After months of abysmal publicity regarding Southern's ongoing dispute with their drivers, there might be a light at the end of the (train) tunnel. That light's name is Eddie.
Eddie is 15 years old and doing some work experience at Southern's head office. The people in charge decided to let him handle the company Twitter account for a few hours. They probably thought, "well he can't make things any worse for us". This is objectively true.
Hi, Eddie here! Here on Work Experience and ready to answer your questions! 😊
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017
The public leapt on the tweet and started to ask Eddie all sorts of questions (very few of them train related).
As you can see, Eddie batted back such random queries with ease.
100 duck-sized horses. A horse-sized duck would be pretty scary! You? ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017
He helped one man answer the forever important dinner conundrum.
It has to be the chicken fajitas 😉 ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017
He might not have got the Monty Python reference but this question was deftly handled, with the power of youth (AKA Google).
Hi, for an unladen swallow, it is 50-65mph.. #google ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017
Then there was this shocking reveal.
Hi, I'm enjoying it here, and I am getting a lot of good experience working so it's all good :). ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017
Once in a while, Eddie even proved his worth with train related nous.
Hi Max, as you have an off-peak ticket, you can stop anywhere between Victoria and Gatwick. ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017
Finally, there was this masterpiece.
I'm sorry. I never get a chance to watch Channel 4 news. ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017
Eddie left after a couple of hours, leaving Southern's Twitter feed to return to its usual service: telling people where to apply for refunds due to cancelled trains. But could this just be the start of Eddiemania?
Thanks for all the questions today, it's been... interesting 😂. I'll be on same time tomorrow!! Get all your questions ready! ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017