Art by George Butler.
This episode was written and produced by Martin Zaltz Austwick.
The voices of subway and train announcements are deeply ingrained in peoples’ lives. Many of us hear them every day, for years on end. And yet, hardly anyone knows who those voices belong to. In this episode, we uncover the human stories behind two of the most iconic transit systems in the world: the New York City Subway, and the London Tube. Featuring NYC Subway announcer Charlie Pellett and Tube announcer Elinor Hamilton.
MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
Original Music by Wesley Slover
Grover’s Corners by Katharine Petkovski
This is Forever by Clarence Reed
Spacca by Steven Gutheinz
The Waning Moon by Chad Lawson
Intervals by One Hundred Years
Forgetness by Rikard From
After Image by I’MIN
Camp by Sound of Picture
Dust In Sunlight by Sound of Picture
Kitty In The Window by Sound of Picture
Action by Sound of Picture
Routines Sound of Picture
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View Transcript ▶︎
You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.
[music in]
I lived in Washington DC for a big chunk of my adult life, so I’m really familiar with the sounds of that city. At one point, I even created a poll asking Washingtonians what the most iconic sound in DC was, and the overwhelming answer was this:
[music pause]
[sfx clip: Randi Miller “Doors opening, step back to allow customers to exit. When boarding, please move to the center of the car.”]
[music resumes]
That’s the friendly voice you hear on the DC metro trains. Those recordings were made in 2006, when the city decided to update their announcements. To choose the new voice, they held a contest where people could submit recordings of themselves. The person they chose was native Washingtonian named Randi Miller, who beat out over twelve hundred applicants from around the country. And once thousands of people started hearing Randi’s voice everyday, she became kind of a local celebrity.
[music out]
For me, those announcements were such a comforting, quintessential part of living in DC.
[sfx clip: Randi Miller - Step back, doors closing.]
A few years ago, I was on another podcast called The Big Listen, talking to host Lauren Ober about the sounds of the city. We met up in DC’s Union Station, went down into the metro, hopped on one of the brand new trains, then heard this.
[sfx clip: Automated Voice - “Step back, doors closing.”
Dallas: That’s not the right voice!
Lauren: No.
Dallas: On the 7,000 Series, they got rid of her!
Lauren: That’s a robot voice.
Dallas: That is a robot voice.
Lauren: That’s very disappointing.
Dallas: I’m just finding this out right now.
Lauren: Well, this is a glimpse of our future, isn’t it
Dallas: Wow, I had no idea.]
[music in]
As you can hear, I was pretty heartbroken to learn that this voice that Washingtonians overwhelmingly described as the most recognizable sound in DC… was gone. This beautiful, human voice had been replaced with text to speech.
[sfx clip: Automated Voice - “Doors opening. Step back to allow customers to exit. When boarding, please move to the center of the car.”]
But on the train that day, Lauren and I seemed to be the only ones who cared.
Dallas: So I think people don’t care because they don’t know the stories behind these sounds, and the thought process. Like that thing on the metro was thought out well. It’s a beautiful chime. The voice is beautiful. The tone is perfect. But whenever we sterilize our sounds because somebody just doesn’t care, we’re losing something.
That experience stuck with me… and it got me thinking about the people behind some of the other train announcements around the world.
[sfx: montage of tube announcements: Europe, Australia, East Asia, Japan, Portland]
These voices are deeply ingrained in peoples’ lives. They’re a comforting constant in a busy and sometimes frightening world… and yet, hardly anyone knows who these voices belong to. I want to hear their stories, preferably before they get replaced by robots. And I knew the perfect person to ask.
[music out]
[sfx: video chat dial + connect tone]
Hey Martin!
Martin: Hey Dallas! How’s it going?
Pretty good! So you’ve written a bunch of episodes for our show, but you’ve actually never actually reported one before. So would you mind introducing yourself?
Martin: Sure! I’m Martin Austwick, I’m a producer and musician based out of London, England. But before I was a producer, I had a real job. In an office. And I had to commute into central London and back home every day. Five days a week, for over ten years. So I heard a lot of these announcements...
[sfx clip: London Tube Announcements - Change here for London overground.]
Martin: I’ve also spent lots of time in New York City. And over there, there’s one particular announcement that I heard over and over.
[sfx clip: "Stand clear of the closing doors, please"]
Charles: My name is Charlie Pellett and I'm a radio reporter in New York, but I'm also known as the “Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, Please” guy.
[music in]
Martin: Charlie Pellett has had a very very interesting career. His story starts right here in London - the city where Charlie was born.
Charles: Originally I am from the United Kingdom and indeed I've still got some family living over in England from London, North London, East Finchley.
Charles: My dad absolutely loved trains and England has an absolutely glorious history when it comes to rail. And I remember one of my first experiences with steam. [sfx: steam engine] By the time I was growing up in England, steam was a thing of the past, for the most part. But I remember entering a contest sponsored by an ice cream company…
Charles: You could send in an entry and you could get on a ride, with you and a couple of family members on a steam train. And I thought this was so unbelievably cool.
[music and steam engine sfx out]
Okay Martin, so I’m no expert in sociolinguistics, but Charlie doesn’t sound very British to my ears.
Martin: Well, when Charlie moved to the United States as a child, he found his English accent wasn’t really an asset.
[music in]
Charles: I had a British accent when I first came over here and kids made fun of me for having an English accent. So I did everything that I could to get rid of that English accent. How did I do that? Listening to people on the radio in America.
[sfx clip: Charlie Tuna - “It’s 5:06 at KHJ, this is Charlie Tuna. You want beautiful enchanting eyes. You want eyes with the lashbright look. Lashbright is the special eye makeup that makes you feel special…”]
Martin: Back in the days of AM radio, Charlie could tune in at night and hear stations - and accents from across the United States.
Charles: Here in America, depending on atmospheric conditions, depending on the time of the year, and especially at night, you can pull in all sorts of radio stations from various cities way beyond your traditional local listening area.
[sfx: montage of radio tuning through different channels] [possible links: Chicago, NYC, Seattle, Phoenix, New Orleans, Atlanta, variety of stuff here]
Charles: But that basically is why and how I spent so much time listening with the radio. And I think listeners to this would agree that, “You know what? I think the guy did wind up with a pretty good American accent.”
[music out]
Martin: Charlie’s experiences as a young radio fan had a pretty long-lasting effect on his choice of careers.
Charles: Well, I had a pretty good career as a radio DJ at one point in my career.
Charles: Did that for a couple of years, came to New York, had an off-air job at an all news radio station.
Martin: This was when his love of trains and his talent as a voice performer finally came together.
[music in]
Charles: Two decades ago plus, I had a couple of coworkers who went on holiday from New York over to the United Kingdom, and they came back, and they were hit by how clear the announcements were in the London underground.
[sfx clip: Peter Lodge - Stand clear of the doors, please.]
Charles: And they came back and said, "What can we do to get clearer announcements in New York City?"
Martin: Charlie says that, at the time, there weren’t any automated announcements on the metro at all. “Stand clear of the closing doors, please,” would be announced by staff at each station. Sometimes they were very clear, and other times not so much.
[sfx: Garbled message]
Charles: Somebody within our company knew somebody at the transit agency and placed a call essentially saying, “What can we do to get a better sounding subway system?”
Charles: And they said, "Funny, you should mention that, because we're in the process of rolling out some new subway cars. And we'd love to have some voices try out". So a bunch of us at work were asked to sort of audition, I guess, in retrospect for the role of these subways and the subway announcements.
[music out]
Martin: Charlie doesn’t remember much about the session, except that it was fast. It had to be…
Charles: I was in the session with Steve, the engineer…
Charles: And essentially the two of us are like, you know “We've got other things to do right now. Can we move the process along?” And I remember Steve said… Okay, let's go." And I said, "Stand clear of the closing doors, please." What you hear in the New York City Subway System today is the first take that I did with Steve. There was never any going back, there was never any revision, there was never any, “Can you change this?” It was the first take.
[sfx clip: “Stand clear of the closing doors, please”]
Charles: And that is what sticks today in the New York City Subway System.
Martin: Of course, at the time, Charlie didn’t know for sure that they were going to use his voice at all. As far as he was concerned, he was trying out.
[music in]
Charles: We didn't know if any of this was ever going to stick, or if any of this was ever going to be used.
Charles: And then one day got a call where they said, "We've put your voice on some of the subway cars. If you'd like to travel up to one of the train yards in the Bronx and listen to what we've got, you're welcome to." And I got up and the first time you ever get into a brand new subway car, it's like picking up a new car, it's got that new subway car smell to it.
Charles: And lo and behold, they played the announcement [sfx] And it almost brought a tear to my eye, I couldn't believe it. I said, "Oh my God, this is real! This possibly is going to happen!”
Charles: And one by one, they rolled out the trains and there were the announcements and they've stuck with the announcement for roughly two decades.
[music out]
Martin: If you ride the subway today, you’ll hear Charlie saying things like…
[sfx clip: MTA service announcements]
Martin: But twenty years on, there are still things that annoy him about his own performance that day…
Charles: There are announcements that I hear today, some of which I just dislike. There's a really large interchange here in New York at Times Square, where it seems like almost all of the subway lines come together. So it’s…
[sfx clip: Charlie Interchange Tape]
Charles: And whenever I hear that announcement, it always bothers me because I sound like I'm talking in a computer voice. And it just doesn't flow like a human being, it's just not conversational, so I really dislike that announcement and wish it could be changed.
Martin: Despite Charlie’s perfectionism about his own performance, being the voice of the Metro has led to some amazing opportunities.
[music in]
Charles: It's been an absolutely amazing, enjoyable ride. I had a TV appearance that came out of this with a fellow here in New York on the late night show, the Conan Show.
[sfx clip: Conan - I thought of a couple of other phrases I’ve always wanted to hear in your voice. Do you mind, can you do it right now?
Charlie: Next stop, funky town. (laughter) Hey girl, you up? (laughter)]
Charles: Even got a Broadway appearance cameo out of this, there was a show that ran for a couple of months here in New York called In Transit.
Martin: Charlie went to see the show on his birthday and he got called up on stage…
[sfx clip: In Transit cast member - “We have a very special guest in the audience today. It’s a special day because, first and foremost, it’s his birthday. But second of all, very special to us here at In Transit, and anyone else who’s ever been on the New York City subway. Charlie Pellet, would you come on up?”
Charlie: “For all of the visitors to New York, and for all New Yorkers, there are seven words that I’m known for. Stand clear of the closing doors, please!”(cheers)]
[music out]
Martin: In 2020, Charlie dipped his toe into pop stardom.
Charles: The name of the band is called AJR, and when they were starting out, they would perform in the New York City Subway System.
Charles: They did a video that was a mashup of the “Stand clear of the closing doors” announcement with the bing bong [sfx] that we have here in New York.
[music clip: AJR/Stand Clear of The Closing Doors Remix]
Charlie: And they then mixed in Alicia Keys' song, “Living in New York”...
[music clip: Alicia Keys section]
Charlie: And it brought a tear to my eye when I heard this thing, I was like, "Oh my God, here's this kid who grew up in England, came to the United States, became an American citizen. Gets to be the voice of the greatest underground system in the world.”
Charles: The bottom line is that I sent them a note just saying, "You guys brought a tear to my eye, I'm just so overjoyed. So delighted by this song, thank you very much."
Charles: And then must’ve been a year later or something like that, they got back to me saying, "Hey, we're in the process of putting together a song" and they asked me if I would record these lines, and I did, Charles: The name of the song that I'm on by the way is called, “Bang.”
[music clip: Bang by AJR]
Charles: The “Here we go” part, you know, you can figure out how that would fit into a song.
Martin: “Bang” was a Billboard Top Ten Hit. Its video has over 50 million views on YouTube.
[music out] Martin: Charlie loves being the announcer for the New York Metro, but he does take inspiration from an even older subway system…
[music in]
Charles: As a kid growing up in London, there was the announcement that stuck with me forever.
[sfx clip: Peter Lodge - “Mind the gap”] Martin: If you’ve ever traveled on the London underground you’ll have heard that line. It’s a very polite, British way of saying, “Don’t fall off the train onto the tracks.” And for almost two decades now, that iconic little safety tip has sounded like this.
[sfx clip: Phil - “Mind the gap, please”]
That version was actually recorded by one half of a tube announcement power couple. Here’s the other half.
[sfx clip: Elinor - “Doors will open on the right hand side”]
Elinor: Most of the time, wherever you hear me, you hear Phil, my husband, who has the most iconic announcement of them all, because he's “Mind the gap.”
That’s coming up, but before you hear it, mind the gap between the show and our sponsors.
[music out]
MIDROLL
[music in]
Charlie Pellett is the friendly voice who reminds millions of New Yorkers to… [sfx clip: “stand clear of the closing doors, please”]. But before the pop stardom and the broadway musicals and the Late Night shows, he was just a British kid taking trips on the Tube. And everytime he did, he would hear a voice warning him to...
[sfx clip: “Mind the gap”]
Charles: That announcement, which I remember from the '60s vividly… if that job ever becomes available, “Mind the gap,” I would love to do that.
[music out]
Martin: When Charlie was young, he probably would have heard the version of “Mind the Gap” that was recorded by Peter Lodge. The thing is, Peter wasn’t a voiceover artist, he was a sound engineer who got the gig completely by chance. In the late 60s, Peter’s studio had been booked by an actor who was going to record a new tube announcement. Before the actor arrived, Peter set up his equipment, and tested it by recording a few “Mind the gaps” of his own. What happened next was explained in an old segment on Thames News.
[sfx clip: Thames clip - Unbeknownst to him, there had been a row over the actor’s repeat fees, and the company decided not to use him. But by sheer chance, they happened to hear Peter mellifluously intoning “Mind the gap…” And a star was born.]
Martin: Peter’s version was used for many years. But the “Mind the Gap” you hear nowadays was recorded by Phil Sayer.
[sfx clip: Phil - “Mind the gap, please”]
Martin: He also recorded lines, like…
[sfx clip: Phil - “This train will terminate here”]
Martin: But Phil’s not the only voice you’ll hear on the tube.
[sfx clip: Elinor - “Please stand clear of the closing doors”]
Elinor: I'm Elinor Hamilton, I'm a voiceover artist.
[music in]
Martin: Phil Sayer and Elinor Hamilton were a rare husband and wife announcer team. They met in Bolton in the north of England, when they were DJs on the same local radio station.
Elinor: We were both doing a radio show. And there was an hour of non-stop music between my show and Phil's show and we sort of just got to know each other, and every week we'd get to know each other a bit more and just chat, we were just friends. And it ended up becoming a little bit more than that, as, clearly, the twins make it quite obvious that more happened later.
Martin: Beyond their jobs as radio DJs, Phil and Elinor both did some commercial voiceover work. And after they got together, they started recording together as well.
Elinor: So, we became a voiceover couple, which of course when you listen to radio adverts and things, it's quite handy having a male and a female in the same place at the same time because then they can bounce off each other instead of having to record one in their home studio and somebody else 200 miles away in their home studio.
[sfx clip: Elinor and Phil Mazda commercial “Elinor: Gerald and I have just bought a new Mazda 5 TS2.
Phil: It’s perfect for weekends away.
Elinor: There’s so much space for the essentials…
Phil: Suitcases
Elinor: Stove
Phil: Windbreaker
Elinor: Maid’s outfit
Phil: Ice box
Elinor: Torch”]
Elinor: So, I think for us, the business took off quite well, so we weren't just recording radio commercials or train announcements, we were kind of doing anything that required a voice. And, yeah, I've locked myself in a padded room every day since.
[music out]
Martin: One of Phil Sayer’s early roles was being the voice announcing trains in many of the stations across England. Not the underground trains, but the train system that runs across the whole country. Until this century, most people just called that “British Rail”.
Elinor: Phil, was the voice of British Rail for years and years and years, long before I met him.
[music in: Podington - Kitty In The Window]
Martin: In fact, when she was young, she remembers hearing Phil’s voice come out of the British Rail speaker. In the UK we often call those loudspeakers on train platforms “Tannoys” - after a UK company that built loudspeakers and public address systems.
[sfx clip: Phil - “We’re sorry to announce that the 8 / 30 service to HorsFORTH is delayed”]
Elinor: I was still a schoolgirl, shouting at the tannoy at Burley Park Station in Leeds, going, "It's not HorsFOURTH, it's Horsforth, you idiot man!" And then a few years later ended up being married to him.
Martin: With Phil’s experience as the voice of British Rail, he was a natural choice to become the new voice of the London tube.
Elinor: I think it was really Phil that they wanted, and then they found out that, “Oh he's married to some woman who also speaks into a microphone for a living. Let's ask her to audition, too.” So, I think that's how we got the job, and that was in 2005. It must’ve been 2005 because I'd just given birth to twins and I'm sitting there trying to feed two babies and thinking, “Oh God, this is the last thing I need!” But, yeah, it all worked fine.
[music out]
Martin: Phil still got the more important announcements, like the big one…
[sfx clip: Phil - “Mind the Gap please”]
Elinor: Yeah, anything that you really, really need to know because it's a matter of life and death they gave to Phil.
[sfx clip: Phil - “You’re attention please. This is a security announcement. For safety reasons, please do not leave your luggage or other items unattended in any part of the station.”]
Elinor: Because I think, again, the male voice is the one that, supposedly, is the one that people listen to, whereas we, women, just get ignored. You're just going to give us the fluffy, pretty, kind of, "Oh you want to be going in that direction, love," Okay.
[sfx clip: Elinor - “There is a good service operating on all London Underground lines.”]
[music in]
Martin: Elinor’s train announcer voice isn’t quite the same as her civilian voice.
Elinor: I suppose I put on my normal, working voice, which is the standard RP which most people ask for.
Martin: RP stands for Received Pronunciation. For many years, people in the UK were told it was the “proper” way to speak if you wanted to sound high class.
Martin: (in RP Voice) It’s the way you spoke if you wanted to be on the BBC.
Martin: Now, things have changed quite a lot - you’ll hear more accents from different parts of the UK on TV and radio now. But things don’t always change quickly, and in 2005, RP was still popular.
Elinor: So, obviously as I'm talking to you, I've got a bit of a light Northern accent because I've always lived in the North, but if you put a script in front of me, I can quite easily turn it off, and that's what I do.
[sfx clip: Elinor - “The next train to Heathrow Terminals one, two and three, will depart in five minutes.”]
Elinor: Something like that, really flat.
Martin: Here’s Phil describing how he finds his announcer voice, in an interview with The Daily Mail.
[sfx clip: Daily Mail Clip- “When you start to feel slightly ridiculous in yourself, you’re probably just about getting it right. All it is is actually just a very exaggerated version of your real self. That’s right!”]
[music out]
Martin: If you’re a tube announcer, you occasionally have to “top up” your announcements - because a new station has opened, or a route has changed. And matching your latest recording with a recording you did fifteen or twenty years ago can be a real challenge.
Elinor: When I do top up the tube announcements, I sort of have to channel my inner tired mother of newborns and step away from the microphone a bit and just sound a bit more tired. Because otherwise it won't match.
Martin: Well, you can top up the recordings for the subway system, but there’s only so much you can change what you sound like. And, unfortunately, not everyone is going to like how you sound. Here’s Charlie Pellett again.
Charles: Just as these announcements were rolling out, I was in the subway car, and there was one or two other people in there. And all of a sudden the voice, my voice came over the PA system saying, "Stand clear of the closing doors, please.”
Charles: And the guy looked up at the speaker and said, "Shut up, Mr. North Dakota!" And I'm thinking, “Okay, now what he meant by that was, ‘You didn't sound like you were from New York.’” For people who are not from America, a North Dakotan accent is, I would suggest, not a very specific accent. Just sounds like a regular American accent. And I think that's what he was trying to convey.
Elinor: We all use our own style and obviously we adapt a little bit as we go on, but you know, 40 years ago, everyone would've been talking in a terrible Pathé sort of style.
[sfx clip: Pathe newsreel example - “British Trains, for example, with their proud history, are today setting new standards in comfort and performance”…]
Elinor: And the way I speak now is not going to be popular in 20 years from now. You know, I have to accept that however people speak in the future is probably not going to match how I speak. Now, obviously Phil and I are quite, I suppose we sound relatively ageless. Do you know what I mean? We're just clear.
[sfx: beep beep]
[sfx clip: Elinor - “Apart from today’s planned engineering works, there are no other reported delays.”]
[sfx: beep]
[sfx clip: Phil - “At at-seat trolley service of drinks and light refreshments is available on this service.”]
[sfx: beep beep]
Elinor: But I think one day those announcements will sound quite old fashioned.
[music in]
Martin: Phil and Elinor worked on voiceovers together for many years. But, sadly, Phil developed cancer, and died in April of 2016.
Elinor: The following day after he died, and death is horrible anyway but death from cancer, I just think it's horrible and it's undignified and it's an awful thing to go through. So, this shriveled up little shell of a man that I'd married 15 years before, what I remembered was this poor little bald skeleton in a bed. But then the following day, the news outlets got hold of the story of, “Oh, the ‘Mind the Gap’ man has died.”
Elinor: And then all over the press there were these videos and recordings of this very healthy, sometimes slightly overweight man kind of prancing about in front of a camera and in front of a microphone and I think, “Oh my God!” And in some ways it was so lovely to be reminded of that person…
Elinor: But it was just a really strange process because then it was as if he hadn't died at all. And I'd go to the tube from time to time and make an effort to go to a station and hear him.
[sfx clip: Phil - “Platform 3 for the 09:10 Crosscountry service to Manchester Piccadilly.”]
Elinor: And it was lovely. It was really, really lovely. But then what would happen would be that people on Twitter would then tag me in tweets going, "Oh! You'll never guess what? Phil Sayer's been removed from Waterloo." And I'd think, “Ooh. I didn't need to know that.” And every single time he was removed from a station, it made me sad, it made me really, really sad, and it was like instead of just letting him die, I had to... I think people didn't realize that they were hurting me by saying these things.
[music out]
Martin: For Elinor, having those audio reminders made mourning much more complicated.
Elinor: It was really odd. And it's a really strange one, because obviously, having been a young widow. I know that a lot of people that I then connected with who were also widowed would've given anything to have heard their husband's voice again. So, I totally got how lucky I was to be able to have all this material, because it wasn't just the train announcements that had been fully edited, I had hours and hours and hours of recordings of sometimes him and me in the studio, we’ve got outtakes, and all sorts of things.
[sfx: beep beep]
[sfx clip: Elinor - “or email jobs dot go southcoast dot co dot uk ..K, sorry. I’ll just do that again.
(laughter)
Phil: Kaaaay. Kay. You can edit that, can you?
(laughter)
Phil: Amateur!
Elinor: Speak for yourself…”]
[Laughter fades under]
Elinor: But the downside of that I think was that when I heard him, it was as if he’d never gone anywhere.
Martin: Now that some time has passed since his death, she feels a different connection to the voice of her late husband.
[music in]
Elinor: My partner who I'm with now, he works in London, the station where he works, apparently I'm there following him around and as far as I know Phil is as well, because wherever you hear me, you'll probably hear Phil.
Elinor: So, I think it's nice. Ed, my partner, loves it that Phil and I both guide him along his journey, where he needs to go. He feels very much looked after by both of us, which is really nice.
Martin: When I asked her what her dream job as a train announcer was, she knew immediately.
Elinor: My train loving son is a volunteer traveling ticket inspector on the East Lancs Railway, so maybe I'd like to announce those so that I could just annoy him wherever he goes. Any train that he works on, I'd quite like to be the announcer of, just so that he can never get away from me.
[music out]
[music in]
There’s something amazing about how these voiceover artists are part of the background of people’s lives, day after day. It might seem like a small thing, but over time, small things can mean a lot.
Charles: As we tape our conversation it's right around 9/11 time, after 9/11 and forgive me, because I always get choked up talking about 9/11, but I can't remember the number of people who just said they felt comforted when they heard my voice, it was the one constant that they had in life.
Charles: And I'm not going to flatter myself into thinking that it's that important, but these stable, constant things are important. You get used to them, and it becomes a regular part in your life.
Elinor: There's definitely a feeling of satisfaction, it's quite lovely actually, not being famous and not wanting to be famous, but sitting quietly on a station platform and thinking, “That's my voice that's coming out of that speaker and nobody knows.”
These voices might seem anonymous… But it’s useful to remember, there are real people behind them.
Elinor: We're all human beings, aren't we? We all have a story. And we're paid to sound completely almost emotionless. We're paid to sound like we're matter of fact, and we're just giving the facts. But actually, beyond those facts, beneath those facts, there's a whole heart and soul that's sometimes been torn apart and put back together again.
For people like Elinor and Charlie, being the voice of the transit isn’t just a job. It’s their passion. It’s something to be proud of… even if they know that someday, their voices will probably get replaced.
Elinor: It's a lovely thing to be able to communicate with people, and if you can be paid to communicate and to do that as your job, we're very lucky.
Elinor: I think anybody that's had a longterm gig is always going to be sad when it goes, but nothing can last forever. And what an amazing thing to be able to say, "Well, I was the voice of..." You know? How many people can do that? A small handful, if that.
Charles: There's only one New York City Subway System, for the past 20 years there's only been one “Stand clear of the closing doors” guy. And even if and when I get replaced, I'll always be the first, it's that simple. I will have been the first.
[music out]
[music in]
Twenty Thousand Hertz is hosted by me, Dallas Taylor, and produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Give your ears a treat by following Defacto Sound on Instagram.
This episode was written and reported by Martin Austwick. It was story edited by Casey Emmerling. With help from Sam Reinbold. It was sound designed and mixed by Ryan Monette.
Thanks to Charlie Pellett for joining us. In addition to hearing his voice on the New York Subway, you can hear Charlie on Bloomberg radio.
And thanks also to Elinor Hamilton, who hosts her own podcast called Tales From the Tannoy. The show tells true stories behind the anonymous voices we hear everyday. You can subscribe to Tales from the Tannoy right here in your podcast player.
[sfx clip: Charles - “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last stop on the train, please leave the train.”]
Thanks for listening.
[music out]
