Southern Rail puts work experience schoolboy in charge of its Twitter with hilarious results

Eddie has garnered widespread praise for his performance after a series of witty and light-hearted responses

Almost all of Southern Rail's major services will be disrupted, and most of them cancelled entirely (EPA)

Southern Rail apparently put a 15-year-old on work experience in charge of its Twitter account on Tuesday, and he instantly endeared himself to the network’s long-suffering passengers.

The task may have seemed an unenviable one, given the torrent of anger that under-fire Southern often faces on social media.

But after a series of witty and light-hearted responses, the teenager, known only as “Eddie”, garnered widespread praise for his performance.

Stepping into the breach just one day after Southern staff walked out in the latest of a series of strikes, Eddie nonchalantly announced his arrival with “Hi, Eddie here! Here on Work Experience and ready to answer your questions! :)"

The laid-back opener drew a flurry of increasingly bizarre questions which the teen batted off with aplomb.

“Would you rather fight 1 horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses?” asked Adam Winstone, to which Eddie replied: “100 duck-sized horses. A horse-sized duck would be pretty scary! You? ^Eddie”

Duncan Ingrim chimed in with: “Hey Eddie, do you think Jon Snow is going to meet Daenerys and Tyrion and rule Westeros?”

Eddie’s quick-witted response: “I'm sorry. I never get a chance to watch Channel 4 news. ^Eddie”

Tom Cox had another classic "would you rather" conundrum: “URGENT QUESTION - Eddie, would you rather have rollerblades for feet or chopsticks for hands for the rest of your life?

The obvious answer, of course, was rollerblades.

Rahul Desai threw out a potential banana skin for the youngster, requesting his opinion on rail nationalisation. Eddie wisely swerved the question.

Perhaps the tweet that drew the most praise was his response to the burning question of whether there would ever be a man who could swim faster than a shark.

“Hi, I don't think so but you never know there could be a girl that can,” Eddie responded, prompting replies of “great work Eddie” and “ I love you”.

Eddie’s performance was so assured that he was offered further work experience by ScotRail, and also spawned the hashtag #askeddie.

The British Transport Police were so impressed that they tweeted: “We think Eddie deserves a permanent position! He is smashing it!”

One Twitter user noted: “I've never seen so much positivity on the @SouthernRailUK Twitter feed.”

Eddie confirmed he would return on Wednesday but, at the time of writing, had yet to take the reins.

This morning the @Southern feed was filled with somewhat more prosaic 140-character dispatches: “Due to a fault with the signalling system at #Dorking, services are subject to delays running through this station".