Concerning lineside detectors (defect, dragging equipment, etc.)…some have electronically synthesized voices that transmit responses on the railroad radio, some have recorded human voices. In the case of the recorded human voices, who provides those? The railroad or the detector manufacturer? Thanks!
The manufacturer. (aka Servo-talk)
(I still get a good giggle from the talkers that sound like Teddy Ruxpin on an acid trip.)
Do they try to mix the voices on detectors on a particular line to avoid confusion?
At the ATL airport Delta alternates between male and female voices for the automated announcements at adjacent gates.
Or is it just a function of the manufacturer?
Like the announcements at the beginning of “Airplane” about the loading zones?
The first talking detector was Miss Majel Barret’s voice recording. She was the wife of Gene Roddenberry and one of the the stars of the Star Trek series. Miss SP…
The first home computer we had (TI-99) had a voice synthesizer module. The fun part was getting it to pronounce words correctly, which required some pretty interesting spellings.
Left to its own devices, it would often massacre words pretty badly.
Yes, Larry, think of “through,” “rough,” and “thorough.”
She was also the voice of the main computer in the original series.
I love the story they told new-hire van drivers shuttling crews that the detectors were staffed by midgets.
The person who thought of putting her in the trackside detectors was truly Enterprising.
Our first synthetic caller in the Crew Management Center was called “Sven” by some people. I remember one guy who used to work with us: John Obert III. His last name was pronounced to rhyme with Stephen Colbert. Except by Sven, who would list him as “John Oberdieee”!
Carl, at least the voice did not call out, “John Obert one hundred eleven.” When I was in the fifth grade (1946-47), one of my classmates was reading something about World War II, and said “World War eleven.”
Even common words can throw sythesizers for a loop. Can’t remember any at the moment, though. It’s been a while since I played with that computer.
On a similar vein, I recall reading that voice recognition in the early days was a challenge when dealing with New England (especially Maine), where “five” becomes “fye-uv…”
Of course, when such a computer is programmed by people who never learned to talk properly (they did not grow up in the South), the result just does not sound right[:)].
She still lives on in UP detectors.
Jeff
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majel_Barrett#The_voice_in_the_railroads
“SP Lady” - “The only railroad that still uses her voice today is Union Pacific.[14]”
http://wavs.unclebubby.com/television/star-trek-computer/ sounds
http://www.franksradio.net/startrek/sounds/
http://www.sherylfranklin.com/trekwomen_chapel_sounds.html
- Paul North.
I still laugh when I hear a PA announcement saying “There is no parking in the white zone”
Atlanta was home to Jane Barbe, who did the voice for time and all the bell system messages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Barbe
So it sounds like it just depends on what gets installed for the sound of the voice. Listening to the scanner feed for the Rochelle area it seems like each detector is unique.
My favorite story about the talking defect detectors:
CSX embraced the talking defect detector technology as far back as Seaboard Coast Line days. They were using them long before Southern Railway was.
Seems there was an engineer who was surprised the first time he heard a detector “talking” to his train over the radio. When the message was completed with the “No Defects” statement; he instinctively keyed up his radio and said “Thank You”. Unbeknownst to him there was another train nearby whose engineer had heard this entire radio exchange. Without missing a beat, he quickly transmitted “You’re Welcome”.
When the first engineer got off duty that day he was excitedly telling everyone he met about how polite the new talking detectors were!