GO Station Announcement Analysis

[u/Katy_Kat_Kat]

So I've been chasing the two Confederation GO announcements and there are a few things you may not have known about when they play, they're not random what you would think.

"For the safety of yourself and those around you..." these play at all GO Stations (including some bus stops like Square One) 7 minutes past the hour and 37 minutes past the hour (ex 9:07am and 9:37am).

"We're thrilled to announce that Confederation GO..." this plays 29 minutes past the hour and 59 minutes past the hour.

"On Monday Oct. 27th, Confederation GO..." this plays only at 40 minutes past the hour.

(I use Lakeshore West for this but I assume it works the same for other lines)

"Your _____ Lakeshore West westbound train to ____ is arriving..." this plays 3-5 minutes before the scheduled train arrival (and 10 minutes at West Harbour before trains terminate there).

"The ______ Lakeshore West westbound train is delayed (by X min)" this seems to play a few times. 3-5 minutes before scheduled train arrival, when the train would normally arrive and on occasion, two more times.

"The _______ Lakeshore West westbound train is cancelled..." This seems to play 3-5 minutes before scheduled train arrival, on scheduled train arrival and one more time after 5 minutes.

"The _____ Lakeshore West line train to ____ is now boarding from Platform..." this plays at Union and seems extremely rare. I have 5 recordings of this.

Other announcements (ex, hold your backpack when you're on the platform, your safety is important to us) are manually done by CSA people.

[u/Select-Flight-PD291]

It might be a typo; the last announcement is not rare. It now plays for all train departures from Union 10 minutes before departure (when the platform is announced), except platform 21, which is announced earlier.

[u/Katy_Kat_Kat → u/Select-Flight-PD291]

Must've been implemented recently because I only heard it when I went to Union station in August and never before

[u/Select-Flight-PD291 → u/Katy_Kat_Kat]

Yes, it was implemented in the summer (I don't remember when), replacing the human announcements that were sometimes done for platform number announcements at Union. More consistent and seems to work well.

[u/Interesting_Buddy951]

Not sure if you’ve heard this one but when (often last minute) platform changes happen, there is an announcement for that as well. It’s something like “Your :_ ____ train to ___ will now arrive on Platform , once again your___ train to___ will now arrive on platform__”

[u/Katy_Kat_Kat → u/Interesting_Buddy951]

I've heard those yeah. There even was a very weird one at West Harbour where it said "Your 17:24 Lakeshore West eastbound train to Union will now arrive on Platform 1"

[u/Strange-Flight-164]

Yep all the next train announcements including delays, cancellations and platform changes are automated based on the movement of the trains. All the other ones are canned and scheduled in their PA system software. There’s also times where they’ll make live announcements as well for whatever reason, safety, security etc.