This will probably sound like a strange question but I think it's
interesting and original!  The first part is about speaking clocks
around the world (the service whereby you call a telephone number and
an electronic voice tells you the correct time by means of beeps
usually).

I am interested in comparisons between what is said in different
countries, for example, in the UK, it is:

"beep..beep..beep..at the third stroke, the time sponsored by Accurist
will be three pm and fifty seconds, beep beep beep"

So the countries I am most interested in and the details I'd like to
know are as follows:

Details:
1. what is the phone number used
2. what is the content of the message
3. are there any web sites offering sound files of this message ?

The countries I am most interested in are:

Japan, Korea, France, Germany, Italy, USA, Australia, Singapore, Greece, Russia

(basically any first world countries, as many as the researcher can
find but with these as a priority)
 
************************

The second part of my question involves trains.

I found this web site offering samples of the in-train announcements
in the Japanese bullet train:

http://pitapa.sakura.ne.jp/convention/ambitious/

I'd be very interested to find other web sites offering similar
information (content and sound files, if possible translated into
English but if not, it's okay) for trains in these countries as a
priority:

UK, Korea, France, Germany, Italy, USA, Australia, Singapore, Greece, Russia

Thank you!

Richard Mort

On this page you can get the announcements from Warsaw's (Poland)
subway in *.wav format:

http://www.metro.waw.pl/page.php?id=52&lng=en

Vladimir

Take a look at http://www.dmine.com/phworld/sounds/modern/timetemp/.
That page has recordings for "talking clocks" in the U.S. (but we
don't call them that).

In Cleveland, Ohio, we used to have a "talking clock" number. It was
GR1-1212 (GR standing for Greenwich, according to my fourth-grade
teacher). They used to say "At the tone, the time will be... 9:52
and... 4 seconds... BEEP." Now they've folded it into the weather line
(WE1-1212).

I think a lot of rail-transit systems in the U.S. don't use
prerecorded messages, except maybe for "Please step away from the
doors, thank you." The driver announces the stops on the intercom. At
least that's how they do it in Cleveland.