Is Your Journey Really Necessary?

I could be wrong, but I think this is my last-ever letter to the Cynon Valley Leader on the subject of public transport. It was printed in the issue dated April 7, 2007. At the time, Network Rail and Arriva Trains Wales were building a crossing loop to allow bidirectional working on the Merthyr Tydfil line. Abercynon station was completely rebuilt to accommodate the increased traffic. The Leader 's unpaid stringer for the village, Stuart Gregory, put a paragraph in the paper to announce that the work had been completed. Needless to say, after a decade and a half of commuting to Cardiff, I was less than optimistic when the plans were announced… I was intrigued to read Stuart Gregory's Abercynon column a few weeks ago. It seems that the redevelopment of Abercynon railway station will allow passengers to 'throw away the timetable.' May I assure Mr Gregory that those of us who battle with Arriva Trains Wales in order to get to and from work did just that a couple of years ...

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 ...