Is Your Journey Really Necessary?

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 l...

In 'What Do You Want?' – 'Information!' , I told you about the getting-blood-from-a-stone-like process of trying to find out details of bus services in England when I was phoning from Wales. That was nearly six years ago. I've no idea whether things have improved since. I might give them a call when I can face another uphill struggle. Subsequently I've highlighted the inadequacies of the Traveline Cymru website, and the paucity of information on bus company websites. The situation is exactly the same once you log off and return to the Real World. In my local area (Aberdare), Stagecoach drivers occasionally have timetable booklets which passengers can pick up. Occasionally… However, these – by definition – list only the Stagecoach services. The various buses operated by Globe Coaches, N.A.T. Group, First Call and other local companies don't merit a mention. In fact, unless you happen to see one of these buses while you're out and about, you probably won...

This is the second part of my examination of the bus routes in and around Hirwaun, Aberdare, Mountain Ash and Abercynon, which I started with The Last Bus From the Cynon Valley . For this entry and a forthcoming one, I want to look at the buses which run purely within the Cynon Valley – although, in spite of the best efforts of the operators, the local authority, and the Welsh Government to put a stop to this unreasonable behaviour, a couple of them still manage to stray into the neighbouring districts. What can you do, eh…? Figure 1 shows most of the area in question, sandwiched between the Merthyr and Rhondda Valleys: [caption id="attachment_12057" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Figure 1: The Cynon Valley and surrounding areas[/caption] The main axis lies roughly north-south between Hirwaun and Abercynon. I've already dealt with the buses which run between Aberdare and Pontypridd/Cardiff, covering the southern part of that stretch. To recap brie...

I'm fairly relieved that I don't have to travel to Cardiff any more, especially when I see my friends' Facebook updates about the joys of their daily commute. I often allow myself a quiet chuckle as I read their tales of delays, cancellations, and imaginative excuses dreamt up by Arriva Trains Wales. Then, every so often, I hear something which knocks their regular battles with into a cocked hat. I have a mate who occasionally works at an office in Trefforest Industrial Estate. Getting there on a normal weekday is never easy, as the trains from Aberdare don't stop there. Instead, he has to travel to Abercynon or Pontypridd and change onto the train from Merthyr. On the return trip, he has to change from the Merthyr train to the Aberdare train. It must be frustrating at best and extremely annoying at worst. His commute is even worse on a Sunday, with trains from Aberdare running every two hours and not meshing neatly with the services from Merthyr. I don't envy him a...

It's just occurred to me to check the operating details of the Beacons Bus for 2014. For the last ten years or so, these popular services have run on summer Sundays, departing from several major towns in South and West Wales and heading into the Brecon Beacons National Park. They all met at Brecon, enabling easy interchanges and giving tourists plenty of time to explore before heading home. Well, brace yourselves for the bad news. It's been discontinued as a result of funding cuts. http://www.breconbeacons.org/beacons-bus The withdrawal of the Beacons Bus will obviously have environmental and social repercussions on an already fragile Welsh tourist sector. Successive summers have been washed out by the weather, and many shops in Brecon are struggling to survive. Those of us without cars will be unable to visit the area and take advantage of its amenities. Given the lack of any alternative provision, those people who do want to visit the area will have no choice but to take thei...

I caught a Stagecoach bus to Aberdare this morning, because it was hammering down with rain. As I sat down, I spotted a poster behind the driver's cab advertising 'Green Week.' This appears to be a campaign to get people out of their cars and onto public transport, running from June 2nd to June 6th inclusive. As an added incentive, it advertised a competition to win a year's free travel on the local network. That seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. I had visions of making huge inroads into my Vanishing Valleys project if I won the golden ticket. As you can probably imagine, as soon as I got to Aberdare Library I Googled 'Stagecoach South Wales green week'. Here's what I found: As Terry Wogan would say, is it me?