Is Your Journey Really Necessary?

There's an interesting article in the current CityMetric blog (part of the New Statesman) , about the so-called 'Northern Powerhouse' so beloved of the current Westminster government. It compares the average speed of trains between major cities in different parts of the country. Have a look at this: London Milton Keynes 1.66 miles/min London Reading 1.44 miles/min London Cambridge 1.16 miles/min Manchester Leeds 0.82 miles/min The Staggers quite reasonably makes an argument for an urgent upgrade of the trans-Pennine route. After all, it points out, between them the two city centres account for some half a million jobs. HS3, the proposed high speed link across the Pennines, would have immediate benefits in terms of job creation, and significant long-term economic returns on investment. Meanwhile, here in the land where the railways began, we're one of only three countries in the whole of continental Europe without a single kilometre of electrified railway. (The other tw...

My regular readers will already be familiar with the rigmarole necessary to book National Express coach tickets online. You have to jump through several hoops simply to travel between the capital of England and the capital of Wales – a process which takes far more time and demands far more patience than the average passenger has to spare. But, gentle reader, that's just the start of it. Booking a coach ticket online is an absolute piece of piss compared to buying an advance ticket via the Arriva Trains Wales website. I'm travelling to Bristol tomorrow, so I decided to see what the fares were. I was surprised to learn that an off-peak day return from Aberdare was £14.90. That puts Bristol – some forty minutes from Cardiff – in more or less the same price band as a day return to London by coach. Anyway … I tried to log in to my account, but (needless to say) I'd forgotten my password. I first registered with Arriva Trains Wales about five years ago, just for their news update...

Back in the old days when dinosaurs and Conservative Governments walked the earth, it used to be easy to find information about public transport. You looked in the phone book, found the number of the bus company serving the area you were intending to travel in, and spoke to someone who lived in that area and knew the routes in the way that a local person would be expected to. If you were really lucky, and lived in a fairly large town, there would be a bus station with an information office. Timetables and booklets were freely available, listing all the services in a particular area. Then the services were 'degulated' (which was privatization by any other name) back in October 1986 – and it all went to shit. I first experienced difficulties with the new system while trying to get to Llandough Hospital in May. I tried the Traveline Cymru website, expecting a straightforward 'from' and 'to' expert system which would take me instantly to the relevant timetable. Inst...