CrossCountry Trains V Trainspotters: The Twitter Showdown

NoOnesFool · 5 Jan 2020

An interesting development on Twitter, a train spotter asked them to find out what unit number of a train he was on. CrossCountry declined to provide this information, stating security reasons. Furious spotters were shocked at this, starting a Twitter trend #donttellcrosscountry. CrossCountry later deleted the initial tweet.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JackPGBRf/status/1212697938838872064

Happy new year
@CrossCountryUK

. This morning I travelled on 1S29 Leeds - Glasgow from Edinburgh, You don’t happen to have the Voyager number on that? The set will be on 1V62 Glasgow - Penzance just now. Many thanks.

RailUK Forums

Ianno87 · 5 Jan 2020

Whilst I'm dubious about whether this is really a "security" issue, the primary purpose of TOC Twitter accounts is to give advice and assistance to passengers or prospective passengers, not to help people trainspot*. XC are fully in their rights to choose what information to disclose, and how to use their social media resources.

*If you want a number, you have to see it for yourself, under my "rules".

PG · 5 Jan 2020

Oh yeah obviously a security risk when anyone on-board who logs in to Wi-Fi will be shown the unit number on the landing page!

NoOnesFool · 5 Jan 2020

Several separate threads have developed:-

Hey
@CrossCountryUK
I don't want to start a panic but I saw this security breach last summer at Leicester, This train was clearly displaying a number on the front. Can anyone confirm if 1xxxxx was causing a security breach?

nlogax · 5 Jan 2020

CrossCountry understandably want to prioritise their Twitter responses for those passengers genuinely needing help. Like it or not they're not there for spotters. Handling of this specific question may have been a bit off but that general approach seems reasonable to me.

dk1 · 5 Jan 2020

To be fair some of these spotters are a pain and cannot see it. Twitter guys have far more to do especially during disruption. They should nip it in the bud.

Bletchleyite · 5 Jan 2020

nlogax said:
CrossCountry understandably want to prioritise their Twitter responses for those passengers genuinely needing help. Like it or not they're not there for spotters. Handling of this specific question may have been a bit off but that general approach seems reasonable to me.

I would agree that they are within their rights not to field questions for non-passengers or for subjects of conversation not related to being a passenger (e.g. unit numbers). However that is not a reason to lie, and I get quite irritated when "security" is used to shut people down over things that have nothing to do with the subject.

The correct reply was "I'm afraid it is company policy that we do not answer such queries on Twitter", or if it was a one off due to e.g. disruption "I'm afraid we are too busy to reply to questions like this at the moment". Nothing more, nothing less.

Darandio · 5 Jan 2020

NoOnesFool said:
Furious spotters were shocked at this, starting a Twitter trend #donttellcrosscountry.

There is a Daily Mail headline if ever I saw one. Furious? Not really, a load of people had some fun finding weird and wonderful ways to post pictures with obscured numbers.

nlogax · 5 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
The correct reply was "I'm afraid it is company policy that we do not answer such queries on Twitter", or if it was a one off due to e.g. disruption "I'm afraid we are too busy to reply to questions like this at the moment". Nothing more, nothing less.

A bit of consistency in replies wouldn't go amiss, sure. Something like this would hopefully stop people asking TOCs for numbers.

Having read a couple of the threads in play, I find myself far more irritated by one or two entitled Twitter morons banging on about CrossCountry just being 'lazy'.

Aictos · 5 Jan 2020

Ianno87 said:
Whilst I'm dubious about whether this is really a "security" issue, the primary purpose of TOC Twitter accounts is to give advice and assistance to passengers or prospective passengers, not to help people trainspot*. XC are fully in their rights to choose what information to disclose, and how to use their social media resources.

*If you want a number, you have to see it for yourself, under my "rules".

I quite agree, for example when I use XC on a Class 170 route I tend to ask where 1st is in direction of travel and if it’s a 3 or 2 car.

I don’t really care what the unit number is as they have more important stuff to do then help people train spot...

DarloRich · 5 Jan 2020

I saw this the other day. Total headloss from the spotter community. I am with xc. It isnt the job of thier passenger focused help channel to do a spotters job for them.

Didnt write the numbet in your little book? Then you didnt see it! Try another day.

NoMorePacers · 5 Jan 2020

The only thing this has done is spawned a bunch of boring, repetitive, unfunny "memes" from spotters on the Internet.

Irrelevant story in my opinion.

Peter C · 5 Jan 2020

I fully understand that TOCs are not here online to help trainspotters find specific units every day, but saying a unit number can't be disclosed due to that being a security risk is a bit much. I can ask on here for that information (and I understand that the forums aren't always a role model).

DarloRich said:
I saw this the other day. Total headloss from the spotter community. I am with xc. It isnt the job of thier passenger focused help channel to do a spotters job for them.

Didnt write the numbet in your little book? Then you didnt see it! Try another day.

I'd agree with you there. Why the trainspotters are up in arms over this I don't know. They could always ask on the forums

<devil's advocate>But LNER do share allocations for 91119 reularly</Devil's advocate>

-Peter

Mag_seven · 5 Jan 2020

Maybe the forum twitter account (@RailUKForums) could tweet @JackPGBRf and inform him of the forum's very own TOPS request thread?

https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ns-traction-etc-instructions-in-post-2.86602/

hwl · 5 Jan 2020

One simple solution to this for XC would be to put the numbers on the units in more visible places then no one would have to ask them on twitter...

Peter C · 5 Jan 2020

Mag_seven said:
Maybe the forum twitter account could tweet @JackPGBRf and inform him of the forum's very own TOPS request thread?

https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ns-traction-etc-instructions-in-post-2.86602/

They could. That way he would have started up a trainspotter community joke for 2020 and got the info he wanted

-Peter

Not being sarcastic.

Bletchleyite · 5 Jan 2020

DarloRich said:
I saw this the other day. Total headloss from the spotter community. I am with xc. It isnt the job of thier passenger focused help channel to do a spotters job for them.

I completely agree but telling lies as a reason not to give the information is deplorable. The real reason why should be given, which is almost certainly simply a policy decision that it is not a financially sensible use of a resource which costs money.

Peter C · 5 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
I completely agree but telling lies as a reason not to give the information is deplorable. The real reason why should be given, which is almost certainly simply a policy decision that it is not a financially sensible use of a resource which costs money.

I know it isn't directly related to XC but Network Rail have started informing passengers of disruption reasons at length with good descriptions/diagrams for a while now on Twitter.* The TOCs often give real reasons (e.g. "An issue with the 3rd rail means a train cannot move" - good enough, better than "train don't go") but then NR go and add many more tweets of explanation at the end of the disruption/next day.

-Peter

EDIT: Forgot to say *"Which shows giving the real reason and passengers accepting it can happen"

route101 · 5 Jan 2020

dk1 said:
To be fair some of these spotters are a pain and cannot see it. Twitter guys have far more to do especially during disruption. They should nip it in the bud.

Theres a guy who bugs GWR , like he wanted reassurance that his seat was to face forwards or if his trip to Scotland will feature a XC HST.
Fair enough if he has learning needs but theres a line to the amount of things you can ask .

DarloRich · 5 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
I completely agree but telling lies as a reason not to give the information is deplorable. The real reason why should be given, which is almost certainly simply a policy decision that it is not a financially sensible use of a resource which costs money.

Agreed. Someone made a balls up. They should have just said it was against corporate social media policy.

Camden · 5 Jan 2020

Re workloads, CrossCountry could simply have ignored the enquiry.

I've seen many TOCs ignore many legitimate enquiries, let alone ones that may be legitimately ignorable.

I think it does shine a light on the quality of "customer service" often offered out to the public.

theironroad · 5 Jan 2020

route101 said:
Theres a guy who bugs GWR , like he wanted reassurance that his seat was to face forwards or if his trip to Scotland will feature a XC HST.
Fair enough if he has learning needs but theres a line to the amount of things you can ask .

Depends on what you mean by 'bug gwr' I'd say it's a fair enough question as seat reservations do go wrong and tbf I'd far rather be on a hst than cramped voyager. Quite twhy they'd be asking gwr is a bit odd.

theironroad · 5 Jan 2020

hwl said:
One simple solution to this for XC would be to put the numbers on the units in more visible places then no one would have to ask them on twitter...

Really?

TOCs should be designing their livery and the font size of unit numbers to please the spotting community?

I'm not an number collecting enthusiast but surely part of the hobby is going to stations or sites and seeing the things and taking the lottery of what may turn up on the day.

Darandio · 5 Jan 2020

route101 said:
Theres a guy who bugs GWR , like he wanted reassurance that his seat was to face forwards or if his trip to Scotland will feature a XC HST.
Fair enough if he has learning needs but theres a line to the amount of things you can ask .

From very similar postings, that actually sounds very much like a member here.

TT-ONR-NRN · 5 Jan 2020

Darandio said:
From very similar postings, that actually sounds very much like a member here.

Indeed on Friday I did call someone out (who I know is a forum member) for sending like twelve flipping messages to Great Western Railway and politely reminded them that they were very busy people (mainly because I genuinely was stuck somewhere and wanted a simple answer to my own ONE tweet and my time was being wasted)

Somehow in this case Great Western Railway turned on the defence against me saying that that was what they were here for. Shocked, I just said fine apologised and shut up, but seriously? Responding to twelve plus messages from a trainspotter who is talking about their happiness at taking a certain route because of disruption or their worry about having to go backwards is rather annoying when I’m stuck at an unmanned station with no working PIS and RTT/NREnq are telling me wrong!?

Mountain Man · 5 Jan 2020

nlogax said:
CrossCountry understandably want to prioritise their Twitter responses for those passengers genuinely needing help. Like it or not they're not there for spotters. Handling of this specific question may have been a bit off but that general approach seems reasonable to me.

I agree with that, but I don't think Cross Country helped themselves by keeping changing their reasoning. It was a bit silly, they clearly thought the 1st answer would stop the discussion but it just caused more issues.

None of this surprises me as I've found the Cross Country twitter the worst TOC aside from Northern

Bantamzen · 5 Jan 2020

DarloRich said:
I saw this the other day. Total headloss from the spotter community. I am with xc. It isnt the job of thier passenger focused help channel to do a spotters job for them.

Didnt write the numbet in your little book? Then you didnt see it! Try another day.

This, this, and thrice this. Social media teams are not there to pander to the enthusiast community's every whim. If you want to know if your train is running, or if a ticket is valid then they should help. If you are wanting to know unit numbers in advance then they should tell you in no uncertain terms to do one. And as for people getting upset about the reason given, remember these people may not be enthusiasts, just people doing their job. They probably just thought it sounded official in order to stop anyone else asking. There's really no need for all the anger about it.

Master29 · 5 Jan 2020

I don't see an issue either way, and hardly worthy of involving MI5 as some members seem to be indicating. Why the obsession with security and compared to the other pointless rubbish they get asked or thrown at them on twitter it hardly constitutes a major security risk.

I once asked Virgin East Coast info about Azuma seating and more on their facebook page and they gave everything fine. Sounds a big deal over nothing.

PR1Berske · 5 Jan 2020

TOC Twitter accounts are to help the general public. Spotters don't own the right to demand unit numbers from customer service accounts, and most of them know this. We've said enough times on this forum that certain sections of the spotter community can be far too demanding and entitled.

Unit numbers are to be spotted, not tweeted for, perhaps we can say.

Darandio · 5 Jan 2020

Master29 said:
I don't see an issue either way, and hardly worthy of involving MI5 as some members seem to be indicating. Why the obsession with security and compared to the other pointless rubbish they get asked or thrown at them on twitter it hardly constitutes a major security risk.

I once asked Virgin East Coast info about Azuma seating and more on their facebook page and they gave everything fine. Sounds a big deal over nothing.

Well quite. But when you have a thread title such as 'Crosscountry Trains v Trainspotters: The Twitter Showdown' and the use of 'Furious Trainspotters' in the initial post, it seems people here have been sucked in as well and believe there was some sort of Twitter uprising. Their wasn't.

CrossCountry Trains V Trainspotters: The Twitter Showdown

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