When I first moved to Boston, the Green Line had old cars. They had some rust, and they weren't particularly sleek, and they had green paint that was flaking some, and the encrustation of many winters and the application and removal of advertisments, and they weren't particularly easy to get in to, or get out of. But they had character. Especially, the conductor would, (and a lot more often than in the sleek new actual subway cars on the Red Line or the Blue Line or the Orange LIne) lean into the mike, about halfway between the stops, and grunt "Blandford" or "BU east" or "Copley." You had to pay attention. You'd miss it, and he wouldn't repeat it. Other than that, the conductor was silent, except he would occasionally hector passages to "move to the back" or inform folks that "this train will be running express" but the central interaction was the calling of stops in a curt, barely-bothered, fashion.
Then, the winter came, and new trains. They were sleek, had slab sided expanses of sheet metal, little "designed by Pininfarina"logos, since they were, after all, designer trains, and they came equipped with little LCD screens in the cabin that would tell you where the train was going (inbound or outbound) and, most disastrously of all, a calm, computerized voice that was didactic and intrusive.
"The destination of this train is..Government Center," the voice would opine. "The next stop is..Arlington. Doors open on the right. Entering..Arlington."
And, because it was the green line, and there wasn't very much space between stations, the voice would be back, within seconds.
"The destination of this train is..Government Center," the voice would say, taking no notice that it just said it, "The next stop is..Bolyston. Doors open on the right."
What was the most irritating was the obvious vocal stitching. These cars had come replete with a program to announce stops: you could pick if the doors opened on the left, right, or both sides, you could designate when the train would tell you if it was entering or leaving a station, you could designate destinations. Then, you'd program it to say "Government Center" or "Park Street" or "Griggs St. Long Ave." and it would, with this barely perceptible delay:
"The destination of this train is..Government Center." Just a slight catch, but so noticable, and so obnoxious.
Killed me slowly, it did.
Today, though, was different.
The voice, my personal Big Brother, was gone. And the conductor was yelling it out, again, with a slight tinge to his voice, the wry humor of repeating what everyone knows: this is Harvard Ave. You should move to the back of the train. Don't smack people with your bag. Yep, the next stop is Packard's Corner. Today, this morning, there was human touch.
And then, around Copley, our conductor started giving the directions in a perfect, lilting, Irish brogue. "The next stop," he said, giving full reign to the poetry of the statement, "is Arlington." It was hillarious, subtle and hillarious, and we all looked around, at eachother, us long-suffering commuters, and we smiled.
"This guy is funny," I said, looking across the way at a man in a maroon dress shirt and a broad grin. "Good accent, too."
So I ask, nobody in particular, but a question nonetheless: why not let conductors announce the stops? Let them use funny accents, if they want. Everyone knows where they are going, and this morning, although it was a packed car, the commute wasn't so bad, wasn't compounded with mechanical sterility and pointless repetition. Give the conductors a voice again!
You'll make me happy, at least.
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