SWT Valentine's Day

[SPADTrap]

That they're not miserable so and so's posting on a rail forum?

Quite! Touche!

 

[Thisisajm]

My Fareham Lady tickled me.

 

[Crossover]

Regardless of some utterly cheerless armchair TOC managers here the travelling public has received it very well, a quick glance at the Twiitter feed shows plenty of positive responses.

Whatever a TOC does there will always be some who are not happy.

When I first saw about this, my immediate thought was that it may confuse a few people. That said, it is a good PR stunt and I'm glad it has been received in the manner in which it was intended

 

[Sacro]

Regardless of some utterly cheerless armchair TOC managers here the travelling public has received it very well, a quick glance at the Twiitter feed shows plenty of positive responses.

Whatever a TOC does there will always be some who are not happy.

Confirmation bias, SWT will only be retweeting complimentary messages.

 

[jon0844]

Why not just do as Great Northern has?



Only problem is that GN wasn't putting up funny station names, but literally junk info and missing out services!

On the plus side, the time was/is right.

 

[Matt Taylor]

What does that say about the travelling public?

I'll advise the people on the twitter desk that they should canvass opinion from this forum before any similar events take place in future. I'll ask them to bring the 442s, slam doors and 73s back first though.

 

[SPADTrap]

I'll advise the people on the twitter desk that they should canvass opinion from this forum before any similar events take place in future. I'll ask them to bring the 442s, slam doors and 73s back first though.

442s back? For some they haven't gone anywhere!

 

[Retorus]

This board is full of more pedantic and miserable people than any other I've used. Shocking, lighten up guys.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

Utterly embarrassing, completely unprofessional, childish & puerile.

We as train crew are constantly reminded to be professional etc, etc, yet some in SWT management came up with this utterly childish diatribe, they should be sacked for it, I lost count of the number of times I got asked for the train to Waterloo!

FFS! Grow up.

 

[RichmondCommu]

I know this might be a thoroughly miserable view to take but isn't this all rather wet?

I think its called humour. Oh well I'm sure they've learnt from their mistakes.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

To me this just represents a decline in professionalism and could easily cause confusion, especially for those who quickly need to find information on a train.

Oh for the days of miserable, mustached, 60 year old men in a wood-paneled room running the railways and not t-shirt wearing pip squeaks fresh out of university.

So you don't remember the Merry Makers from the 1970's and 1980's then? All devised by BR career railwaymen in order to inject a bit of humour into a drab BR.

 

[ushawk]

Utterly embarrassing, completely unprofessional, childish & puerile.

We as train crew are constantly reminded to be professional etc, etc, yet some in SWT management came up with this utterly childish diatribe, they should be sacked for it, I lost count of the number of times I got asked for the train to Waterloo!

FFS! Grow up.

Please say you are actually joking with this post....

Lighten up, you can still be professional and have a laugh/joke you know. The reaction is good and they have got PR out of it.

Just for the record, announcements were not altered.

 

[Thisisajm]

Those Twitter feeds that have been linked to contain some terminally grumpy folk, like the one who claims the photographer had specially picked a rare on-time train. As a regular SWT user, I know that the majority of trains run on time. Some are a few minutes late, but life's too short to feel that a few lost minutes is some sort of disaster. Just try airlines (or even driving) for a real comparison.

This.

 

[RichmondCommu]

This board is full of more pedantic and miserable people than any other I've used. Shocking, lighten up guys.

I think Valentines Day might have had something to do with it.

 

[hassaanhc]

There was nothing like that displayed at Waterloo when I got there for the 1822 Weybridge train, but there were at the other stations. The next station to be named did appear on the scrolling bit under "Please Note: Calling at ..."
I thought it was really well received by almost everyone, look at the amount of photos under the #southwesttrains hashtag on Instagram

There was nothing for Virginia Water, imagine making something up for that...

 

[Flange Squeal]

Did Southern do anything for Uckfield or Anerley...?

 

[WessexEclectic]

Nothing for Hampton Wick...

 

[duncanp]

Nothing for Hampton Wick...

Nor F******ing Them Junction or Whoresley come to that.

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

Did any other TOCs do this yesterday.?

On this basis, I wonder if they will do anything for April Fool's Day?

 

[Chrisgr31]

Did Southern do anything for Uckfield or Anerley...?

Think it was last year that Southern gave away chocolates on Valentines day. Seem to recall that didnt go down well either, on the grounds that the passengers thought it was a waste of money and the money should be spent on something else.

Anyway if you believe those who travel from Uckfield the trains never get that far as they are always terminating at Crowborough!

 

[306024]

On this basis, I wonder if they will do anything for April Fool's Day?

Run the booked service ?

OK that's a bit unfair, I can only assume SWT have employed someone in their marketing department who was made redundant from Clintons Cards.

Personally I agree with those who say it is unprofessional and embarrassing, but there are bigger things in the world to worry about.

 

[fairysdad]

I thought it was really well received by almost everyone, look at the amount of photos under the #southwesttrains hashtag on Instagram

That's it though - how much advertising did SWT get from this? Changing a few things on screens - which can't have been that hard or taken that long otherwise they wouldn't have done it - has given them a massive PR high. My Facebook yesterday had photos of 'London Waterlove' showing on screens, Twitter and Instagram had loads of photos, and even Reddit had a number. That's a lot of free advertising for SWT there. Okay, they will probably not gain any extra revenue from it, but it's their brand that has been shared across social media, and often that is the important bit for companies.

Personally, I like it when seeing companies show that they are actually run by humans, and have a bit of humour, and the only place I've seen complaining about these signs (admittedly, I haven't been looking - I've more important things to do with my time) is here. This thread seems akin to the one back in December which complained that Northern (?) were letting their guards wear Christmas jumpers on one day. What's next - come November, are we going to be complaining that the vinyl poppies are spoiling the livery and making trains look umprofessional? </devil's advocate>

 

[Andrewlong]

How newsworthy was this?

 

[Fiyero]

I loved it. I only saw "When Harry Met Salisbury" and "Romsey and Juliet" so the 'real' names were in there too. I think it would be a bit trickier where they have messed with the names. Loads of people were snapping pictures of the signs so I think the positive PR outweighs the negative

 

[HarleyDavidson]

Please say you are actually joking with this post....

Lighten up, you can still be professional and have a laugh/joke you know. The reaction is good and they have got PR out of it.

Just for the record, announcements were not altered.

No. Deadly serious.

We're told to be professional when working trains & at work, then you get this childish nonsense.

In response to fairysdad, I have no problem with poppy's appearing on trains, that's not childish as this nonsense was.

 

[infobleep]

I just hope that there are some covering announcements with the real names! 'Cupid Junction' sounds like a definite possible confusion creator. I detect some serious irony in some of those names. I live in Basingstoke and like it, but I would never claim it to be beautiful!

Those Twitter feeds that have been linked to contain some terminally grumpy folk, like the one who claims the photographer had specially picked a rare on-time train. As a regular SWT user, I know that the majority of trains run on time. Some are a few minutes late, but life's too short to feel that a few lost minutes is some sort of disaster. Just try airlines (or even driving) for a real comparison.

The majority of the trains I use on South West Trains run late but that is because I travel at times when the majority of the trains are likely to run late.

That doesn't mean the majority of trains are late. I suspect that point is lost on some travellers.

As for the name changes, I noticed that when their was a signal failure at Waterloo, it was called Waterloo on the screen at Guildford and not Waterlove. People don't love signal failures of course.

As a campaign, it seemed to work. It encouraged me to photograph two station signs. I even twitted about it. As did others.

Events like this encourage people to take photographs at railway stations. Nothing wrong with that. Some might disagree.

 

[physics34]

Utterly embarrassing, completely unprofessional, childish & puerile.

We as train crew are constantly reminded to be professional etc, etc, yet some in SWT management came up with this utterly childish diatribe, they should be sacked for it, I lost count of the number of times I got asked for the train to Waterloo!

FFS! Grow up.

I fully agree, to be honest. This is a train service not some kind of joke industry.


--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


WOnder if they can manage to run trains on time on Run-Trains-On-Time Day.

 

[RichmondCommu]

I fully agree, to be honest. This is a train service not some kind of joke industry.

Many thanks for the most facetious comment I've read on here in some time!

 

[class303]

The KissingtonSouth, nearly, nearly caught me out at Vauxhall. I don't really have an opinion, but I did see lots of people taking photos of the screens and laughing.

 

[Pumbaa]

I fully agree, to be honest. This is a train service not some kind of joke industry.

You and I can't be working in the same industry, as that is precisely how I'd describe it