A Bitter Farewell to Live Narration

[mattdbower]

The same vile disease that has plagued such classics as The Studio Backlot Tour and. Living with the Land has come at the throat of the Stone Mountain Scenic Railroad. As of a few weeks ago, we as conductors no longer deliver live narration to our guests. The single exception is during departure from or arrival at the depot, we still provide live safety warnings. Oh, and the auto-spiel buttons tend to skip sections randomly, so we're constantly filling in where the recording leaves off.

...and now for something completely different.

I'll share a short SG anecdote to cheer myself up. I had a couple on my train the other day from Down Under, and I heard one of them point out to the other a wombat just off the tracks. I don't know what they really saw, but here in Georgia we have a lot of deer and a lot of squirrels, but never have I seen a wombat. Maybe BRWombat can visit and prove me wrong.

[Big Wallaby]

Wow. I am glad my trip happened when it did, and I am glad that I came to see you spiel. I can understand wanting to give every guest the same experience on the train and blah blah blah... but it's one of those times, like for friends who worked Living With The Land, or for me having been there when the Monorails were driven (okay, they still are for now, but not for long), and other things like that... you just have to sit there and remember the old days.

How long until they figure out a way that they can take that away on Safari and still feel like they're giving good show? Only time will tell.

[mattdbower]

I completely agree. For us they saw it as a way to solve the problem of guest complaining about spiels being too loud or too quiet. In practice, it does a worse job because all spiels are played at the same volume. Previously, we could speak louder or quieter to adjust to external noise caused by varying train speed, going over switches, or loud pre-lasershow music. The true problem is that we run modified freight cars as passenger cars. The noise caused by those cars makes it extremely difficult to balance being able to hear over the noise with not being too loud.

And what's worse, ther are numerous pronounciation errors in the recording. Quarry is pronounced like "wary" with a Q at the beginning. The name Elias Nour should be pronounced like "hour" but instead sounds like "noor." Finally, anyone from the area would know that Dekalb county is pronounced "Decab," but it is read as it is spelled. I don't blame the narrator on that one because I know he's from out of state recently. Someone from the entertainment department who rode our train so many times to research their recording, should have caught that.

[GaTechGal]

Jeepers that's awful. Someone should definitely complain about the mispronunciations. Why the heck didn't they get a local to do the audio? WE all know how to pronounce those words the right way and it's not like there are no voice actors in Atlanta. Sheesh.

And I miss the days when the bandits attacked the train. Now THAT was exciting.

[felinefan]

The same vile disease that has plagued such classics as The Studio Backlot Tour and. Living with the Land has come at the throat of the Stone Mountain Scenic Railroad. As of a few weeks ago, we as conductors no longer deliver live narration to our guests. The single exception is during departure from or arrival at the depot, we still provide live safety warnings. Oh, and the auto-spiel buttons tend to skip sections randomly, so we're constantly filling in where the recording leaves off.

...and now for something completely different.

I'll share a short SG anecdote to cheer myself up. I had a couple on my train the other day from Down Under, and I heard one of them point out to the other a wombat just off the tracks. I don't know what they really saw, but here in Georgia we have a lot of deer and a lot of squirrels, but never have I seen a wombat. Maybe BRWombat can visit and prove me wrong.

The only animal in North America that I'm aware of that resembles a wombat is a groundhog. Do you have those in Georgia? I saw one in Pennsylvania once, I wondered what the heck that huge thing was that looked like a gopher on steroids.

[GaTechGal]

It was probably a possum. It's the only thing I can think of (except a stray cat) that would be big enough and the right color. Unless it was a beaver and they just missed the flat tail. We do have a number of those in the area.

[BRWombat]

When I lived in Colorado I used to see lots of marmots at higher elevations. From the right angle they could look wombat-like, though they're still smaller. I don't think they'd be in Georgia, though, unless of course they were vacationing.