…Literally. On the voice of Sandy Carroll, a District resident who used her “honeyed Southern inflection” to make a series of recordings, saying “doors closing” and “please stand clear of the doors,” as a favor for a friend who worked at Metro. “A sound engineer ‘brought his laptop computer to my apartment and put this microphone in my face, and he said, ‘Say doors opening, doors closing,’ ” Carroll told the Post in a interview. “And I said it and he played it back. The next thing I knew, we were riding on the train, and there was my voice.”
The Washington metro subway authorities have announced plans for a “star search” of sorts (if you can call anything a “star search” in wonk-infested D.C.)
“Worried that commuters have turned a deaf ear to the ‘doors closing’ recording that warns when a train is about to pull out of a station, Metro officials plan to record a new message this year and are searching for new talent,” according to The Washington Post. “The agency is holding a contest to choose the next voice of Metro, and anyone — professional or amateur — is welcome to compete.”
According to the rules of the new contest, “contestants should record each of the following scripts three times using 1) an authoritative voice, 2) a polite voice, and 3) a serious voice, providing a total of six recordings.”
I. One arm, one leg, one briefcase, one purse … can block a train door and take a train out of service. One person can delay everyone. Please help us close the doors so we can all be on time.
(WTF–that seems rather long to Bigheadrob)
II. Due to track maintenance we are currently experiencing delays between Grosvenor-Strathmore and Judiciary Square on the red line and between L’Enfant Plaza and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on the yellow and blue lines.
(hmmm…so these delays are common enough to have pre-made recordings on hand? Does that strike anyone else as odd? Shouldn’t the whys of those delays be looked into? And fixed?)
The Washington Metro Transportation Authrity says that a panel of judges on Metro’s staff will listen to all entries and select the top 10 voices based on vocal quality, versatility, enunciation and elocution. Metro will contact the top 10 contestants and take them to a studio to make professional recordings of their voices. A panel of
industry professionals will listen to the finalists and choose Metro’s new doors closing voice.
(I can’t help but be curious about the cost of all this.)
Metro plans to announce the winner in early February. Officials say that Metrorail riders should expect to hear the new voice on select trains in February.
Finally, Big Head Rob has a metro rant specific to those of us who ride the red line. What was the purpose of the New York Ave. station? No one — and I’m not exaggerating — ever gets on or off at that newly opened station. It’s pretty and all. But I have to walk quite a distance to get to the Dupont Circle Metro whenever I visit friends in Adams Morgan. That distance can’t be any different than the trek it would take riders to walk from the Rhode Island Ave. stop or Union Station. Just a thought, not a sermon.
