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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  1. Abolish counter-productive ‘quiet’ carriages
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  3. Since using Twitter…

There are always those who ignore the rules, which only serves to make other people indignant and angry. And let’s face it, few people are going to ask a hooded youth to turn his music down.

I avoid quiet coaches now because I’m happier dealing with legitimate noise than feeling like someone is selfishly invading my space.

Simply sticking a sign on the window (which actually is surprisingly easy to miss) isn’t going to deter people who don’t give a toss. Making the place feel more subdued – dim the lights, put curtains on the windows – would help.

And beds. Beds would be great.

But as it stands, doing away with the quiet rule altogether would make journeys in those carriages a lot more tolerable.

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