no room at the inn
This Christmas, Arriva has nothing special for Fishguard.
Absolutely nothing.
Here’s their poster displaying LAST TRAINS on CHRISTMAS EVE and NEW YEARS EVE CARDIFF CENTRAL to WEST WALES
Christmas Posters 2012 Cdf – West Wales-2
Fishguard doesn’t get a mention.
If you want to know how late you can party in Cardiff before catching the last train to Skewen, fine.
If you’re having Christmas Eve drinks in Penally and need to reach Carmarthen before midnight, just check the poster.
If you want to see if there’s time for a last minute Swansea shopping trip from Clunderwen, the information’s all here.
But if you want to travel to or from Fishguard on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve, you’re out of luck. Check elsewhere. No room in the timetable. There might be trains running, but Arriva’s not telling you, not here anyway.
Up to now, Arriva’s timetablers have managed to lose Fishguard trains in their ones and twos. We reported the latest loss here on December 4th. This time the TIME table LORDS have excelled themselves. Our entire service – both the Irish boat trains and our extra new services – simply don’t rate a mention in their Last Trains poster.
Words (nearly) fail us. Our new, experimental service needs all the promotion it can get. Accurate, imaginative, appealing publicity. Instead we get ignored.
So here’s Fishguard Trains’ New Year Resolution for Arriva Trains Wales: when it comes to travel and timetable information, MUST TRY HARDER!
[Many thanks to Bernard Allan from Co Wexford for tipping us off. Bernard suggests that perhaps Father Christmas is operating our Christmas Eve services. Ho ho ho.]
UPDATE December 16th: Fishguard Trains has asked Arriva to supply the missing information, so we can advise Christmas travellers to and from Fishguard and the Irish ferry. Arriva replies: “Our usual target response time is ten working days, and we aim to provide you with a full reply within this timescale”. With Christmas and New Year Bank Holidays coming up, ten working days from today gets us to January 4th 2012.
UPDATE December 27th: A reply from Arriva! See here.
