Twitter and National Rail

[realale]

Hi!

My old account appears to have vanished (though it's about 2 years since I last signed in!), but recently, National Rail Enquiries have been increasing their output on Twitter.

I follow @nationalrailenq and have the updates sent to my phone - it can be useful when out and about!

Does anyone else follow them?

 

[brillopad]

I use an Android App called 'rail commute' which gets twitter feeds from
ATW, c2c, Chiltern, XC, East Coast, East Midlands, First Capital, FGW, FTE, Gatwick Express, Grand Central, Heathrow, Hull, Island line, London Midland, London Overground, Mersey, NX East Anglia, Northern, Scotrail, SWT, Southeastern, Southern, Stanstead & Virgin.

 

[dk1]

Most seem to come from the same source & i get exactly the same tweet from TOC as the one from NRE.

 

[Matt Taylor]

I do follow them, in fact they had a competition last week to find railway related Christmas Carols which I won.

 

[AlterEgo]

The @nationalrailenq feed is excellent in my view. The responses obey what I call the Three H Rule of social media: Helpful, Honest, and Human.

 

[tsr]

I only have Twitter accounts for a couple of business ventures which I am setting up, but I do read the @nationalrailenq feed for personal use, as it is quite informative but can also be quite good fun.

 

[district]

I use an Android App called 'rail commute' which gets twitter feeds from
ATW, c2c, Chiltern, XC, East Coast, East Midlands, First Capital, FGW, FTE, Gatwick Express, Grand Central, Heathrow, Hull, Island line, London Midland, London Overground, Mersey, NX East Anglia, Northern, Scotrail, SWT, Southeastern, Southern, Stanstead & Virgin.

Can you it to me?

District

 

[Robin GX]

I follow Chiltern, Virgin and East Coast separately. Very useful except that East Coast has the habit of retweeting satisfied customers saying how wonderful the staff on such and such a train were, which is annoying when you are on a train getting exactly the opposite.

 

[Lrd]

Most seem to come from the same source & i get exactly the same tweet from TOC as the one from NRE.

I have noticed this to, I think it just lazy TOC's copying what NRE said. I often get the same tweet from @nationalrailenq, @NRE_SWT and @SWTrains, Virgin occasionally join in as well.

 

[brillopad]

Can you it to me?

District

Android market 'railcommute'

 

[LondonJohn]

I have to say I do love @londonmidland's twitter account. You will get a posting from someone along the lines of @londonmidland go **** yourself and the reply will be "can we help you with anything or is there a problem". Their responses to customers outbursts of frustration are just spot on.

In times of service disruption they also hit the button with personal replies wherever possible given to passengers and often staying late.

As for Southeastern, forget it as you get spambot like system generated regurgitations that will report a late running train almost station by station.

 

[dk1]

I have noticed this to, I think it just lazy TOC's copying what NRE said. I often get the same tweet from @nationalrailenq, @NRE_SWT and @SWTrains, Virgin occasionally join in as well.

They must be quick as within a minute or so.

I do like the humour though. Some recent items have been 'Cows on the line have now been moooooooooooved' & 'earlier horses on the line have been put into a neigh-bouring field' :roll:

 

[causton]

Well you can tell by the username that the NRE and the NRE_[TOCname] feeds are both unsurprisingly run by National Rail - with TOCs then having their own accounts, some are more human than others, when Ally is on @FirstCC it's very good, some people on that account just copy and paste delay info from the website and give no help though! Presume it's the same with most apart from @londonmidland which seems to be almost always staffed by people who know how to tweet and what to tweet

Was surprised that the NRE people were staffing Twitter right up until the end of Christmas eve and on the end of Christmas Day/Boxing Day!

 

[EM2]

I notice that @FirstCC seem to get more complaints when Ally isn't on. @NXEastAnglia are very good too, especially JN.

 

[sonic2009]

@londonmidland are quite good on twitter. WEDNESDAY 28th Dec they tweeted to people any services you felt were overcrowded tonight. We holding a review and looking to put more coaches on tommorow.

I responsed and said 1705 Shrewsbury was heaving, I was off to Wolverhampton, I asked them tonight and they said we've put 4 on tonight.

London Midland on twitter do seem to listen to people and offer good advice.

 

[whhistle]

Most seem to come from the same source & i get exactly the same tweet from TOC as the one from NRE.

Well you can tell by the username that the NRE and the NRE_[TOCname] feeds are both unsurprisingly run by National Rail.

Just thought I would re-quote the question and answer. Anything starting NRE is run by National Rail.

Obviously company names are run by the companies.

Noticed EMT have started using theirs a fair bit more now - well done on them. Also noticed the Virgin run stations being updated with nice new layouts. Shame other TOCs don't utilize Team Leaders more to tweet stuff out from key stations.

 

[Wiggler]

I like the virgin run station accounts twitter, they're very friendly and always update with information veryv quickly... My local station is @VTStaffordStn

 

[IanXC]

I do follow them, in fact they had a competition last week to find railway related Christmas Carols which I won.

So go on then, what was the winning Carol?

 

[scotsman]

@VTStaffordstn is a particular favourite of mine, despite me rarely using Virgin and having never been to Stafford!

@LondonMidland is also fantastic

@nameremoved: "#LondonMidland is boring."
@LondonMidland: ".@nameremoved has the court jester not reached your carriage yet?"

 

[michael769]

Highs and lows of Scotrails twitter feed

Low:

@NRES_Scotland: Train has derailed at Edinburgh All services cancelled
@Scotrail: Incident at Edinburgh delays possible
@me: @Scotrail its a derailment according to @NRES_Scotland
@Scotrail: @me no information on cause as yet there may be some delays
@me @Scotrail @NRES_Scotland So are trains running or not?
@Scotail @me There may be delays
@NRES_Scotland: @me @Scotrail All trains cancelled at Edinburgh Waverly for remainder of today due to derailed train
@Scotrail: @NRES_Scotland Nobody tell us anything

2 hours later
@Scotrail: We are awaiting confirmation of cause of incident at Edinburgh
@NRES_Scotland @Scotrail: It's a derailed train - nobody hurt

1 hour later
@Scotrail: Still awaiting confimation of issue at Edinburgh
@NRES_Scotland: @Scotrail It's a derailment - no more trains tonight

Oh dear!

Highs:

@Scotrail: Morning Tweeters sorry we are late today
@somebody: Was you train late?
@Scotrail: Ha ha I should have seen that coming - it was actually!

 

[Atishyou]

Highs and lows of Scotrails twitter feed

Low:

@NRES_Scotland: Train has derailed at Edinburgh All services cancelled
@Scotrail: Incident at Edinburgh delays possible
@me: @Scotrail its a derailment according to @NRES_Scotland
@Scotrail: @me no information on cause as yet there may be some delays
@me @Scotrail @NRES_Scotland So are trains running or not?
@Scotail @me There may be delays
@NRES_Scotland: @me @Scotrail All trains cancelled at Edinburgh Waverly for remainder of today due to derailed train
@Scotrail: @NRES_Scotland Nobody tell us anything

2 hours later
@Scotrail: We are awaiting confirmation of cause of incident at Edinburgh
@NRES_Scotland @Scotrail: It's a derailed train - nobody hurt

1 hour later
@Scotrail: Still awaiting confimation of issue at Edinburgh
@NRES_Scotland: @Scotrail It's a derailment - no more trains tonight

Oh dear!

Highs:

@Scotrail: Morning Tweeters sorry we are late today
@somebody: Was you train late?
@Scotrail: Ha ha I should have seen that coming - it was actually!

Is that ScotRail's or National Rail's ScotRail account?

I've had a look on Twitter and can't find an account for @NRES_Scotland...

Also, why is it a 'low' that an account (not sure which one it is - I presume this depends on your response to my first question) that you were told what the problem was by one of the accounts you've pasted in?

 

[Lrd]

Is that ScotRail's or National Rail's ScotRail account?

I've had a look on Twitter and can't find an account for @NRES_Scotland...

http://twitter.com/#!/NRE_scotrail

 

[Atishyou]

http://twitter.com/#!/NRE_scotrail

I'm aware of that account, just not the @NRES_Scotland one posted by michael769

As more than one TOC run in Scotland, his post implies it's a 'Country' specific account created by NRES, whereas as far as I can see, they have TOC specific ones and not location or Country based ones.

 

[Lrd]

I'm aware of that account, just not the @NRES_Scotland one posted by michael769

As more than one TOC run in Scotland, his post implies it's a 'Country' specific account created by NRES, whereas as far as I can see, they have TOC specific ones and not location or Country based ones.

Oh I see, didn't release he mentioned them like that.

Maybe he is getting confused with @NetworkRailScot ?

 

[michael769]

Maybe he is getting confused with @NetworkRailScot ?

Nope I just got NRE_Scotland confused with the commonly used shorthand of NRES.

Replacing NRES_Scotland with NRE_Scotland should make it more sense.

But in case it does not - I was suggesting @Scotrail's low point was when seemingly everyone knew about the derailment except for Scotrail's call centre and twitterer who still didn't know what the "incident under investigation" was until close to 4 hours after it had all kicked off. Even though NRE_Scotland tweeted the details at them several times.

 

[Lrd]

Nope I just got NRE_Scotland confused with the commonly used shorthand of NRES.

Replacing NRES_Scotland with NRE_Scotland should make it more sense.

But in case it does not - I was suggesting @Scotrail's low point was when seemingly everyone knew about the derailment except for Scotrail's call centre and twitterer who still didn't know what the "incident under investigation" was until close to 4 hours after it had all kicked off. Even though NRE_Scotland tweeted the details at them several times.

I understood what you were getting at. Not entirely sure what Atishyou is getting at, I was just making some suggestions until you came along and clarified.