Northern Rail re-records Wigan station name to match local pronunciation

Gathurst is one of the 34 stations in the region whose passengers will from now on hear the village’s name spoken the same way as residents say it after Northern Rail responded to a public appeal requesting that local dialects are more accurately reflected.

The train operator received a total of 47 formal requests to adjust announcements, one being for Gathurst to be pronounced as Gath-urst rather than the previous Gat-hurst (although some broader Wiganers pronounce it Gath-ust so there’s no pleasing everybody.

On completing the re-recordings, the duo behind the new announcements – Northern employees Pete Corley and Laura Palmer - issued a video message to thank customers for their feedback.

The new recordings will now be rolled out across the fleet of 345 trains and were required after an update to on-board software.

Announcements also cover important topics such as safety information and details on how to report suspicious behaviour and criminal acts.

In June, Corley and Palmer appealed to customers to get in touch if they had mispronounced any of the more than 500 stations on Northern’s network

Tricia Williams, chief operating officer at Northern, said: “This has been such an interesting process and proof if ever it were needed of the passion our customers have for the North.

“Some of the stations on our network are pronounced very differently to how they appear in writing – it’s important to get these things right.

“I’d like to thank Pete, Laura and all of the on-board systems team for their persistence with this project – and to everyone that took the time to get involved and speak-up for their hometown.”

Other requests included Aspatria in Cumbria to be pronounced as As-spay-tria, Kirkham and Wesham in Lancashire to be pronounced Kirkham and Wess-am, Ilkeston in Derbyshire to be pronounced Il-kes-ton and Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire to be pronounced Sowby Bridge.