Great Western Coffee Shop

What's the most convoluted journey you've made?

As a starter, mine from home to the hotel I'm at this week yesterday:
* From home, lift from home to my workplace (by wife)
* Lift from work to Barry station (by customer)
* By train to Cardiff Central (Arriva trains Wales / Valleys train)
* By train to Bridgend (FGW / London to Bridgend Express)
* By Rail Replacement Coach to Neath station
* By taxi to hotel.

Wasn't sure if I should but this here or in the Ceredigion bus routes axed by Arriva topic, but that one said please consider starting a new topic given the time since the last post in that topic. Feel free to move this post if you can think of a better home for it.

Not a journey I've done throughout in one sitting, and perhaps not as convoluted as yours, but the new TrawsCymru T5 service between Aberystwyth and Haverfordwest is a joke in my opinion. Very roughly, driving by the direct route I think would be about 62miles and perhaps slightly under 2hrs. The new bus service generally goes via New Quay and Fishguard, sometimes Aberporth as well, and takes about 3hrs 10mins in most cases, with a 75 mile route (very roughly). There is one journey which misses out New Quay and manages 2hrs 45mins, but by my reckoning going via Fishguard makes the Cardigan-Haverfordwest leg of the bus service take almost twice as long as driving (although the AA route planner website claims you can drive it via Fishguard in 48mins, which I do not beleive). Despite all the other detours, it doesn't manage to serve Fishguard Harbour station for rail connections.

I suppose the bus service is sensible for serving the various communities on route with local buses to their nearest main towns, but for end-to-end journeys it is crazy, so why has it been branded as TrawsCymru?

Didn't fancy the scenic Barry to Bridgend direct service rather than doubling back through cardiff.

Don't get me going ...

My lift was headed for Cardiff airport and neither of us knew Barry ... and the station was very poorly signposted. So we arrived at the station much closer than we should have done to the departure time of the 17:05 direct service to Bridgend.

No ticket office open, but a TVM and signs suggesting that you should / must buy a ticket before joining the train.   I'm a bit ham handed with touch screens, and the words "Arriva Express" on the front splash panel seem to be a branding and not a description of how quickly the procedure of buying a ticket goes, especially if you need one that needs spelling out.   And then you have to persuade the machine it likes your money or credit card.

The Bridgend train pulled in to the island platform as I rushed over the bridge, but the people coming off the train (and over the bridge), who probably weren't on a tight timescale to catch something like I was, blocked my way and were difficult to get through resulting in me seeing the yellow "door available" lights go out just as my foot hit the platform.  And of course "once a train dispatch is started, it doesn't stop".

Next train after the 17:05 would have been 19:05 ... earlier to Neath by catching the 17:30 via Cardiff.

Yes, of course it was "my fault for not leaving enough time", but I wasn't laughing and joking with myself about it.  It did allow me to experience the Barry to Cardiff run and see the very local use made of the service, and get an idea of things about it and the stations, so not entirely wasted.  And I suspect I ended up catching the same hourly but at Bridgend anyway!

And no doubt, a few more photos to baffle us with at a later date!

I'm going to leave it here ... yet it becomes far from a "lighter side" topic and raises serious questions and discussion points of general interest.   So I'll probably follow it up on the "Other ways to travel / bus" section.   Probaly not for a couple of hours - at day job at the moment!

Do you really want me to answer that?! :P

I think so  ;)

Arriva TVMs I have encountered don't function very well.
I found the TVM at Bridgend wouldn't offer me the cheapest fare to Cardiff when I was there. I was catching the just after 0930 train, and despite no pre 0930 trains to Cardiff the TVM wouldn't sell me an off peak ticket. If I had waited for the 0930 to buy an off peak ticket I wouldn't of made the required train. I'd have a guess arriva make lots from that.

The ticket vending machines at Nailsea & Backwell station certainly used to offer the same quirky 'service'.  ::)

Discussed on the Coffee Shop forum at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=4289.msg36239#msg36239  ;)

For future reference (you may not like me for telling you after the event  ;D), I use this line every so often from one of the unstaffed stations (Llantwit Major) which does have a ticket machine. However, I have never used it and have never encountered any issue with buying on train, so I would recommend just jumping on and purchasing from the guard if you happen to be on the Vale of Glamorgan line in the future and pushed for time for your train and need a ticket.

It may work on that line but past performance is no indicator of future success. The law requires that a person travelling on the railway purchases their ticket at the earliest opportunity. Passing a working TVM that takes a method of payment you have available could be counted as missing that earliest opportunity. Being pushed for time is not a defence. If the ticket you want is not available then, strictly, you must buy a ticket that covers at least part of your journey and pay the rest of the fare at the next opportunity.

Each scenario will have its variables, and there are issues around paying a part fare, but 'just jumping on and paying the guard' (when there is a working TVM accepting a method of payment you have available) is not an action I would ever recommend or condone. One day there might a revenue team on that train. "I never use the TVM", "I always buy from the guard", "I was running late", are all excuses that have been tried as mitigation for failing to buy at the earliest opportunity, and are all excuses that RPIs have heard many times. Very unlikely to be successful in preventing you being subject to some form of penalty procedure, be it a Penalty Fare, administrative settlement (I believe ATW are starting to issue these in lieu of prosecution), byelaw or RoRA prosecution.

Point taken but I have never had any issue on the vale of Glamorgan line myself, the most recent occasion being 1/1/15, so current rather than past experience. Perhaps it's a rare example of common sense being applied without anyone getting too obsessed with fine print?! There are dedicated desks for "unpaid fares" at Cardiff Central before you pass the ticket barriers (explain the existence of these if the only option in response to non-payment is a penalty of some description), so with the valley lines network being made up of so many tiny unstaffed stations, I suspect the operator accepts that tickets can be purchased on train or on arrival at destination.

With specific regards to Llantwit Major station, you can actually access one platform without passing anywhere near the lone ticket machine, so I'm not sure they'd be able to argue that case successfully anyway. A number of the other stations along the line have a similar arrangement.

In the days when you could buy a Circular Saver ticket (very useful for A-B-C-A journeys), I had one which was

From Worcester
To Llandudno Junction
Out : Direct
Return via : Newcastle upon Tyne and Hull

Thanks for the inputs.

Indeed I probably would have been OK jumping on / buying from the conductor.  However, I had already started prodding at the machine as I heard the train drawing in, and I was aware of a poor connection off it at Bridgend. Aside - I hadn't realised how poor until I looked back at recent time trains, and I would have had 57 minutes to wait for an hourly ongoing service, which turned out to be the one that I caught via Cardiff anyway (although making a 6 minute connection there which hadn't been offered to me by the online planner, probably because 6 minutes isn't considered enough to make a connection)

All in all, an experience that showed / reminded me of how the system "is" for a newcomer to an area / group of lines / train company.   And as it turned out, I caught the same bus from Bridgend anyway, got an opportunity to take pictures (to baffle ChrisB with later in the year), and I really hadn't been on any particular timescale to get to my destination.

See new topic - http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=15202.0

The OP asked about your 'most convoluted journey'. One of my 'madventures' as a young teenage trainspotter in the early 70s was a day return from Exeter to Derby on Easter Saturday 1973. This journey probably fits into 'the most indirect direct service'! I had intended to spend three hours at Derby, but ended up with just one and arrived home nearer sunrise on the Sunday than the scheduled 23:00!

I had chosen that weekend deliberately as the line from Exeter to Taunton was closed for some reason and as this was in the days before rail replacement buses were commonplace, trains to the north were being diverted through Honiton, Castle Cary and Bath. What I hadn't realised though was that the line between Cheltenham and Lickey was also closed and we ended up being diverted through Cheltenham Racecourse and Shirley to get to Birmingham NS. Birmingham to Derby was boringly normal! 

The return journey took me back through Oxford, Didcot and Reading for some reason before being diverted again at Castle Cary!  I don't think I have ever been on a more indirect service (apart from the occasional special) without having to change trains.

Not as convoluted in terms of distance, but a possible in terms of the number of diversions : back in September of 2008 I made a Sunday journey from Newcastle upon Tyne to Birmingham on CrossCountry.

Almost immediately we ran on what I think were the freight lines, and then we ran wrong line down to Chester-le-Street.

But the complications really set in at Sheffield. We reversed there, and went out on the Worksop line. Back on the main line at Chesterfield, then a diversion at Clay Cross going down through Toton and then back to Derby. Another reversal, and then to New Street by way of Sutton Coldfield.

My most convoluted rail journey was made just about 54 years ago from Winchester to Bridgwater. I was advised to travel via Southampton and Bristol but when arriving at Winchester station at around 15.00 was told that I had missed the connection at Southampton and advised to travel via Basingstoke and Reading. However the train was delayed by a landslip at Hook and I missed the Basingstoke connection and was told to go onto London and make my way by tube to Paddington for an early evening train westwards. The train was further delayed and I missed the train at Paddington by about 10 minutes. The next train was the 23.50 newspaper train that got to Bridgwater around 04.15 the following morning. I put my luggage in a locker and went back into central London and killed time at the Windmill - what a laugh - a continuous show with no seat booking and with people clambering over the seats from the back to get the most closeup few of the stage for you-know-what, an experience never to be forgotten!