Radio MAXX Gets Green Light

in Trains by Jon C — July 13, 2011 at 6:42 pm | 4 comments

The on-board train announcement system is to be installed on half of Auckland train fleet from this weekend.

The four-week trial ended a fortnight ago.

It will take until late August to be completed.

Surprisingly there was little public feedback - although considering it was trialled on one SX and two SAs only, many of us never got to hear it and give feedback.

Auckland Transport says what feedback there was “was generally supportive.”.

The announcements are installed on the SX train and will be now put on all SAs. That is about half the fleet. The SX only runs one service per day, the 7:25am from Papakura to Britomart via Glen Innes.

The rest of the fleet are DMUs and their future is up in the air until Auckland Transport work out requirements for when the new electric trains arrive from about 2013.

Matrix actor Nathaniel Lees is kept as the voice of Auckland trains. The New Zealand- born actor and theatre director of Samoan descent was Captain Mifune in The Matrix trilogy and “Uglúk” in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

But since the trial some minor changes have been made:

• Corrections had to be made to a couple of GPS boundaries
• The opening jngle preceding an announcement has had its volume increased
• There will be more detail on special event services
• There will be warnings about fare evasion

The move is welcomed although it’s a shame not every train can get the service.

What we don’t want is for some accountant to latch onto the idea a full Radio MAXX service is warranted.

In other words, a captured audience being forced to listen to a advertisements to help pay for one of Steven Joyce’s many rail funding taxes.

The LINK bus moved that way with its annoying bird calls, video ads for Wagamama restaurant chain and the like in between being told the location of the next stop.

Then there was the wannabe shock jock who once commandeered the Britomart transport centre PA with his  constant “shoutouts to Westies” accompanied by a painfully drawn out “howya all goin this fine morning?”

It was cheerful and friendly at first but after being held up several times in the train on the way and finally reaching Britomart late -often a stressful moment when you had appointments to meet- his Morning Radio Zoo chatter became tiresome.

He later turned up as a Train Manager and when we were halted once for 20 minute outside Britomart, he thought he was entertaining us with 20 minutes of such mindless “haya all doing bro” talk over the scratchy train intercom.

Auckland Transport, please don’t go there.

If you do, please lets have the introduction of Quiet Cars.

We are looking forward to the introduction of real time information signs at some stations from August 6.