Title - CR to get 24-hr announcers

Fed up with complaints about lack of proper announcements and indicators at local railway stations, the Central Railway has arranged for professionals to make announcements 24-hour at 21 stations to begin with. Two people will man these stations in 12-hour shifts each and will be trained by the railways to handle high-stress situations at the stations. “The announcers appointed will be trained for five days in how to operate the announcement and indicator systems. The candidates should have at least cleared their SSC and should possess good communication skills, with a clear and audible voice,” a senior official said. “They have been warned that they should not make any additional announcement other than the announcement for train services and system in-built announcements without instructions from the station-in-charge or officials from the central announcement control room,” he added. To begin with, they have shortlisted 21 stations, covering all sections on main line, harbour line, trans-harbour, north-east and south-east routes. The CR will also be using a train management system software. Global giant Bombardier had completed phase one of the software, whose total project cost was approximately 4 million euro ($6 million USD). Phase one, which was inaugurated in April last year, was supposed to give minute-to-minute countdowns to track real-time movement of trains to help commuters.

A separate TMS control room has also been set up above platform seven at Mumbai CST