Ruth Michell
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Ruth Michell, often incorrectly named Mitchell, is the primary English announcement voice for platform announcements at Transport for Wales managed stations. She previously voiced announcements manually at Truro station, as well as being the primary automated announcement voice for the majority of stations managed by the Wales & West and Wessex Trains franchises in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Michell is a long-term railway employee, originally working within British Rail pre-privatisation, and then being employed by both Wales & West and Wessex Trains. For most of her railway career, she was based in an office near Truro station.
Announcement career
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Ruth filled in as Truro station's manual announcer prior to automated announcement systems when the station's resident announcer (Stanley May) was unavailable. Michell recounts that most colleagues did not enjoy announcing train services, but it was something she loved to do as required.
As automated announcements began to be developed across the UK railway network, voice artists were initially commissioned to record the audio segments required for the systems. It transpired that the cost for experienced voiceover artists was too high for British Rail, and another plan had to be made instead. One of the employees responsible for the procurement of the announcement systems worked alongside Ruth at Truro and offered the role to her, which she accepted.
In the mid 1990s, Ruth Michell recorded her first set of announcements as part of a trial information system operated by Sema (since acquired and amalgamated into Worldline's CIS). It was initially deployed at Truro in early 1996 before expanding to most South West region stations by 2000.
Expanding into Wales
In 1996, Michell, alongside Eryl Jones, recorded additional stations for the Sema announcement system in a makeshift recording studio converted from an electrical cupboard in Mansfield to allow the expansion of automated announcements into Wales.
This audio was first used in 1998 as part of Project Inform on automated help points. Live running information would be available to customers by pressing a button at a station. This would dial a phone number and key in the station's specific extension, which would read back the current time and the next few departures for each platform or direction of travel.
From the 2000s onwards, new station announcement recordings are made at Confetti Studios, Nottingham. At present, Ruth still produces new recordings for Worldline and Transport for Wales as required.
Ruth and Eryl also record various on-board announcements for Transport for Wales trains at Hoot Studios, Cardiff.