Abandoned Railway Carts - Mystery tapes from a disused comms room
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 มิ.ย. 2024
- Recovering the last recordings from a machine decommissioned decades ago.
In this video I’m attempting to find out what’s on a set of tape cartridges discovered in a disused comms room at a railway station.
The video follows the process through, from figuring out the most likely tape track layout, to transferring the tapes and ultimately playing them back.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Background Information
02:32 A look at the carts
04:41 A NAB cart
05:25 DJ Jingles
06:44 The Ansafone machine
07:27 Choosing a suitable tape player
09:28 Re-spooling & recording
11:17 THE ANNOUNCEMENT
12:11 Analysis
13:40 Round up
14:48 Credits
FAQ:
Q) Why not view the track layout on the tape with the 3M Magnetic Tape Viewer
A) Initially the thought never entered my mind as I was confident I'd correctly guessed the track layout, then later after the playback I remembered I had the 3M Viewer - so had a look, but the recording was so quiet it barely registered and the results were inconclusive.
Q) Hold on a minute - 0203 Area code wasn't launched until 2003
A) Nope - 0203 Was the code for Coventry until 1995 - see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhONEday
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---------Outro Music----------
Over Time - Vibe Tracks • Over Time - Vibe Track...
-----Outro Sound Effect-----
ThatSFXGuy - • Six Million Dollar man... - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I was a British Rail telecomms technician and was around when all the Telephone Enquiry Bureau's (TEB) were closed and believe me, the emotion the announcer portrayed was felt by many, the end of an era. Seeing this equipment again certainly brought some happy memories back.
as an american, I could detect the stiffest of upper lips in the man's voice. it was surprising. broke my heart, for a moment. I'm that glad his forgotten message will now live on :)
I agree, something almost ghostly about resurrecting the voice of this public servant saying goodbye to his public.
I was going to say: there seemed to be something melancholy and affecting about the message, a document of the very end of something.
I agree. It sounded very sad. I expected it to be just train times, but it was actually emotional and nostalgic.
yeah, I dunno how anyone could find the tape content uninteresting. It's a poignant time capsule. Gossamer and sympathetic.
Those tapes have been in that machine for ~30 years. Just sitting there... with a recording that says that the service has been discontinued. That's both sad and beautiful.
While this may be “boring” info on the tape, it is still a piece of history that should be saved. Thank you for saving it!
Idk its kinda cool
Yes thank you. Videos are work. They take time. Thanks for sharing. Hope you are safe and in good health!
Boring? No. I think it's awesome.
People don’t care about history, I wonder why
Alex B because it scares them. Studying and understanding history makes them realize they are just a tiny fragment of something far larger than themselves. Too many people think they are the center of the universe.
That moment when someone on the other side of the earth plays "some old radio station jingle" and you immediately recognize it from your childhood.
@@redStiv The space-time "LUP" hole, amirite?!
I was living in Joliet appx 20 years ago and swear I heard that intro a thousand times.
I teared up a little when he played that
When humans finally wipe themselves out we are going to leave such a confusing fossil record for the hyper-evolved lizard people who will eventually replace us....
WLUP is still running rock and roll
I actually think the message was a lot more interesting than some random day's train times. It captured the parting messages at the end of a service's lifetime.
Imagine if the announcer that recorded this message got to see this video.
@@ehsnils Based in another comment, the announcer may have been killed shortly after him being fired and this announcement made.
A bittersweet ending indeed, but IMHO the journey to get there was worth it.
totaly agree. Also, that's funny to think, when it have been shut down, no one would have expected that many years later this message would be uploaded to internet, and being listened by thousands of people again.
@@user2C47 or may not, as you pointed. There's only words and assumptions.
Did anyone else catch a hint of sadness in that announcers voice?
There's a story there...
He just sounded typically British to me :p
@@TheOriginalMaxGForce Privatization (of BR) was just beginning. The first act towards that end was passed January 1993, and it was finalized in November. The cessation of the phone service was likely due to cuts for this.
@@straightpipediesel
That's interesting.
At 23 mai 1990 the last broadcast of the numbers station of the military reconnaissance service of the GDR didn't give numbers, but started with the sentence: “Hier ist die Sendung für das aufgeweckte Kind.“
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gong_%28Zahlensender%29?wprov=sfla1
I enquired from a railway fiend and he replied as below-
"I remember the fella very well. He was a lovely man called Tony Dainton. He was there from the start of the TEB in 1982. He was originally from Brum, i believe he worked at Cotterridge bus garage in the 70’s. He often did music quizzes and was a DJ on hospital radio. The last i heard of him, he lived in Daventry with his wife although that was long ago. I guess if you found him which would be very interesting he would be in his late 70’s early 80’s.".
I have further leads to follow up.
ooo interesting! would be cool to let the dude hear his own voice from 25+ years ago
He really has a great announcement voice, doesn't he?
Anthony Dainton from Daventry. Yup. Checks out.
Do you have an update?
Update?
The suspense is killing me
Not exciting? That was truly haunting and emotional. End of an era captured!
Reminded me of th-cam.com/video/3c66w6fVqOI/w-d-xo.html
@@MrAJSnigrutin How?
@@offscreen6578 it captured the end of British Rail, as from 1994 onwards, it was broken up and privatized.
@@souvikrc4499 My comment was a reaponse to some other reply which seems to have been deleted. I do agree that these tapes are awesome.
I think it’s cool hearing someone’s voice on tape from decades ago. No matter what they are saying.
Listen to this then. It's cassette letter.
th-cam.com/video/XrIWNTQ8V5U/w-d-xo.html
...unless its a love-ballad, to your mom. lol
Then I have a good video for you th-cam.com/video/dQw4w9WgXcQ/w-d-xo.html
Trolling aside, here's edisons 1877/78 tinfoil phonograph recording
th-cam.com/video/xBvHbRJznXM/w-d-xo.html
With the view count at 55k at this point, and presuming everyone reached the end of the video, I would imagine more people have now heard this rather sad message in 2020 than back in 1993. You're doing modern age archeology Matt, please keep doing this.
Currently at 324K, and I watched to the end. I knew there is some crap on tape but anyway I'm not sorry for the time. Quite opposite.
Over the years, I've gathered a small collection of cassettes I've come across in places like rural abandoned farm houses and local yard sales etc. Playing them back and hearing a tiny bit of someone's forgotten history is something I've always found deeply fascinating.
for me....the message you found on those tapes is the best you could have found. It's historic. This probably should be in a rail museum already. Great find!
"The juice ain't worth the squeeze" Another phrase to add to my list.
I've got an old picture with the opposite opinion printed on it... of course, it's of a somewhat dubious nature, as it's of a lady squeezing lemons.
th-cam.com/video/js4krRwNT7E/w-d-xo.html
Forreal
Isn’t that Juicero’s motto?
That's what she said
I miss WLUP “The Loop.” I would love to have a copy of those station ID’s. The station was bought a few years ago, changed formats and is now religious music. The last song played before the change was “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC .
I been following Metv FM myself in Chicago.
Listened to this station when I was in High School. Moved to Wisconsin shortly after. Wore out three 'The Loop' T-Shirts. Those station intro tapes have to be worth some green to a collector.
Caturday Nite Lived in the Chicago south suburbs all my life , born 1970. Used to listen to all the great rock stations growing up WMET, WLUP, WBBM -FM, WLS , WCFL. The only decent “Classic Rock” station around now is WDRV 97.1 and that didn’t start until 2001.
i miss it too i used to listen to them from chesterton indiana the loop and k-hits were some of the best stations i could get
oh i almost forgot the loop has an app for smart phones and speakers that plays the classic rock
Something almost eerie about listening to the last thing ever played, especially as it’s a message saying goodbye.
Thanks for taking the time to cut them together and show us!
Well said!
One thing, given so for granted, but is - in reality - truly outstanding.
Thirty years later, those tapes sounds like time never went by.
I have recordings I archived on USB sticks, portable hard drives, CD-Rom, stored when the technology appeared (yes, 64 MB SD cards and 256 MB USB sticks) and, sadly, most are gone.
The magnetic tapes are much more reliable than we once tought.
Thanks for the video...
I quite like the result, especially the final part of the message. It somehow sounds very emotional.
Just as I was about to get onto myself about being overly emotional, lol
Yes, the end of an era. They would be working somewhere else, and the people they used to see everyday would be gone.
Still would've been better if it had been "Attention passengers, we are currently under nuclear attack by the Communists."
The recording survived longer than British Rail
Would have also been the end of British Rail as was the time it was being privitised so not just likely end of their job but end of the entire organisation
"I've got quite a few reel-to-reel machines around the house"
I wanna be a techmoan when I grow up
Another one arrived yesterday. Perhaps that’s enough now though.
@@Techmoan I'd be glad to take any extra ones off your hands lol
Welcome to the club
I have a House full "Junk" as the rest of the Family call it, I love all my old strange Tech items but it seems we are in a minority, i don't have a Reel to Reel though so maybe i'll find one.
@@Techmoan I'm picking one up tomorrow! A Sony, but not as nice as yours!
Absolutely adore watching Techmoan reports. And I ask myself why. And it is so not TH-cam-style. In fact, the style of production, text, tone of voice - resembles a high end professional bbc-style documentary. Techmoan clearly puts a huge amount of effort into each video and I very much appreciate this. He does research (most TH-camrs never bother with research just say whatever comes to their mind spontaneously even if it's trash). But Techmoan takes his job seriously and researches whatever he talks about. This I truly appreciate! Brilliant! Many thanks Techmoan.
I used to make radio station announcement carts. We had racks of blank carts that were in (I think) 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minute, maybe a couple other lengths. The machine that we recorded them on would record a start cue tone when we pressed RECORD. After we finished our announcement, we pressed a CUE button that would record a "Next cart" tone; this would tell the cart machine to play to the next cart while the current cart ran to the beginning of the announcement again.
The reason that man on the tape sounds sad is because his position with the Railroad had been eliminated and that meant he, too, had to be eliminated, "Logan's Run" style.
99% sure that's true.
Maybe 87%...
Director Michael Anderson's vision of a protective, hedonistic lifestyle culminating in certain death at age 30 very much influenced British Rail's HR policies of the late 1980's.
@@WilyEarthworm
I THOUGHT SO!
Thank You for the confirmation.
Upvote for Logan's Run reference!
@@raksh9
I'll take it!
Yeah, I mean I way over here in "the States", And his voice made me sad. It's oddly sad to hear the end of something even if it was decades ago. :(
How fitting that the jingle was for some station called "the loop"
And now, with centralised networked shows and limited playlists, every radio station is 'the loop' :(
More interesting the station is from Chicago where the elevated train includes a section of the downtown called the loop.
I love this comment
@@redingtonm Interestingly, Milwaukee had an Electric train called the North Shore Line that left Milwaukee as an overhead line powered rail service and in 90 minutes it would be making "the loop" heading back to Milwaukee from Chicago. The Elevated as the system was called in Chicago was powered by a third rail not an overhead wire so the Milwaukee equipment had to have that third rail "shoe" to pick up the power. I did ride the North Shore line to Chicago a few times prior to it's abandonment in 1963. My parents were transplants to Milwaukee and all of our relatives were in Chicago.
The loop was on that air for a long time. Lived in Chicago for the last 35 years
It's incredible to hear the end of an era in a voice and to think these machines were in operation only a few years before I was born. I've grown up in an age where any information I want is at my fingertips, these tapes are a sobering reminder that we live in a glorious age for information.
What a lovely, lovely and also melancholy message, sitting on that tape all these years. So effecting to be transported back to time when such a human and polite message could have been made. Makes me reflect on how much the uk and our institutions have changed over the last two and half decades. I want to go back!
You can hear the exact moment the announcer's heart *breaks* oh the feels
I agree, right in the feels.....
@@davida1hiwaaynet did not expect to see you here.
@@frigglebiscuit7484 LOL yeah I have quite a few various interests... most all of them centered around old stuff.
The ideia that they recorded the last transmission telling people it's over, let it in there and went away for it to be found 30 years later. I am not able to see how is it "not fun" and "just an announcement"
Português ou acordado às 4 da manhã também?
Romário Rios español a las 3.00 am...
Honestly first broadcasts and last broadcasts are some of my "favorite" archival recordings. Like when cable channels or news rooms sign off the first or last time.
Also we know the exact date and time when the machine was last used. Which is pretty cool.
Agreed. There's something sadly beautiful about this recording.
I think it's actually the most interesting announcement that could have been on them. Old train times are easily looked up, but a final closing message like this, with that little thank you, is something a bit more personal. A lost little fragment of social history, if that doesn't sound too grand! Thanks for another enjoyable video.
Well, I love trains and I love old A/V equipment, so for me that "juice" was definitely worth the squeeze, especially considering that the actual recording turned out to be the LAST recording, and somehow a sad goodbye message. Thanks for this video. As always, a pleasure to watch.
I always remember the last day of the "Oracle" teletext service on ITV. On the TV listings page for that day, it listed only until midnight and at midnight it read:
00:00 Oracle ends, the nightmare begins.
Was kinda funny and sad at the same time.
Remember it well. December 31st, 1992.
Thats terrifyingly ominous.
@@citizenerased1992 Well, they weren't wrong
SpudHead Having read up on this (I am Canadian and have never heard of Oracle), I think the post-shutdown message is even creepier: “ORACLE GONE” followed by a square followed by “1978-1992”.
Something creeps me out about this: a dead system used as its own grave marker.
"the nightmare begins" - Appropriate knowing what happened to ITV!
"may i, on behalf of all the staff at rugby, thank you for your support"... really got me in the feels for some reason
I explore old abandoned resorts and buildings as a hobby and it's amazing how many places are left to rot simply because it would cost more to demolish and sell it. I hope I come across something as cool as these tapes someday, they're little time capsules that give us a direct connection to the past in a way that books and pictures can't.
I love things like this. That tape sat unheard in the machine for 27 years. The actual announcement is neither here nor there. It's a process of audio archeology and I find that fascinating.
You may want to forward those recordings, in digital form, to a railway aficionado for more deeper analysis, for example Mr. Geoff Marshall of All the Stations.
I had that thought too. I'll bet Vicky and Geoff's crew could find the announcer's identity.
Hold up - there's a dedicated TH-cam channel for this stuff? I've been wanting to hear the announcements played at my local South Eastern (Network South East) train stations from when I was a kid for YEARS. I've been totally unsuccessful finding out information about the well spoken woman behind these iconic recordings let alone hear them again. You may have sent me down a rabbit hole.
I'm glad you did this and I think it's worthwhile as well. This type of thing reminds me of collecting paper ephemera, little bits and pieces that were never meant to be saved but give you a little slice of life. This is like audio ephemera
Like the adverts and station idents at the beginning of things recorded off TV. I have no desire to watch an edited for TV version of a film from 30 year old VHS, but if there's an ad break or news report in the middle, it's like a time capsule.
I got an old book once with a bit of a price list from a wine merchants somebody had cut and used as a bookmark. Bottles of whiskey for 5 old pence!
Any time I see an old answering machine at the thrift store I check if there is a tape inside. They are like little modern Babylonian clay tablets. Tiny snippets of things going on in the past.
Yeah I have a couple random post cards from France I got a yard sale
"The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading. There is no stopping in the red zone."
Was that at Birmingham New Street? Trying to think why it sounds familiar
mason s. Listen Betty, don't start up with your white zone shit again.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue 😁
Oh man it is Airplane isn't it 😂 I was probably thinking of the coloured zones they used to have on the platforms so you knew roughly where to wait to find your carriage
@@robhardie6687 correct Airplane the movie with jokes you only see after rewatching the movie.
Let it not be said that TH-cam's algorithm has a 100% failure rate; it threw me this video completely at random, and to what the automobile industry used to call my surprise and delight, this channel is _exactly my jam._ You, sir, may have one of my carefully hoarded subs.
Watching your channel with my mum at the end each week she always says "What a nice Chap". Keep up the videos :-)
Me too. My mum said much the same thing!
This is literally why I'm subscribed to this channel. So interesting.
Just things you'd never think would be interesting, but are 😂
You should keep these! These are a real gem! As a train enthusiast it's amazing to hear this guy's voice and British Rail.
Great stuff, thanks for sharing.
My thoughts: 1. The tape of a Tefifon is stored in a similar way, too. Not magnetic tape, thou.
2. Reminds me of a story of a lady that used to return to a train or subway station to listen to her passed away husband, announcing: “Mind the gap”.
It makes me nostalgic for a time when our railways werent overpriced and uncaring. When I fly abroad for my work the train fare nornallly costs more than the flight thanks to privatisation. The guy sounds genuinely sad. I think this station is near me too! :) Hope you got the chance to put the tape back in the cartridge for posterity x
Did the chap steal the cartridges?
No, he liberated them. 😅
Yeah not exactly France 1944.
Well, they obviously weren't worth a hell of a lot to the railroad. Had the been scrapped, they'd be lost.
@@socialistether6788 Um,, "Liberated" was used jokingly, Calm down.
@@jamesslick4790 awesome thanks for putting that into context for me.
Well, abandoned or not, this was - strictly speaking - still an act of theft. Just because these tape cartridges aren't used anymore doesn't mean you're allowed to take them (or "liberate" them), it is still quite clear who the legal owner is. Suppose British Rail would want to showcase these in a museum and now they're gone. Not only that, they were destroyed literally, it would be quite a hassle to put them back into an original condition, so even returning them to the place where they were taken from isn't an option anymore.
It was the service that self-destructed, rather than the tape.
@@aserta :-)
This channel is outstanding, the squeeze is the point. This final message is poignant (the death of a place that shaped people's lives) and the archaeology is compelling. It's like picking up the last radio transmission from a long-dead civilisation across the cosmos, and realising it's something only as it disappears. You know, as often happens.
I know what you mean... I listen to shortwave radio stations used for sending messages to spies and some of the old live transmissions (as opposed to pre-recorded or machine done) are almost heartbreaking to listen to when they send their final transmissions
Thanks for taking the time to do this "archiving" and letting the rest of us hear it again.
How much more like this has been lost forever in our rush for progress?
I couldn't agree more. Those jingles at the beginning were also neat to hear. I would hope they are archived as well.
I totally agree. Case in point: I actually have a few ancient Apple QuickTime videos that won't play in the newer versions of the program. Fortunately other third-party and open-source players handle them just fine.
"Train times" "not an exciting message" as a railway enthusiast myself i'd say that "not an exciting message" is quite an underestimation.
Eh. He just talks too much sometimes.
PINGPONG. Your message of 'quite an underestimation' has been acknowledged as British. O shit, are you Canadian?
@@theopeterbroers819 The initial comment perhaps was slightly geographically misleading, considering that last year UK even denied issuing me a tourist visa (although Canada i did visit once before, maybe the phrasing was absorbed by consuming too much coffee and mushroom soup in Tim Hortons)
@@Vokabre Sometimes it is fun to play with stereotypes.
Next time i'll be applying for a UK visa i'll mention the acknowledgement as a proof of credibility.
I’m curious now about the person/people who recorded that message, because the perceived hint of sadness is making me wonder about the story surrounding this service, it’s eventual end and the people involved.
The failed privatisation of British Rail...
See newest post.
@@aserta Even though I am not as radical in my opinion on privatization as you and though I am not able to comment on the British Rail, I can comment on the Deutsche Bahn - the German Train Services - where privatization also went absolutely wrong. After the Berlin Wall fell Germany struggled to unite the different infrastructural institutions. Combined with heavy debt resulting from the damages of WW2 to the train systems and the monopolistic status of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the DDR (GDR) hopes in the late 90s were to introduce more private companies to the train infrastructure, get rid of the debt and pass responsibility for regional transport into the hands of the Bundesländer (federal states) and a Network of privat companies und the Deutsche Bahn umberella.
Now there are five different "sub-companies" like DB Regio AG or DB Cargo AG that keep passing responsibility around for anything that needs to be done. Even worse, they also play the same Game with the federal state and the state plays it back and forth with the goverment. It's pure chaos resulting in many technical problems and sooo maaaany delays. It's a running joke among Germans to joke about the Deutsche Bahn and if you ever talk to anyone that lived in Germany in the past 20 years I am sure they can empathize. Thats why I can't take people seriously that say "uncontrolled companies on the free market will ALWAYS lead to lower prices at better quality" - I can just laugh at that. Beforehand the ticket fees were about what you needed to cover the costs for transportation. Now we are dealing with a profit orientated company... It's absolutly untollerable that a planeride from Stuttgart to Berlin is often times a lot cheaper than a train ride...
@@N3rdZon3 It ultimately did work out when DB Regio, the regional train division of Deutsche Bahn, lost out on a lot of bids for regional train services to other private companies, who appear to do a lot better job than DB ever did.
I really like the way the radio jingle guy says "Chicago".
@securitycountercheck More like Chuckago
14:06 I think it was worth the effort in playing this tape, imagine that this man speaking on those tapes is dead, and some son or daughter watches your channel (you never know) and he or she hears the recording on this tape, it could light up their day, so i think you did a great job! Keep up the good work :)
Is he dead though?
Nah he's probably alive still just old
youtube: I think you might like this...
me: why do you think that?
also me, 15 minutes later: hmm, youtube was right
Nice to see mention of my home town. Incidentally if anyone is wondering why such a small and relatively insignificant town was one of the only 65 locations to have such a system, Rugby has always had (and still does have) an unusually busy station, I guess due to it's very central location in England. In context, Coventry is it's closest neighboring city with a pop of over 370,000 has 4 platforms in it's station, where Rugby with a pop of just over 100,000 has 6.
I was expecting it to say in ominous tone: “my name is of no consequence ... the important thing for you to know is that I am the last of my kind...”
Tbh he kinda was. He was the last of his kind as far as his job went.
@Techmoan What a trip. My dad created WLUP Chicago in 1977. Jay Blackburn. That tape brought back some memories. Thank you. DO you have any other WLUP stuff?
Small world!
I'm only used to hearing the station on 97.9 so it threw me off to hear 98. When did they change stations?
@@dgpsf Yes! There wasn't POINT ANYTHING on an analog radio dial. The only time I heard a decimal on an FM call in the 1970's was BLANK, POINT FIVE (as you could get HALFWAY by sight.) any thing else was rounded up or down. In Pittsburgh,PA we had "Disco 96" (96.1 FM), But WDVE was always 102.5, Even in it's 1960's KQV FM days. This happened on AM (MW to the rest of the world.) too: "AUDIO 14" was once what KQV 1410 AM was called. Admittedly such rounding on AM was scarcer than on FM as AM stations in the US are closer together, and go in nice even 10 Khz "steps" (LOL, the ONE time the US is "metric") In Europe ( and elsewhere?) AM was spaced (IIRC) at 9Khz. IDK if European AM (MW) stations rounded the frequencies in their "calls".
@@psychoacer They didn't change stations. More accurate tuners evolved. 97.9 is "98" when rounded. There were no digital tuners then. You pointed your dial at a physical marking AS CLOSE to the frequency desired as possible and "fine tuned by ear". 97900 KHz (97.9 MHz) is as close to 98000 KHz (98MHz) as one can get, as in the US at least the FM channels are 200 KHz (0.2 MHz) wide.
@@psychoacer It's pretty common for stations at .1 or .9 advertise themselves as the rounded number. E.g. Boston's Kiss 108 is really 107.9, LA's K-Earth 101 is really 101.1, and so on. (Although apparently NYC's Z100 is actually 100.3, which is weird imo.)
Wise move removing the phone numbers, I think - at least one of them is probably the telephone number of an Islington flat where Arthur once went to a very good party...
Just wondering whether you are related to Douglas.
"Sorry, is this guy boring you? I come from another planet."
@@rogerwheatley3897 Don't I wish? But no, not as far as I know.
I always enjoy this one: xkcd.com/548/
The actual number was the flat of one of Adams' friends, who was plagued with calls after the broadcast.
That was the saddest tape I’ve heard.
That's a bit of a blast from the past for me. My Dad worked for Ansafone in the 70s and he always brought home prototypes to test.
I used to use them as tape recorders which they weren't really built for. They always ended up overheating. :-)
"It's 2:10am...I should go to sleep...oh wait new Techmoan video posted 55 seconds ago? Don't mind if I do!"
It's 11.15 pm in Southern California (Azusa)...I saw this too...sleep can wait...
Tom Barber you are doing this too 😂
Its 9:25 am in russia, im having my breakfast and watching this lol
just got up and now it's 08:30 am (CSET) - greetings from Berlin
Me paso lo mismo, la misma hora...
As a railway enthusiast, this is so damn cool- I had no idea these existed, perhaps the National Railway Museum would be interested in one for their archives
Isn't there a railway comms museum section on one of the preserved lines?
@@highpath4776 The Severn Valley Railway at Kidderminster has one
They also did a domestic 'Ansafone' system, which used the same cartridges. I'm sure it's still sitting idle in my parents' loft. Seeing this video has just reminded me of it, so will be sure to have a look for it at some point.
This made me cry, That is so sad that this man had to record his own last message. I wonder what happened to him?
He was taken out on to the back yard and got exe... you know what i mean...
MrMayonEgg hahahaha thank you sir
I bet that he is enjoying his retirement as a volunteer station announcer on a preserved railway somewhere in England.
same thing that happens to any dog who cant do his tricks anymore. Bit of the ol trip to the farm.
That man was Sam Hyde.
He did a ted talk recently. Was pretty boring tbh.
Kinda sad for the guys at the center, you could tell by the tone of the guy he was upset
I dunno that kind of sounds like every british person I know before they have a pint.
Yeah because his only job was probably doing those recordings and now he's fired
Not really. He was literally just reading. Why are all of you people insisting on romatizizing a guy reading something someone else probably typed and told him to write. Are you really that lost during quarentine?
Getting dangerously close to big Million subs there Tech Moan! Can't wait, been with you for years. You deserve it buddy!!!
It's always fun to see what's on old tapes.
Back in the late '90s, I found a box of U-matic tapes at a flea market. I think the recorder there was rusted junk, but I eventually had a working player.
They were from a local TV station (I think it was KCEN), mostly just field reporter bits (with no chryon text) that would get cued in during the news. The two interesting bits were a female reporter doing a parody story about herself, and about 20 minutes of Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders (from the late '80s!) recorded from the end zone. I'm sure that last one got played at a few station parties.
This sort of thing is right up my alley. It's about the technological history, not so much the "results". It's all fascinating. Thank you for sharing.
"Close the door, pretend it doesn't exist" - every government endeavour everywhere.
I've worked at a few public sector places where this was true😁
I toured the Kennedy space center in 77. Lots of stuff like launch pads marked "abandon in place" . It costs real money to tear things down.
Good thing they didn't, i think the manned SpaceX mission launched from that pad this month. Reused some of the tower.
You should see the MOD owned housing behind where I work, last things to live in there were pigeons before they fixed the roof.
When this system would have been scrapped, British Rail was in the middle of being privatised. The system closed in 1993, a year later British Rail was replaced with the publicly traded Railtrack. Given British Rail's past record in relation to scraping stuff, I would bet if British Rail was not being dismantled at the time it would be ripped out and sent to the scrap yard.
@@MarquisDeSang We've been led to believe that an advanced civilisation made the pyramids, is that true, if it were then why did they mess up by making the passageways so small that you have to crouch to get through them, why did they put in airshafts that didn't actually exit the pyramid, why did mess up by making the entrance a 1/5th of the way up and not at or close to ground level ? The truth about the pyramids is that it is all a big lie, the Giza plateau is a plateau of sandstone, the pyramids are made of sandstone, so why would they have brought millions of blocks from elsewhere if they were actually standing on sandstone, in fact there were three hills of sandstone right there, right where the pyramids stand today. Food for thought.
I'm content with the message, a bit nostalgic and sad, like watching the last analogue or ceefax broadcast. Farewell broadcasts are the rarest broadcasts
An abandoned piece of old tech and relegated to the garbage heap... Just got new life around the world. I live in the US and would never have used that system or heard that announcement... now we all have heard that message, albeit a sad message of goodbye. So I view the "liberation" of those tapes as a kind act of preserving; It's a service really, like a museum preserving history... so if ever the British Rail ever wanted to preserve their legacy (other recordings), then you're the person to do it... who else has the equipment and experience of splicing tape? A job well done! From time to time I hope to see these kind of things on this channel.
WOW!! Blast from the past!! WLUP “The Loop.” 97.9 FM Chicago.. I listened to that station for decades!
I can totally relate on your last sentiment, enjoying the squeeze, the effort to getting to the end result. Then I look at replacing a hard drive in a mac mini and the rigmarole and there's a point where life is too short.
Are you saying you don’t fancy deiassembling whole mini just to replace a freaking hard drive?! ;-)) // comes from the guy who did it to install secondary some years ago.
Miroslav Hudak good that u mentioned that as opening it up it was easy. I must have looked at the wrong model. Cheers
What year is the Mac mini?
If it's got an Intel processor it makes a great media center.
Chris Reynolds I actually bought it for that very reason. And used it as one for a long time until replaced with Apple TV. Now it is a workbench computer.
@@Ubersnuber Or to put it another way: I't not about reaching the destination, it's about enjoying the journey there.
Techmoan plays the tape : "This is the captain of the Nostromo, Ellen Ripley speaking. This is the captain's log..."
... Jones has taken control of the ship, we are on a one way course to Planet Snacks. Ripley signing off ...
I'm from Chicago, The Loop was my Fav Radio station.
@@salty6pence672 Nice, what kind of music or other stuff did they play? To my surprise, the jingle sounds super futuristic, despite it being a rock station. Reminded me a bit of the early Radio days of Radio FFN in Isernhagen/Hannover (Germany), when they used to play The KLF and other early dance music.
This is really fantastic. I love to see enthusiasts keeping their crafts alive. There’s this whole aspect of treasure hunting mixed with a bit of history and good ol solid technology. I love how these old recordings have a sort of warm and solemn vibe from them, no matter how simple the message is. Thank you for sharing!
I love finding old tapes. This one's as fun as that giant old 1960s home tape recorder/player you showed us a while back.
It would be amazing to find the gentleman who recorded this announcement.
British Rail does not exist any more. The network was broken up into multiple franchises in the name of competition. That didn't go well as each franchise usually had their own seperate area of the network so there effectively was no competition.
@@stuartarnold9444 Gotta love privatisation huh
I bet Geoff Marshall could find him.
New series: Visiting all railway announcers in one week. 😁
@@stuartarnold9444 Most staff members were offered and continued with a job on the successor TOCs or Railtrack/Network Rail. It would be a poor decision for him not to continue, as those who maintained continuous employment from BR receive significantly better (taxpayer-backed) pensions and free travel benefits over those who were hired under the TOCs.
The service shut down two years before I was born.
Can't believe I missed out on this!
It was TOTALLY worth the effort! If for anything, you captured a moment in time. And it was fun that you were correct in the type of system that was being used with the tape was a tone system as opposed to foil type, so you didn't cut through the recording. I also enjoyed the fact that you let as hear the tone before the recording. It's always a blast watching your content. It's my favourite TH-cam channel by far!
I used to live in the Chicagoland area as a kid and probably heard that station ID for WLUP “The Loop” thousands of times. It was my favorite station. Thanks for playing the cart. Good memories.
as a model railroader, having somethign like that running on a speaker at a station on a layout would be way freaking cool. Btw, I've heard that Loop radio jingle before. My cousin used to work for that station around the time they used that xD
"I like the squeeze!"
- Techmoan
True, it was never likely to be anything too juicy on those tapes but it's still a neat bit of old tech. And hey, if you ever come across another Ansafone tape, you've already confirmed what you'll need to do to play them. Thank you bringing us along for the journey!
That was very interesting.
And ever-so-slightly sad/creepy that it was the end of the use from way back when.
Thank you for this.
I'm impressed by the quality of the audio, I was expecting much worse for something meant for the telephone system.
I suspect this is true in a lot of cases, it just always sounds like crap by the time it gets to the speaker on your phone. Hold music, for example, probably sounds fine at source but will never sound good at the other end due to the compression etc it has to endure along the way. If I were putting this system together I'd want a suitable quality at source for exactly that reason, especially for things like train times where all users of different hearing abilities need to be able to hear the information clearly.
@@mankysalad350 You picked the worst example. Codecs used in the telephony system are designed for voice, not music. They perform very poorly if at all with music.
Yeah, sounds always end up bad over a POTS line, hence why the equipment never needs to be of high quality at the source considering the quality won't make it through the end. It's not a matter of pumping higher quality sound at the source makes it better at the other end. Think of it like saturation or "maxing out". There's no gain at going higher quality.
And considering techmoam still had to slow the playback speed down further than his player could go shows that the engineers behind this tech knew they didn't need quality sound.
Yet they achieved a lot better than I anticipated.
@@jeremiefaucher-goulet3365 Indeed, I only picked that example as it came to mind because I used to work at a place where they used a CD on repeat for hold music, so source was great, other end would have been awful for the reasons you stated. I may be entirely wrong, but I'd have thought if your voice recording was barely understandable to begin with it would still suffer some quality loss over POTS and just end up as muffled garbage. Hence wanting suitable quality at source, not saying it needs to be super Hi-Fi or anything :-) Basically, I'd rather it sound better than this th-cam.com/video/h5qjo1RiDaI/w-d-xo.html
@@mankysalad350 It only had gotten worse in the late 90s early 2000s. Hold music can hardly make it through nowadays because of all the layers of conversions happening on the circuit sometimes. I've heard some where only a few really spaced out notes make it through.
You are correct, obviously the line usually won't improve the quality if your source is pretty bad to start with, but it might if it eliminates sounds that let the voice pass through clearer. Not on purpose or by design, but just by the mere fact that these filters and codecs are so tuned to voice compression without caring for anything else that extraneous sounds and music get inadvertently left behind.
With VoIP we are making a clean break sand can use modern codecs capable of handling voice and music just as well. If your call doesn't go through legacy system that will covert to analog it will sound much better.
Mind you, it's not analog itself that is bad, it's the compression techniques used. The real issue is that interchanges and interconnections between providers have hardly improved over the last 100 years. To much effort coordinating an upgrade so keep them lowest denominator standard alive.
Someone just heard their Dad on those tapes.
The tone of the recording is sooo nice - it's so warm it is very soothing and easy to listen-to. Some of those old recordings with tons of compression and warmth sound just great.
I feel EXACTLY like this "curious about vintage media" dude does --- I always like to tinker around to access old recordings and films just to see what's on there... kind of a "trip down memory lane" experience; having a little tidbit of richness from yesteryear to grinningly savor once again. :D Buying old home-recorded videocassettes from rummage sales and playing them back is fun --- I have found home-movies of weddings, backyard barbecues, Christmas parties, employment-farewells, controlled house-burnings, news events, etc. that are fun to see again after many years; sometimes I'll recognize old landmarks in my hometown area, or see familiar folks in their younger days or even people who are since deceased.
* plays one of the tapes * "Help me!! I'm stuck in this room!"
Always leave a spoof recording when decommissioning this kind of stuff. Preferably backward, add in some spooky sound effects, and keep an eye on youtube for the next ~30 years.
I've only recently found your videos but you are a really entertaining guy, you don't need the click-bait or the over the top intro, you are awesome, never change :)
I agree with what you said at the end, about the process and effort of recovering things, partly because it - as you say - solves a mystery, but also, on a wider scale, it's efforts like that which help recover and preserve things that may otherwise have been lost. Even if it's considered to be "mundane", it doesn't mean that it's not worth recovering and preserving, seeing as it could be of use in the future, but also it'd be a shame to lose something from the past.
I am glad you spent the effort on this. I wouldn't have heard this stuff otherwise like most of your videos. There would be a tiny piece of history I'd never otherwise have heard, seen or known of so thank you. For this and every other video you've created past, present and future.
I always find it amazing and intresting how items are left abandoned and years later we are amazed on the details or crafmentship of the item it self.. A time capsule in a way. Love you vids like always.. Saludos from Mexico.
“I like the squeeze.” - Techmoan; June 2020. So do we sir! So do we! Keep squeezing and you’ll be at a Million juicy subs in no time.
As I watched the video just now, he's hit 1 million subscribers :)
Andreas Bührmann YAY!!!
I love this stuff. It's such a lucky turn of events that Your patreon supporter stumbled upon that room. Learning about how things worked back in the day is endlessly fascinating. Just like these tapes. ;)
"Nothing I'd rather do... than 'solve a puzzle' if you will"
That feeling you described is the passion that too many people never find in their lives - much less get paid to do!
The juice was worth the squeeze! Thanks for another informative podcast!
Could you have used your The Magnetic Tape Viewer to see the arrangement of tracks on the tape?
*There’s more information in the video description.*
Absolutely amazing that had the person who saved them not been a viewer that would have never been heard again. But in this case it's likely had more listens than it did in the original use, love it!
"The juice ain't worth the squeeze" is a phrase I will have to remember. It was an interesting bit of history, and I'm glad you did it so I could learn about it.
PS: some kind of post apocalyptic tone in that thing. Really interesting.
Right, felt a bit like watching a scene from some end-of-the-world movie.
"This is a recorded message from the British government. Due the ongoing nuclear holocaust, all of our services have been closed. May I, on behalf of all of the staff here, thank you for your support and hope that you continue to use our services once this matter has been solved."
I imagine the phrase “has been delayed” is on all of them somewhere....
I think it's fantastic. It's a brief look into the past; when an announcer left his last commentary, turned the light off and shut the door behind him. Perhaps, I'm a bit more nostalgic than most, but I enjoyed this video, immensely. Thanks for sharing.
Not less than 20 years ago we used the same cart tape recording as those for the Emergency broadcast announcements. That was still in use in 2003 when I left the radio station, even though everything else was handle by computer. The next station over was sports talk radio, they did everything with Minidisc.