Wished more transit systems could adopt his voice for automated announcement systems. Love his attitude and how he handled things with grace, integrity and a positive mindset. God bless you Frank.
What a mistake. Major transit systems hire actual people to do the recordings. Just go to DC or Chicago or NYC. This is something that you would expect of a low-budget neighborhood bus system, not a major city system. He will be missed!
Hate to break it to you but most of the NYC, DC, and Chicago systems are automated. They sound like a real voice because the systems have gotten better, and used to use real voices. But the people that made the original recordings are now often dead, and they simply automate recordings based off of samples of their voice.
This is something that the MBTA could’ve EASILY learned from the NYC Subway. The reason why the voices don’t necessarily need to be automated is bc NYC Subway announcers like Diane Thompson, Jessica, Ettinger, Caroline Hopkins, etc. have made announcements for EVERY POSSIBLE CASE SCENARIO! Even though those other announcement are RARE, they are in the system just in case they are needed for service changes. For example: When the Orange had to stop at Ruggles for the Government Center garage construction, it still said it’s going to Oak Grove. For that case scenario, they could say “the destination of this train is Ruggles” and have that labeled as the last stop instead. Also, these CRRC trains are a LOT newer than some of the trains in NYC, however the trains in NYC are programmed for service changes. I think these new CRRC’s should have that capability to download them onto their systems as well. It’s more work, but in the end, it’ll really pay off for both the MBTA & Frank! Just how those NY announcers are unique to the MTA, Frank’s voice is unique to the MBTA & it would be rough if the T goes through with that automated crap.
So far, Oglesby's voice is phased out of the Green Line. We can still hear him on the station platforms, the Red, Orange and Blue lines and the buses and Silver Line. I've recorded all those automated announcements he did so I can hear him all I want at my house from my laptop. When he's completely gone from the other MBTA lines, I'll be so glad I had the chance to capture his illustrious voice from all the transit lines on the MBTA. He'll live on in spirit on my laptop.
This was a terrible decision. Frank should not have to put up with this. His voice is very comforting to listen to on the train, especially for my son who loves trains. The automated voice is cringy and annoying in my opinion. It is also obnoxiously loud on the new green line trains, while Frank’s voice on the trains is put at a very well placed volume. Oh well, at least his voice is on the new orange line trains. We should all be thankful for that.
I think Frank's voice has become an iconic memory for people who have lived in Boston. It is a shame to see they are switching to the automated voice, which feels cold and dull.
I'm from Boston, moved to Orlando Florida and drive the Universal Resort hotel shuttle with Mears. I have a splendid time mimicking the MBTA announcements and people from Boston ALWAYS catch on! "The Destination of this train is: Cabana Bay. No Smoking Please" "Entering: Endless Summer Dockside, Doors will open on the right" "Aventura: Federal Law requires priority seating be available for seniors and/or persons with disabilities" Sometimes I'll even throw in a few Boston station just to test their knowlege like saying "The Destination of this train is BOSTON COLLEGE" even though we're in Orlando! If they're not from Boston, I also enjoy the confusion!
This is in line with them also replacing the perfectly functional real bells on the Mattapan PCCs with not just any synthesized bells, but BAD ones (somebody already posted a video around here of the first rebuilt PCC after it returned to service).
This guy should do the voice of a new character on the new seasons of Phineas and Ferb, that is if the T doesn’t rehire him because they regret their decision to switch to text to speech announcements
I especially love hearing Frank’s voice on the orange line, blue line, red line, and silver line. It’s cool to hear different recordings of his voice on those different areas and his voice has a great tone to it. It really sucks to have to replace his voice with just a robotic text to speech voice.
The San Francisco BART announcements use a text to speech you can search up on google and use lol It for some reason always pronounces "please stand clear of the door" in a funny way
One thing I don't like about the announcements on the t Is that they don't make an announcement when the doors are closing like in New York City Charlie pellet, stand clear of the closing doors, please. Lee crooks say, Doors closing, and Randi Miller says step back, doors closing, but the mbta doesn't. this isn't fair. the MBTA needs to start taking notes from other transportation, and it should include adding a doors closing announcement, because the type 9 is the only model in boston, that has a closing door announcement.
Here's one of Franks announcements Route 1 bus to Harvard from MIT and away from it is Route 1 bus to Nubian if not updated Route 1 bus to Dudley. MBTA needs to look at NYC MTA on how they kept the voices used in the system. Velinda Mitchell is used there from 2016-2017-present
It really seems unnecessary to have to completely replace Frank’s voice for just automated text to speech stuff. Where he is good enough to be heard literally should stay that way and he should stay as a main voice for the MBTA, and they should just use text to speech stuff for anything Frank hasn’t recorded.
