Chiltern Railways impress with their use of Twitter
A couple of times I have voiced on Twitter my frustration with the arm rests on Chiltern trains. It hadn’t occured to me that the company might be listening.
Since nothing happened the first time I tweeted, I suspect that Chiltern were not using Twitter then. However, when I tweeted again recently…
“I’ve asked before & I’ll ask again: whose stupid idea was it to put a fixed, redundant arm on the window side of Chiltern Train seats? Grr.”
they were quick to respond:
“@citizensheep I’ll find out. Do you have a direct email address so I can get an answer for you?”
Wow. I felt quite ashamed by the tone of my tweet, and I made that clear in our subsequent email exchange. I was briefly in contact with Emma, who was personal, friendly and helpful; she offered to take my enquiries to colleagues and promised to keep me informed, even though it could take a while.
Today I got another email from Emma, with a helpful response about arm rests:
“This was standard on the refurbished fleet. The twin seats have three arm rests, one at each end, and one between the two seats. I believe that the aisle-side arm rest and the central arm rest are moveable to allow for easy seat access for people of reduced mobility, or those who are of a slightly larger disposition. The window-side arm rests are fixed as this is not a requirement in this position. Essentially, it is a copy of the original train seating – we have not changed it, but your comments about the fixed arm rests have been noted by our engineering department.” [my bold]
So, Chiltern Railways, today you win at communication. 
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