All aboard the Laurence Hewson train: The hairy, high-viz Metro Trains announcer with pizzazz

There are those who do their job and those who do it with flair, and heavily bearded Flinders Street Station announcer Laurence Hewson has taken his role to a whole new level.

He’s hairy, clad in high-viz and spreading a special sort of joy at Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station.

New Metro Trains platform announcer Laurence Hewson is also going viral on social media for his upbeat, honest, humorous and clever commentary at the city’s main public transport hub.

What’s more, his “unique and engaging customer experience” even got a shoutout in parliament recently.

What’s all the fuss about?

Well, while doing his actual job of letting Metro Train passengers know what services are arriving and departing where, when and from what platforms, the heavily bearded Mr Hewson typically also provides an assessment of the weather — a “dreary” or “cracking” day — and has variously quipped he hopes people have plans “for a leisurely day” where they do nothing more than go to a cafe, sink into a chair, drink espresso and snack on biscotti, or if they are going “to watch Fred Durst gyrate all over the stage”, they should head to a particular side of the platform, where they’ll find him, with his “sensational chops” waiting.

While he was at it, Mr Hewson let concert-goers know he was in the market for a free ticket himself, which could be left “very subtly” under a vending machine, for his later collection.

The new voice of Flinders Street Station, Laurence Hewson.

Hewson has become a social media sensation.

There’s been quips about the age of trains — notably about one from 1981 that he said was “older than most the bands you’re going to see today, except for Devo”.

And a well wish (of sorts) to commuters, that he hopes workers with a “nemesis” in the office, will arrive to find that person has been “transferred to the Sydney office”.

Arguably the funniest so far, however, has been an announcement to commuters that he’d just had a call “from radio control” telling him the next Flemington train was going to be cancelled.

“I said ‘sugar we’re not going down’, So they didn’t cancel it,” Mr Hewson declares to commuters, to howls of laughter.

Describing himself as a “man with sensational chops”, Hewson is making Melburnians smile.

Hewson’s sharp wit is proving a hit.

Not one to preach, even Mr Hewson’s vaping warning takes on a lighthearted tone, as he explains the smell of vapes is like that of cinnamon doughnuts, “which every one wants to share” and “makes people hungry”.

It follows, he says, that vaping on the trains could lead to people getting “mad” when they realise there is not, in fact, a box of cinnamon doughnuts being handed around for all to enjoy.

To those running for a train on which the doors have shut, Mr Hewson said: “The doors are locked. You can’t save these people now, their time has come – just let them go.”

Once thing seems certain, Melbourne commuters would not be keen to see their funniest platform announcer go anywhere, anytime soon – because it’s all aboard the Hewson train.