On Sep 30, 4:48*pm, Paul wrote:
On 30/09/2011 10:02, cj wrote:

Arrived at Clapham Junction around 6:30 yesterday evening to be
greeted by a horrendous ear-piercing alarm and the curious sight of
lots of passengers with fingers buried deeply in ears. Most platform
staff were presumably sheltering somewhere from the noise, which
wasn't exactly reassuring to people arriving on trains and who
wouldn't have a clue if the alarm was genuine or not. Once a member of
staff was found the only advice given was to not panic and for
passengers to just cover their ears!

The situation wasn't helped by a failure of the CIS displays, which
temporarily gave up showing actual train departures and instead
instructed commuters to "listen for announcements", which was all but
impossible.

I don't think it was an alarm. *Sounded to me more like the PA system
going haywire (hence no announcements).

--
Paul

Doesn't sound like PA feedback, that's more of a 'hollow' tone due to
the natural reverb of a space shared by mic + speaker, one Youtube
comment says it went on for more than an hour, seems like another case
of "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" computer malfunction and
"Computer says no" attitude from the staff, an increasingly common
problem.