In message , Neil Williams
writes
On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 20:51:49 +0100, Ian Jelf
wrote:

I was amazed to hear the PA system used while riding on an 8 near
Holborn on Sunday morning. I couldn't actually understand what the
driver was saying (!) but he seemed to be using it to announce a stop
for someone who must have asked.

Back over in Germany, before the displays came along (and on the few
buses that probably remain now without them) the driver announces
every stop.
I remember one in Berlin being (uncharacteristically for Prussian
officialdom) being very funny with his announcements on the 100. At
the height of the rebuilding of the Freidrichsplatz area a few years ago
he would say "Grosse Baustelle" [1] for that particular stop!

I don't think I've ever heard one in use over here. Drivers tend to
prefer, if they really need to talk to the passengers, to turn around
and shout.
I've only heard it used once here, on the 205. For that reason it
really made me jump when it suddenly boomed into life on Sunday morning
with the speaker right above my head.

(Interestingly I recently needed to get the use of a PA-equipped double
decker here in the West Midlands for a tour I was doing for a private
group of Birmingham's famous "Outer Circle" 11 bus route. It proved
very difficult! Travel West Midlands no longer have any such equipped
buses, although the "Timesaver" Metrobuses used to have them in the
1980s. Claribel's, a small but very smart independent in East Birmingham
actually installed one to their solitary double decker just for the
purpose!)

[1] Big Building site for non-German speakers, which I know won't
apply to Neil!
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk