Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on travelling, whether you're just dreaming of a great escape, looking forward to one, or actually away and having the time of your life. I am glad to report that I am enjoying a train journey this is going through the beautiful

Surrey countryside on the pretty more southerly route from Guilford into central

London the skeletal trees are looking beautiful there's an interesting sculpture over to my left

looks a little like a resting bird and we're just going underneath the M25

motorway coming out the other side the scenery is just as lovely but I'm not here to

tell you about the scenic ways for travelling around South East England.

I'm here to discuss the latest innovation from the Department for Transport.

This is a press release headlined unnecessary train announcements binned in bonfire of the banalities.

And the whole idea is that unnecessary train announcements that add unnecessary noise and disruption to journeys will be removed. The government says that

train operating companies will be able to keep important safety messages and they'll work with

accessibility groups so that passengers receive the necessary information. But they want to have

quieter train journeys by identifying and removing repetitive

and unnecessary on-board announcements on trains in England.

They say that this will get rid of so-called tannoy spam that distracts from important safety critical messaging.

The whole idea is, of course, that life is going to get better for the passenger.

But I'm on this train and I'm not sure that there's anything particularly to worry about. I've been travelling for nearly half an hour from Guildford Station.

And that's exactly what is happening.

You get an announcement, maybe 30 seconds or so, before you arrive at at the station and you then are told once you're at the station that the train has arrived and where you are and where the train is going to and what the next step would be.

Now I think that's really helpful of, for people who are visually handicapped.

It's very useful, and indeed the rest of us who may be dozing off or simply staring out of the window,

as I like to do, are awoken and reminded just in case we need to get off the trip. But according to the transport secretary

Grant Shapp's train passengers are all too often plagued by an endless torrent of repeated

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