I couldn’t help but chuckle yesterday when reading an ATOC press release announcing the launch of the new snow disruption information line for rail passengers.
The announcement had come after train operating
companies came under fire due to the National Rail Enquires website crashing because of the volume of passengers using it.
Some criticism had been quite direct, with the chief
executive of Passenger Focus, Anthony Smith, saying that
he was disappointed about the site crashing.
However it was the first line of ATOC’s statement which really caught my eye: “National Rail Enquiries, run by and
paid for by train companies…”.
I couldn’t help but feel that, far from being apologetic for causing inconvenience to passengers, ATOC was implying that just because it owns it the site, that it was no concern of passengers if it went down.
Perhaps their statement should have read something like: “We are extremely sorry for any inconvenience caused and have remedied the situation …”
