Rd line. My fingers are crossed lol

Thank you for your comment. The announcement was an early example of Infomat's system that they introduced in 1984 which stored the recordings as segmented speech in a solid state memory using EPROM chips. Unfortunately, this resulted in the announcements being somewhat muffled and not as clear as the old tape systems such as this example of Angela Peberdy at Three Bridges: ruclips.net/video/6SW2AE7PQQQ/видео.html Regarding Bat & Ball and Elephant & Castle - At the time their platforms were slightly shorter but unfortunately due to whoever submitted the script for this announcement to Infomat not bothering to specify exactly how many coaches could be accommodated on the platform at these stations, passengers probably just crammed in the front coach to be on the safe side! Here is another example of a poorly worded announcement script that was submitted to Infomat for Gatwick Airport station which fails to define how many coaches the front and rear portions consisted of. The best bit is towards the end when Robert Lister announces that passengers for Ifield and other short-platformed stations should join "the front 4 coaches of the rear portion of the train"! ruclips.net/video/fwtiC0J-xyY/видео.html

Thank you for your kind comment.

@@robertpayne7649 are you still live?

@@loco4loco If you are referring to this RUclips channel then the answer is yes but as I have not discovered any new recordings in the last few years, there have consequently not been any recent updates. If you are referring to me, the answer is also yes. I'm 59 and hopefully will be around for another twenty to thirty years!

@@robertpayne7649 good and both I guess good your alright

Quite a few of the continental stations that were recorded by John Elgar were never actually used as it depended on what the ongoing connections were after the ferries had docked on the other side of the Channel. Sometimes I would add a few of the more obscure stations to the recorded boat train announcements just to make them sound a bit more interesting even though there was no official connection. Nobody ever complained!

Thank you for your comment Adam. The voice was the actor Robert Lister who provided recordings of railway announcements for around 20 years from 1982 onwards at numerous stations right across the Southern Region. There is a profile of him here:www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/kHJvvtHmZD7dQXXgGLTjvh/lewis-carmichael The female voice you would have heard during this era over on platform C at Waterloo East and many other stations was provided by the actress Angela Peberdy. She appears in an interview in 1986 here: ruclips.net/video/6VtqXIwxVHw/видео.html

The announcer is the actor Robert Lister. He provided recordings for railway announcements for around 20 years from 1982 onwards. You can read a profile of him here:www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/kHJvvtHmZD7dQXXgGLTjvh/lewis-carmichael

@@robertpayne7649 Many thanks! I had, and maybe still do, some announcements on cassette from Winchester/Southampton area from the 80s. I'll have to look them out - and buy a new tape player. Who was the lady in the same era? - sounded a bit Angela Rippon-ish?

@@JamesSmith-wv4je The lady from the same era was an actress called Angela Peberdy. You can see her taking part in an interview on BBC1's regional news programme London Plus on 27th November 1986 following complaints about the volume of her recorded announcements at Epsom station: ruclips.net/video/6VtqXIwxVHw/видео.html

@@JamesSmith-wv4je If you send me an email to rnpayne1963@outlook.com I'll send you a bit more information about British Rail's 1980s recorded announcement systems and some of the other actor's voices used.

It is most likely from Horsham as these were generally the trains that called at Merstham, Coulsdon South and Purley

Well they actually faced the final curtain of ferry travels from Dover to Ostend because of low patronage and now Eurostar has become quite popular in European train travel from London nowadays....

@@josephhall1995 : Whether Ostend has a ferry service seems to be on-&-off depending on the regulatory & economic climate. It's a shame there isn't one now as it was my grandparents' favourite ferry route to get to Germany. Eurostar is a horrid monopoly that needs to be broken.

ccityplanner12 : well I know but I think there had been a climate change and there are calls to make a comeback on sleeper train travel.... to go carbon neutral by the year 2050

@@josephhall1995 : China has mocked the West by announcing that it could go carbon-neutral by 2060. Compared to China, we're halfway there yet think we need three quarters as much time.

ccityplanner12 : I know we all do! The Chinese are doing everything they can to gutting carbon before 2050-2060 but in most cases, Britain is scheduled to go carbon neutral between 2035-2050...

John Elgar was actually my favourite recorded announcer during this era. Unlike Robert Lister, Angela Peberdy and Julie Berry who were trained actors, John Elgar worked for British Rail.

And regarding the night shifts in the Victoria Control Room, I used to take the precaution of setting an alarm for 45 minutes past each hour just in case I nodded off and failed to press the button to advertise the platform number on the departure indicator for the trains which departed on the hour for Three Bridges / Brighton. Luckily this worked without fail for the 20 years that I did the night shifts!

I spent many unhappy hours in Victoria station having just missed the last train to Whitstable circa 1996, and knowing that dozing off would attract the attention of the BTP, although my Priv pass would usually take care of that!

@@AndyVernel What job did you do on the railways in the 1990s?

Alas nothing. My dad was a signaller and I was at UKC, so retained my privilege travel through graduation.

John Elgar initially recorded all of the words and phrases required for London Victoria's recorded announcement system on to tape at Ditra's headquarters in Reading. These were then transferred on to EPROM chips and installed in a cabinet in the equipment room located just across the corridor from the London Victoria Control Room. The announcer had a computer screen (which was initially controlled by a light pen which you moved around the computer screen to activate or edit the announcements but this was later replaced by a mouse) and when an announcement was selected from the list to be played, the computer selected all of the relevant words and phrases that were required for that particular announcement from the EPROM chips and played the announcement through the station's loudspeakers. The EPROM chips were later replaced by Windows sound files when the voice was changed from John Elgar to Phil Sayer.

@@robertpayne7649 amazing

It must have been a special service, because this ceased existing as a regular service in 1984 (and even then, off peak services hadn't existed since 1978). They probably had a requirement to make back some time by running fast under ancient and old fashioned rules.

This train ran once a day Monday to Friday during the morning peak to provide passengers with a fast service to London from the Sussex Coast.

Robert Payne I see

Well spotted! I must admit I hadn't noticed that Ewell East was missing from the calling places. Whenever the timetable changed and new recorded announcements were required, it was up to the local Station Manager or Station Supervisor to submit a type-written request detailing what was required and the error would have been made by whoever had typed this announcement out. Infomat just produced whatever was on the script and would not have noticed the error.

It's okay and yeah, after these announcers finished they were replaced by the late Phil Sayer and Celia Drummond.. so this service was stopping at Ewell East this day??

Also one thing to add is the services seem a lot better than they are today especially as they're is a petition going round right now to stop axing peak hour trains on the Mitcham to Sutton line.

Yes, this service was stopping at Ewell East but was missed out due to an error on the recorded announcement.

Robert Payne oh I see yeah that still happens with some of the announcements today like a while back at Cheam they missed Mitcham Eastfields out on the announcements (which opened in 2008 and was updated by all announcers to call at that station).

What sounds like Chathill is actually Chatham. John Elgar had quite a strong South London accent so some of the stations are pronounced slightly differently to the usual recorded announcements that were heard at the time. London Victoria only had Southern Region and some continental stations (for the boat train connections) recorded in the system.

Robert Payne Oh I see.

Yes. It was a programming error when the system was set up by Ditra as the scipit on the recorded announcement computer screen correctly said "via Woolwich". It didn't matter as this particular announcement route was never in the timetable. It was just in the system in case we had Charing Cross diversions or was needed for future timetable changes. I recorded it on the Victoria Control Room loudspeaker in the early 1990s during a night shift when I was bored and had nothing better to do! I altered it to platform 9 instead of an eastern side platform as the monitor loudspeaker was a lot louder on the central side control panel.