New Automated Station Announcements

Tonight while at 153rd Street on SWS, I heard an automated announcement stating that "An outbound train will be arriving in 0 minutes" then repeated it once again. Approx. a minute later an outbound train arrived. This is the first time I ever heard an announcement of this type... maybe something soon to become system-wide...

Here are two recordings of the announcements from tonight at 143rd Street:

Inbound Arrival
Outbound Pre-Arrival

The Wheaton depot has recently added this upgrade, similar announcements are now heard whenever a train is 5 minutes away, and also as it arrives in the station. Now you can finally tell the freight trains apart from Metra when the gates come down, and not have to wonder anymore...

They have them at Wood Dale also, but you can barely make them out over the bells and horn of the approaching inbound train.

They have them at Worth on the SWS also, it been in place for about over 5 months(may been longer now) at Worth, since I first heard it. it announces for the train when I am at the station.

"May I have your attention please, An inbound train will be arriving in approx 2 minutes"

then as the train approaches, it says something like.
"May I have your attention please, The next inbound train to Chicago is now arriving at your station, for your safety please stand behind the yellow line untill the train stops"


I also hear the auto station announcements at Willow Springs for the 3 outbound HC trains also when I was railfanning there and this was back in July of 08 when I heard it.

At Willow springs it announces that an outbound train will be arriving in app. 8 minutes.

These are most likely system wide announcements, when they work.... I notice one day they will be on, the next they won't. The "X minutes" is also sometimes off, as is the "train arriving into your station"... there are times this is announced as the train is leaving the station. I have also heard there are express announcements on MD-W, announcing to stand behind the yellow line until the train passes.

On RI the 'woman' voice continuously announces that "Inbound trains will be arriving and boarding from track number 2. Outbound trains will be arriving and boarding from track number 1." One 'glitch' that I've noticed comes when there are service disruptions, the computer will read everything so fast that its difficult to understand, especially the time.

These are also displayed on the scrolling message boards.

At least they don't use that annoying chirping sound before the message.

F40CFan wrote:At least they don't use that annoying chirping sound before the message.

That was always the best part. That annoying chirping followed by the unintelligible voice coming out of the sky.

"Attention Metra Burlington Northern passengers...."

F40CFan wrote:At least they don't use that annoying chirping sound before the message.

That was always the best part. That annoying chirping followed by the unintelligible voice coming out of the sky.

"Attention Metra Burlington Northern passengers...."

Haven't heard such announcements on BNSF as of yet...unless they're turned off

endofthelineaurora wrote:That was always the best part. That annoying chirping followed by the unintelligible voice coming out of the sky.

"Attention Metra Burlington Northern passengers...."

Yeah, its right up there with the announcements blasted on the platforms in CUS where you go deaf but can only make out 1 word in 10.

I heard the announcement a few weeks ago at Schaumburg. It was clear and easy to understand. However, I too liked the cherp before the announcments and the unitelligible voice. I have not heard the new announcments at Palatine yet.

I spent a little bit of time at the Chicago Ridge SWS station during Tuesday afternoon's rush hour and heard an announcement twice for inbound train #836. The announcements are sequenced exactly in the manner that JamesT4 put it.

One other thing I noticed at both Joliet a few weeks ago and at Chicago Ridge is the scrolling LED board will say "This is (station name)". Please stay behind the yellow line until your train comes to a complete stop...or something like that.

MetraBNSF wrote: One other thing I noticed at both Joliet a few weeks ago and at Chicago Ridge is the scrolling LED board will say "This is (station name)". Please stay behind the yellow line until your train comes to a complete stop...or something like that.

It is like that at Worth, Palos Heights, Oak Lawn, on the SWS, and at Willow Springs on the HC when I visited those stations, I never seen it on any other metra lines like the MD lines or the UP, or the BNSF those just are blink., it just keep scrolling with the same info, I wonder if it just to keep passengers info of what station it is even thou there are the station name plates on the platforms, and the station, probably a safety reminder.

All stations along SWS and RI have the scrolling LED board 'personalized' for each station. The message that is continuously shown is something along the lines of: "This is Tinley Park. Watch for trains from either direction." I'm guessing the personalized message is interconnected to the GPS, as this started on SWS and continued over to RI at the same time as the other messages began.