The Voice of the T is retiring

By adamg on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 10:13am

Frank Oglesby

Boston Magazine reports that Frank Oglesby, the real person who does those "next train" announcements on subway lines and announces street names on buses is retiring. But don't worry - he'll still work on announcements for the T.

Topics:

The T

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Comments

That's funny

By aldos on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 10:29am.

I always imagined he looked like this

IMAGE(http://www.mbta.com/images/fares-charlie.png)

Nice Fellow

By Suldog on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 10:35am.

Had a chance to meet him at a T function and, as two folks who did voice overs might do, we talked about our past gigs. He was very pleasant (and I was a bit jealous, since his T gig was so public while mine were generally more anonymous.)

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

Hire Ellen McLain to do all

By anon on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 10:52am.

Hire Ellen McLain to do all the system announcements in the GLaDOS voice and upgrade the automatic system announcements into the same synthesizer. Could be EPIC!

Two words

By erik g on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 11:32am.

Warner. Herzog.

You have made a choice to go inbound, a commitment. But the fact is, every day we take such choices and yet we reject the commitment. I think you should commit fully to inbound, make it not just now but for always. If you really do want to go inbound then you must declare war on outbound, tear up your Charlie Card. I'm quite convinced that inbound now and forever, with all that entails, is the only choice for someone really dedicated to public transit. The next Blue Line train to Wonderland is now arriving.

And so it looks already good, the destination is well within our grasp now. Now arriving at Alewife.

We do not even know where we are standing. It doesn't take great genius to understand it, if our own location is unclear then getting closer to our goal is an insurmountable task. Orange Line experiencing delays due to police action.

Werner?

By Michael Kerpan on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 12:02pm.

;-)

Just got the Blu-Ray set of his early films -- and these look phenomenally better than the long-ago DVDs -- but his incomparable commentaries are still included.

Fitzcarraldo

By Ishmael Jones on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 12:05pm.

Some days the Orange Line commute is like dragging a steamship over the mountain.

you win today.

By bibliotequetress on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 12:14pm.

The female voice that announces delays

By BikerGeek on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 4:15pm.

sounds a heckuva lot like GLaDOS, and I actually do wonder--is that her? "Attention Green Line Passengers. We are experiencing moderate delays due to a disabled train at Boylston."

Y U No CR?

By BostonDog on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 11:24am.

Why haven't they got him (or someone with an equally good voice) to do the Commuter Rail automated announcements? It's not as if the stations change so there would be nothing stopping them from recording the announcements as they do on the rest of the system.

Listening to computers talk in situations where a pre-recorded human would be preferable and natural is one of my pet peeves.

WHY NOT

By SFPD12 on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 11:33am.

HAVE GUEST SPOTS
WE COULD HAVE EVERYONE FROM BUGS BUNNY
TO RON POPIEL OR WRESTLING RING GUYS.
LENNY CLARK OR STEVE SWEENY MAYBE?

He Does Have A Beautiful Voice — Almost Musical, Like Jane Barbe

By Elmer on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 1:42pm.

The first automated voice system that sounded really good was voiced by the great Jane Barbe. Similar to how The Ⓣ's systems piece together samples of Frank Oglesby's voice to make an announcement, the Bell System's Automatic Intercept System pieced together samples of Mrs. Barbe's voice to give specific information about wrong or changed telephone numbers.

This had been done before, but new technology combined with Jane Barbe's talented voice made it sound strikingly beautiful. For the time, it was revolutionary. Jane had a musical way of speaking that, even if she was telling you bad news, made it pleasant to listen to. Frank Oglesby's voice has some of those qualities too!

This is cool

By Anony-Mouse on Wed, 07/27/2016 - 4:20pm.

Thank you (and Boston Mag) for posting.

A new voice is now arriving.

By anon on Thu, 07/28/2016 - 12:40am.

A new voice is now arriving.

The Voice of the T is retiring

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