In My Opinion

I received an email this morning from the Office of Rail and Road. They were following up my 'recent'(-ish) complaint against Arriva Trains Wales (see I Don't Like Thursdays and We Apologise For the Late Running of This Refund). The eight-week time lag between action and reaction seems to be the new industry benchmark, judging from today's date.

Anyway, the ORR sent me a little market research survey to fill in, rating my experience of dealing with Arriva following the Replacement Bus Service fuck-up in early  October. You won't be surprised to learn that I rated them pretty poorly overall.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

On 3 January, I went to Aberdare station at the crack of dawn on a bitterly cold morning to single-handedly promote Action for Rail Day. (Two of the lads I'd invited to join me were working that day; the other was laid up with gastric flu.) It was part of an ongoing campaign organised by the TUC, and supported by a couple of dozen trades unions, smaller political parties, charities, environmental bodies, pressure groups, and so forth. The latest wildcat attack was timed to coincide with the fare increases, which came to effect that day. A day return from Aberdare to Cardiff now costs £8.00.

I was armed with 200 pre-paid postcards for people to fill in and send to their MP. I walked the length of the 0652 train – two coaches – putting cards on empty seats and handing them to the few unfortunate souls who were working the early shift. Most people seemed quite enthusiastic, in fairness.

My friend Clive, who's stood as a Communist candidate in the council elections a couple of times, had seen the event listed on Aberdare Online, so he'd made his way to town early. He took about a dozen cards from me to hand out.

I walked around town for a little while, trying to find somewhere warm to kill twenty minutes until the next train came in. I sent a Tweet saying that the first wave of cards were in place, but didn't take any photos for the Instagram feed – it was much too dark by the station entrance.

After buying a paper, I made my way back just as the 0722 departure pulled in. I did the same thing, starting at one end and making my way through, explaining at intervals to the passengers what the whole day was about. Unfortunately, I had to dive off the train before it left, so I gave the rest of the cards (twenty or so) to an anarchist pal of mine who works in Cardiff. He promised to hand them out further along the journey.

The cafe near the station was open, so I had a cup of hot chocolate, and then made my way to Wetherspoon for breakfast. I logged onto Facebook, and a couple of my friends had already picked up their cards further down the valley. If I'd asked for double the number of cards, and had a couple more bodies on the day, I think we could have hit the next two commuter trains as well and really made an impact. Maybe next time.

But 3 January wasn't plain sailing for everyone else, either. Overrunning engineering work, replacement bus services, frozen points, numerous mechanical failures and various other factors meant that the South Wales railway network was in utter chaos for people's first week back in work.

A friend of mine works in Llwynypia, just a few miles from Aberdare as the crow flies but the best part of an hour's journey on two trains on a good day. Arriva Trains Wales doesn't have many good days. He was telling me of the nightmare he'd experienced in the first week of January. On the Thursday morning, stuck in Pontypridd between non-running services, he decided to ask the booking clerk for a compensation form.

'I'd take a few if I were you,' the guy replied.

Hardly the best advertisement for their service, is it?

I wonder how long it'll take them to deal with everyone's complaints and compensation claims, if it takes two months to process one individual claim.

People often ask me how I managed to survive nearly two decades of commuting to Cardiff – first, on the late unlamented Shambles Shamrock buses, and later on the trains – without going postal at least once, or losing my sanity entirely. I usually refer them to this blog, and then ask them to decide whether I haven't already gone down the latter route. Sometimes, taking the piss is the only sensible course of action.