Is Your Journey Really Necessary?

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 ...

This one appeared in the South Wales Echo in August 2002. At the time, our train service was a lot more limited than it is now, and I took the opportunity to have a bit of fun. I sent it in – but somewhere between my typewriter and the finished page, the Echo typesetters struck. A few weeks later I bumped into my old Maths teacher in the takeaway. He took me to task for using Roman capitals for the irrational numbers – but I'd typed them in italics to begin with. (Incidentally, I seem to be one of the few people who've noticed that Platform 5 has disappeared altogether from Cardiff Central Station. It's all a bit Harry Potter…) Following the news that Cardiff Central Station now has a Platform Zero, I wonder whether Wales and West Trains have any plans to add further platforms in the spirit of mathematical adventure. For instance, the 'circular' City Line between Radyr and Coryton would be ideally suited to run from Platform π , which represents the ratio between ...

If you don't believe me, check out this notice I spotted at Cardiff Central Station this morning: