SWINDON, England — Andrew Couch spends much of his work day apologizing, usually on Twitter, and this turns out to be more complicated than it sounds. Simply typing “I’m sorry” over and over again won’t do.

“You can’t repeat yourself,” said Mr. Couch, part of the social media team for the Great Western Railway, one of the United Kingdom’s largest train companies. “Sometimes you say, ‘I’m sorry we’ve done this.’ Or ‘Apologies for this.’ Or ‘I’m sorry that this happened.’ You’ve got to understand the situation and you need to mix it up.”

This is the Age of Sorry for nearly every train company in Britain.

In May, Network Rail, which owns the country’s entire rail infrastructure, unveiled its twice-a-year revision to daily timetables. Because of new connections and services, there were some four million changes, about seven times the usual number. The result was a shambles.