I Don't Like Thursdays

For some unexplained reason, Arriva Trains Wales always manages to unleash chaos on Thursdays. I noticed this when I was working in Cardiff, about fifteen years ago. Platform 6 at Cardiff Central on Thursday evenings would be a free-for-all, with trains coming in late, going off late, running out of sequence, or not turning up entirely. After a few months I used to finish work and go for a pint, instead of fighting through the scrum, and catch a later train.

Yesterday I was in Cardiff, and decided to stay late in town to check out a couple of new places which have opened. I don't think it had occurred to me that it was Thursday until I arrived at the station, when all Hell broke loose as usual.

Here's the text of a compensation claim I've just submitted to ATW via their website. I've learned an important lesson this week: Never go anywhere by train on a Thursday. Or a weekend. Or pretty much any time in the next ten years, until the upgrade is complete and services are running normally. (Whatever that means.)

Re: 2241 Cardiff Central - Aberdare, 6 October 2016.
Another Thursday, another Arriva Trains Wales screw-up.

The above service did not run. When I arrived at the station just after 2230, it was not even listed on the departure screen. There was no further information anywhere. The sole (and very busy) platform crew member told me there was a replacement bus service in operation from Pontypridd. This was certainly not notified to passengers via posters on Platform 6, advertised on the departure boards, or announced over the tannoy.

As a result I caught the 2246 Treherbert service, which left Cardiff Central nine minutes late. When I asked the conductor about the change of plan, he told me that posters were available, notifying us of the scheduled disruption. On the contrary, the only poster I saw at Aberdare advised a replacement bus service this coming weekend – there was no mention of any planned late-night disruption. During the journey the announcement was barely audible and most people would have been lucky to hear it.

On arriving at Pontypridd at approx 2330, about a dozen of us made our way to the station forecourt. A young PCSO (South Wales or BTP, I'm not sure) told us that the bus had already left – presumably empty. I find it difficult to believe that in the year 2016, when even my mother has a mobile phone, that your train crew, your base, and the operators of the bus were unable to communicate with each other and co-ordinate services to take account of the delay.

The PCSO contacted your base, and was told that a fresh bus would be provided, from Cardiff. He couldn't give us a time. Some people decided to share a taxi, while others rang relatives for a lift. My friend and I decided to go to the pub opposite and watch for the bus. Just after midnight a bus operated by NAT pulled in. We and the remaining passengers tried to board, but the driver told us – extremely rudely – that he was terminating at Pontypridd.

With no means of communicating with your company – by now, the PCSO had presumably gone off-duty – the four of us decided to share a taxi. After some haggling with the driver, we agreed a fare of £20.00 'off the meter'. We eventually arrived in Aberdare at exactly 0045. (The church clock was chiming the three-quarter as we were paying the driver.) We were therefore over an hour late reaching our destination. Had we chosen to wait for the bus, we would doubtless have arrived even later – if at all.

I have been looking at your website this morning, and while it mentions 'Amended Arriva Trains Wales service from Monday 3 to Friday 7 October', no further details are available. I am fortunate in that I am in a position to look at your website. Many of your passengers – particularly the older generation – do not use the Internet, and rely solely on the published information at the platforms. Those of us who use the trains regularly know the timetables, and so we stroll straight on board without turning to check out the posters anyway.

On the other hand, my friend had travelled back from Bristol, changing trains at Cardiff Central without going through the ticket barriers. He therefore would have been nowhere near any posters which may or may not have been displayed in the station concourse.

Furthermore, neither of us are Welsh speakers, so we had no way of knowing whether the headword on the display screen meant 'Departures' or 'Arrivals'. While I applaud your commitment to the Welsh language, some seventy per cent of the people in Wales would have been unable to understand the message. At this time of year, especially, Cardiff and the Valley Lines are busy with students from all over the world, settling in to their new homes. I doubt very much whether someone from Brazil, or Nigeria, or South Korea, or Bangladesh, would make much sense of the word Gwyriadau. (I've looked it up online for the purposes of this email.)

There was a time, not very long ago, when the timetables for key stations were displayed on billboards on the platform. They seem to have vanished. The tannoy announcement failed to mention Aberdare at all, much less any replacement bus service, as previously noted.

Had I been travelling alone, this would have cost me at least twenty pounds out of my own pocket. However, as we were able to split the fare between us, I am prepared to accept the full value of my ticket as compensation.