Slaithwate: Northern to re-record train announcements to correct pronunciation of Yorkshire village

The train company previously asked for help from travellers to correct the mispronunciation of local station names in on-board announcements - with Slaithwaite in West Yorkshire making the list.

The commuter village is often mispronounced by those who don’t know the area well, saying it phonetically as ‘slaith-waite’ – although the correct pronunciation is ‘slou-wit’.

Tricia Williams, chief operating officer at Northern, said: “I’d like to thank everyone that has sent in their feedback so far. We manage 467 stations across our network and some of them are pronounced very differently to how they appear in writing.

“That said, some corrections are, quite rightly, a request that station names be announced in full rather than shortened versions that have been adopted over time.”

The company is also re-recording the announcement for Dore & Totley in South Yorkshire, which has previously been announced as just Dore. Northern is adding the full name of the station to its newly recorded announcements.

Other stations to have new announcements across the country include Burneside in Cumbra (from Burn-Side to Burn-E-Side) and Ilkeston in Derbyshire (from Ill-Kes-Ston to Ilks-tonne).

Customers have until the end of the month to submit their corrections, which they can do here.

The new on-board announcements have been recorded by Peter Corley and Laura Palmer, two of Northern’s employees.

Speaking at the time the first recordings went live on some of Northern’s trains, they said: “Whilst every effort was made to get them right first time, we know how proud people across the North of England are of their regional dialect.

“Who knows how long these recordings will be in the system – so now’s your chance to correct us if we’ve got it wrong.”