Great Western Coffee Shop

Now that it seems impossible to contact the railways for information by phone, GWR claim they reply to questions on their Twitter account. However, I almost never get an answer to a travel query. I can see that some people do. Does anyone else have the same problem with them?

The service has gone downhill recently without doubt - tends to be cut/paste answers and anything remotely critical or asking "tricky" questions tends to be ignored whereas before there was at least an attempt at an answer.

I find National Rail's app most useful and user friendly

At times that can be so busy that they miss things, and the cynic would suggest that the have a "too difficult" button which they can press to allow them to overlook some questions.   However, I have found Twitter and Facebook generally good at providing an initial response, less so with follow up questions if the initial response answered a slightly different point to that asked.

Phone numbers are now harder to locate, but these are available, even if not on too many web front pages:
03457 484950 - National Rail Enquiries
03457 000125 - GWR Customer Support

0800 405040 - British Transport Police
0345 711 4141 - Network Rail Emergency number


Try also the TransWilts app (for iPhone or Android, free download, also http://www.transwilts.org/app ) which is more finely tuned for TransWilts and provides somewhat deeper current running data.

Personally, at least in my experience, the replies have got worse since Ollie (who I believe is a member on this forum) left!

Without tempting fate, I have always had a reply to my tweets

We would often get on a HST starting at Taunton (after cricket) and the buffet would be closed, a quick tweet later and the shutters are coming up with the member of staff grumbling that they had hoped to not open until the train arrive at Temple Meads

IIRC BR terms and conditions are still in force that insist all buffet staff have only 50% or less actual passenger contact time.  Traditionally, all staff handovers also require at least an hour for stocktaking by the off-going crew, and the oncoming crew are allowed another hour to double check this preceding stocktake.

This explains the lack of service within a 60 mile radius of New St in BR days, because another rule is that all staff changeovers must happen at the time when the passenger loads are at their maximum.

Paul   ;D

In my observations replies have gone from clearly personal to near enough all cut and paste jobs.

There's an element of that being a product of volume.  Users of a forum such as ours are naturally early adopters of newfangled things like Twitter - we were there early on - and at that point it was smaller and much more personal.  But as things grow, it's hard for it to remain that personal.    I also bear in mind the "80 20" rule - or the "90 10" rule - were 90% of the questions are asking about 10% of the topics and it's a self defence for the team to have their standard texts to send back quickly.  Means they can help more people in a certain amount of time.

Members may recall I experimented with a "talk to me" service here on the forum - in fact there's still a left-over button on the top of our pages.  And even with a handful of days, I had a window of texts I could quickly cut and paste rather that writing the same thing, complete with smelling mistakes, time and again.    The "trick" is to identify where such text might need a word or two changing, and the 10% or 20% of responses where it is not appropriate.

On the rare occasions I use the current social media team, I find they do a good job - not like it used to be, of course, Ollie  :) - but certainly personal.  But then I doubt that the things I bring up give any semblance of being in the 90%, and it's possible too that I'm a marked man ...

Personally (and its probably because I've reached a certain age) I really resent having to sign up to a third party to get more accurate and recent information. I don't want to hand over all my data to Twitter but it does seem the that GWR prioritises it over the website.

Personally I think there should be some sort of public information legislation/guidelines for certain types of companies (Travel, Power, Water etc) that means you don't have to hand over personal data to get information.

GWR could provide a Twitter feed on or via the from page of their website - or indeed via any other page on their site.  It wouldn't be interactive - read only and the same for all visitors to the page - but it would avoid the need for customers (and other interested parties) to be able to read the public feed without signing up. 

I fear I have been doing too much redesign of the GWR website over the last 12 hours and they have limited window space ... all too easy to add so much you drown out many elements.

I'm inclined to agree with Sixty3Closure.

Also, Twitter is an awful way of trying to convey information about train services.

I was looking at the Twitter streams from our two local bus companies yesterday. 

Thamesdown transport's twitter stream was very useful. 

But Stagecoach's was very difficult to use.  The reason was that Stagecoach had a single twitter stream for the whole of Bristol, Swindon, Gloucester etc and even with hashtags for the localities it was very difficult to find what you were looking for. Just setting up a separate twitter account for each major centre would have made a tremendous difference.

Not sure how you would apply the same to GWR though as many of the enquiries do not relate to a place.

Stagecoach communication was very poor here as well in my opinion, compared to First and Go Ahead communication.

An example of a twitter feed feeding a front page ... I used to do it too when I looked after the local Chamber of Commerce page, and our Well House staff page has multiple twitter feeds which used to keep us alert in some areas.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/swrugby.jpg)

Stagecoach south west has no Facebook coverage, and has now got a suspended Twitter. I’m told they have comprehensive service updates on their website. However the service updates page isn’t on their mobile browser site!

Seems to be working now.

Due to my past with the Twitter account I'll refrain from commenting on its current service [as] I've tried to avoid looking at Twitter these days.

In regard to feed on the website though, I think this is closest to what you're thinking of https://www.gwr.com/travel-updates/check-your-journey

Edited to add the [as] so it reads a bit better.. :)

That's a telling comment nonetheless.

In the words of Alison Krauss (or Ronan Keating if you prefer),  "You say it best, when you say nothing at all."  :P

Are RSS feeds still a thing?

I only follow about a dozen Twitter accounts and most of them are transport related but I still struggle to find the useful information even in that limited number. Possibly because I'm a very reluctant user and my two followers appear to be cats I've never really learned how to use it but it doesn't seem a great platform for pushing information. Asking questions yes, but actually finding out what's happening less so.

I don't know where the social media team sit but I suspect its quite hard to 'hook' them into the operational process so they probably don't have the information they need.

Did I read somewhere Ollie has a new role as a driver? Is it for GWR?

No, it's more that I've not really looked at it much so couldn't give an opinion as to whether the service it gives has changed since I left it back in December 2016.


Yes and yes, done a lot of training and I qualified last Tuesday.

Well done Ollie!

Soon to be Ollie on the OHLE then ?

Most of the Twitter stuff is done in house by the GWR team, based in Milford House, so pretty well located to get the information they need! The overflow stuff is handled by Capita, so not so on their part.

That’s what I thought as most of the time the responses you get are well informed that would imply they are employees of GWR. I guess Capita handle out of hours responses.

If you look at their specific account, rather than your twitter feed, their is an option to filter 'tweets' from 'tweets & replies' - so you get just their tweets, rather than any replies to others. Those should contain info they are tweeting out, rather than chat & answers to others. You can easily toggle between the two.