Left Hand, Right Hand

Arriva Trains Wales sell a ticket called the Valley Lines Day Explorer and Night Rider. For just £11.00, it which offers 'unlimited travel' by train and Stagecoach bus in the area shown.

I decided to buy one of these yesterday, and spend a day filling in some gaps on my copy of Stuart Baker's Rail Atlas: Great Britain and Ireland. Since it's an off-peak ticket, I knew that I could expect a time restriction on it. I got to the ticket office in Aberdare in time for the 0852 train and asked for a Day Explorer ticket. The lady behind the counter told me that she couldn't sell me the ticket until 0930. She suggested that I had a word with the conductor, as he might not be aware of the restrictions.

Instead, I headed for Aberdare Library, where a quick search online turned up Arriva's own Terms and Conditions for the offer:

I printed this page off (eventually!) and stuck it in my pocket. Armed with this information, I returned to the ticket office. By now I was too late to have caught the 0922 train – for which, according to this, the ticket would have been valid. However, even after I'd showed the printout to the lady behind the glass, she still maintained that 'they'd been told' that 0930 is the cut-off point. When I mentioned it to a friend of mine, he thought it used to be 0930, but it had changed a couple of years ago. He added, quite reasonably in my opinion, that 0900 would be a better cut-off point. Most people are in work by that time, so the peak demand has subsided.

(Incidentally, it would be a much better deal if Cardiff Bus and First Cymru got involved as well. Stagecoach only cover the central and eastern portions of the Valleys; First Cymru run throughout Bridgend County Borough, and Cardiff Bus serve Cardiff and parts of the Vale of Glamorgan. It might be more difficult to reconcile the administration, and would probably add to the cost of the ticket, but it would offer a much wider scope for people to explore the area.)

My friend told me that he carries the 'small print' with him whenever he plans to take advantage of a special ticket deal. Almost invariably, he comes up against a conductor who hasn't been 'read in to the program', as the CIA would say, and has to argue the toss on the train in the middle of the journey.

I've got one of Arriva Trains Wales' Comments and Complaints forms at home. I think I'll fill it in and send it to them, enclosing my ticket and a copy of the screen dump I've reproduced here. With any luck, they might send me a voucher for another day out.

I spent a long time in retail, where it seemed that the Terms and Conditions of our offers altered pretty much daily (at least!) I know how frustrating it can be for staff and customers alike to have to argue over the small print. Surely it's not beyond the wit of man for Arriva Trains Wales to issue updated guidelines to their station staff and train crew. It's high time the Right Hand knew what the Left Hand was doing, and vice versa.