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...

During the recent Rugby World Cup the state of the Welsh railway network came under scrutiny again. After each game at the Millennium Stadium, thousands of people descending on Cardiff Central Station found themselves in the predicament we've all become sadly familiar with after a home fixture: delayed trains, cancellations, and massive overcrowding on the services which did operate. The trials and tribulations of rail passengers during special events in Wales are nothing new, it seems. I've just found an irate letter to the Swansea-based Cambrian newspaper, published on 24 March 1882. THE TREATMENT OF EXCURSIONISTS—WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? SIR,—Permit me, through the medium of your columns, to record my vehement protest, on behalf of a large number of excursionists, against the treatment we received at the hands of the railway officials who had charge of the excursion train from Swansea to Pembroke Dock on Saturday last, on the occasion of the launch of the ironclad "Edinburg...

In the last entry I told you about the trials and tribulations of booking coach tickets using the National Express website. I've learned some more information today, which makes me wonder whether booking online is really worth the effort. After my visit to London in September 2014, I signed up for National Express's 'Make ten journeys and get one free' deal. As I've started to visit London frequently again, it seemed like a tempting offer. At the time … Anyway, this year I've been to London three times. I also made two journeys last year, although one was booked in my friend's name. A few days ago I had an email from National Express, telling me that my running total towards my free journey was two. Not four – just two. I emailed them back to query it. I provided them with the dates of my five (or four) journeys. I explained that I always book using the same email address, and pay using the same card. I asked them to look into it and contact me with an expla...

I had an email last week from National Express, offering me 25% off my next return journey. Since I've never been one to pass up a day in London, I decided to book my journey this morning. My first attempt ended in disaster when the site wouldn't even load. (Mind you, I was using the piss-poor wifi in Aberdare Library, so I wasn't especially surprised.) The second attempt at logging into the site via the link in the email was slightly more successful. Unfortunately, the site didn't give me the offer of Cardiff University as a departure point. Cardiff Bus Station closed on 1 August for 'redevelopment', so the National Express services have been relocated to Sophia Gardens. It's about a fifteen minute walk from Cardiff Central Station to Sophia Gardens. National Express expect passengers to be at the departure point ten minutes before the advertised time. That's far too narrow a window when you're travelling into Cardiff by train. The Valley Lines curr...

The South Wales newspapers have run three stories about public transport in as many days. I thought I'd summarise them here. On June 28, Rhodri Clark reported that bus use in Wales has fallen to its lowest since records began in 1982. (The witty headline to the piece alludes to the fact that everyone in Wales – except me, because I know half the drivers by name anyway – will call the man behind the wheel 'Drive' when they get on or off the bus.) In 2013-14, 107 million passenger journeys were made on Welsh buses. This nadir coincided with the Welsh Government's decision to cut subsidies by 25%. Further reductions in services are planned as cash-strapped local authorities struggle to balance the books. I know correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation, but it's difficult not to draw your own conclusions, isn't it? According to the industry body CPT Cymru, some 800 services have been axed across the country. Passenger numbers fell by a further 3.3% in 201...

Last week I had to visit Prince Charles Hospital, the large general hospital outside Merthyr Tydfil. I've mentioned the bus journey previously, in The Last Bus From the Cynon Valley , so I don't need to go into too much detail here. Suffice it to say that it took just under an hour and a half to travel from Aberdare town centre to the hospital entrance. Over a third of that was made up of the journey (Stagecoach route 9) from Aberdare to Merthyr Tydfil itself, calling at Trecynon, Penywaun, Hirwaun, the out of town shopping centre, and Parc Keir Hardie. Once you arrive in Merthyr, there's an interval of 'up to' ten minutes before the 27 bus pulls in. The bus itself takes a circuitous route through the town centre, then travels through the outskirts to the Gurnos housing estate. Once it enters the Gurnos, it seems to travel down each and every street in a strange figure-of-eight loop. (I'd love to see it superimposed on a map. I might try sketching it myself, act...