That may be too noisy though. So they have also set up separate Twitter accounts for each franchise. So for Scots, the most important one to follow would be @NRE_ScotRail for ScotRail, followed by perhaps @NRE_XC for Cross Country and @NRE_NXEastCoast for National Express East Coast.

It’s certainly an interesting way of letting people know about service disruptions while on the move. But even these franchise-specific Twitter streams are rather noisy compared with the fine SMS alerts service which ScotRail have been offering for years. The SMS service automatically alerts you to disruptions that affect your journey only. You can choose a route and which times and days concern you. This service is already totally free, so it’s difficult to see what advantage the Twitter feeds bring to commuters.

Nonetheless, it is yet another service to add to the seemingly neverending list of things that Twitter can be useful for. Who could have thought that when they first logged in to Twitter years ago and was asked the question, “What are you doing?”

National Rail Enquiries does have a bit of bridge-building to do. Earlier this year, they forced the makers of the popular iPhone application MyRailLite to stop their service. This was seemingly because National Rail Enquiries saw a money-making opportunity. While MyRailLite was free, the new official application costs £4.99 to do much the same thing.

However, I must say that as a user of the official National Rail Enquiries iPhone app, I am very happy with what it can do, though I don’t know how it compares to MyRailLite.

I also note that National Rail Enquiries are inviting us to “become a fan” of them on Facebook. Hands up, any takers?