| “ | The next train to arrive at Platform 1 is the 12:14 service to Ryde Pier Head. This service is currently on time. Calling at: Lake, Sandown, Brading, Smallbrook Junction, Ryde St Johns Road, Ryde Esplanade and Ryde Pier Head. This service is operated by Island Line. | ” |
— An Acapela Rachel announcement at Shanklin, Isle of Wight. | ||
Acapela Rachel is an automated announcer on the British railway network. Unlike the other announcers, however, the announcements made by Acapela Rachel are not made up of pre-recorded words and phrases. Instead, Acapela Rachel is text to speech software. Because of this, words in the announcements often end up being pronounced oddly or incorrectly, and sentences she says sound very incoherent. Although the company Acapela offer text to speech software in a variety of voices, Rachel is one of only two voices that are used for railway announcements, the other one being Geriant, a bilingual text to speech voice used at smaller Transport for Wales stations.
Acapela Rachel is mostly used at smaller sized Northern, Southeastern and East Midlands Railway and stations on the Isle of Wight* and was used at smaller sized Transport for Wales stations. Usually, TfW stations had announcements in both Welsh and English, although Acapela Rachel only gave announcements in English until she was replaced by Geriant, another text to speech automated announcer in Circa 2019 as to meet Welsh Language Standards. Acapela Rachel was installed at most, if not all* stations on the Isle of Wight, operated by Island Line (SWR) during 2021 as part of the modernisation of the whole line and stations which previously had no announcements at all.
Acapela Rachel is also used on the SWR Class 707s (main announcements) and also on the Class 444s and 450s for the "Standard Class Only" and ASDO messages.
*Smallbrook Junction is the only station on the Isle of Wight to not have Acapela Rachel installed. This is because there are no speakers or screens at that station. Also it is not publicly accessible by road and is only open when the heritage railway is open which is mainly during the summer.
Acapela Rachel can be found here.