Years ago (pre-Amtrak) when I lived in New York, I was always fascinated by the departure announcements. The announcer at New York's Penn Station was up in a glass box, generally a hefty African-American with a very effective and distinctive voice. I especially liked the announcements of the combined trains from the south: "Train departing at (time) on (east or west gate) track (number), the Palmland, Pelican, and the Peach Queen, is now ready for the reception of pasengers. Stations for .... . This train has sleeping cars designated (numbers), parlor car designated (number usually locally to Washington), reserved seat coaches designated (numbers), diner, lounge car, and unreserved seat coaches, etc."
I always intended to gat a cassette recorder out to Penn Station to pick up some of these announcements but as all things good, one never gets to it till it was too late and wound up moving overeas due to family commitments. Had anyone ever recorded such station announcements in whatever stations they had encountered, and would it be possible to share with others of such interests via cassettes or CD's? Announcements here where I now live (Perth, Western Australia) are very few due to so few intercity or long distance trains, and the suburban service announcements are generically uniformly pre-recorded rather than spoken live with an announcer with their own announcing personality. I really wish I had recorded that wonderful voice at Penn Station, and had wished that other station announcers had their live announcements in their own distinctive personalities been preserved for posterity since that too is part of railroad history and heritage.
Even more difficult to preserve would have been the unique calligraphy of the chalkboard scribes whose arrival departures would be displayed in the arrivals area, since one would only have been able to preserve these by photographing them on the spot. For this I always used to enjoy the scribes at Grand Central Station in New York, with the huge chalkboard on the elevator platform to enable the scribes to reach up and down! Their calligraphy was true art and I don't think it was ever done in any other industry or other commercial situation. I don't think that the Solari Boards or any kind of automated lighted displays ever held that sense of anticipation in the arrivals of trains to greet visitors as did the chalkboards.
But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so please let us in the forum find out if you have any such sounds and/or images at stations.
Sincerely,
Vytautas B. Radzivanas
Perth, Western Australia
I always intended to gat a cassette recorder out to Penn Station to pick up some of these announcements but as all things good, one never gets to it till it was too late and wound up moving overeas due to family commitments. Had anyone ever recorded such station announcements in whatever stations they had encountered, and would it be possible to share with others of such interests via cassettes or CD's? Announcements here where I now live (Perth, Western Australia) are very few due to so few intercity or long distance trains, and the suburban service announcements are generically uniformly pre-recorded rather than spoken live with an announcer with their own announcing personality. I really wish I had recorded that wonderful voice at Penn Station, and had wished that other station announcers had their live announcements in their own distinctive personalities been preserved for posterity since that too is part of railroad history and heritage.
Even more difficult to preserve would have been the unique calligraphy of the chalkboard scribes whose arrival departures would be displayed in the arrivals area, since one would only have been able to preserve these by photographing them on the spot. For this I always used to enjoy the scribes at Grand Central Station in New York, with the huge chalkboard on the elevator platform to enable the scribes to reach up and down! Their calligraphy was true art and I don't think it was ever done in any other industry or other commercial situation. I don't think that the Solari Boards or any kind of automated lighted displays ever held that sense of anticipation in the arrivals of trains to greet visitors as did the chalkboards.
But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so please let us in the forum find out if you have any such sounds and/or images at stations.
Sincerely,
Vytautas B. Radzivanas
Perth, Western Australia
