I'm not sure how a 4tph Rhymney Valley service is meant to flow into a 5tph Barry one at Central. It's bound to look something like:
arr xx00, dep xx02
starts here, dep xx14
arr xx15, dep xx26
arr xx30, dep xx38
arr xx45, dep xx50

That is a terrific example of a service that ought to be short-formed or even cancelled if they're having any problems at all – an emptyish midday service that barely gets into Wales at all. There seems to be no planning ahead going on whatsoever. They're still saying they're going to short-form the 1448 Paddington to Swansea of all things.

No factors can excuse putting 10 cars on the 1415 to Cardiff then 5 on the 1445 to Swansea. This genius did it again tonight. If it's not incompetence, it's misconduct. Either way they should be dismissed. Do you have their name or job title so I can report them? I

If I thought it couldn't get any worse after yesterday, I was wrong. Some genius in Paddington decided to short-form 1B46 1445 Paddington to Swansea (1648 at Cardiff), which thanks to hour-long gaps to Swansea both sides is by some considerable way the busiest South Wales train of the afternoon. Was door-hanging and got a seat right next to the kitchen; so I still luckily got to eat. But I was alone in that privelege. What a fiasco. It would be better to cancel a short turn than do this. Someone at Paddington is seriously incompetent to choose to do this to this particular train. I would support giving the Welsh Government the power to impose fines on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) so that they at least have some incentive to prioritise their resources.

Today's shocking incompetence and lack of management: 5-car set on the 1545 Paddington to Swansea of all things. Which is 1751 at Cardiff. Oh yes, that bad, especially given the unhelpful way the 1515 terminates at Cardiff. No attempt made to swap the set with something less busy (like, say, a Cardiff terminator; or even swapping it with the set going the other way at Cardiff). Standees in First Class. No attempt to ensure that First Class ticket holders got seats rather than those in the wrong class or without tickets at all. No trolley service. No attempt to compensate First Class ticket holders with £5 catering vouchers, which is the least I would have expected given GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s failures to attempt any management action and with its allegedly being Wine Wednesday to boot.

Tonight the 1648 Cardiff to Swansea got tangled up in the silly string between Swindon and Stoke Gifford Parkway, ended up an hour late, and Hopwood's geniuses decided that, instead of reforming it as the 1751, they'd then run it non-stop to Swansea. The 1751 then got sent via Chippenham, but the lordly denizens of Stoke Gifford Parkway couldn't be set down at Stapleton Road, Filton, or Patchway and complete their journeys by bus. Oh no. Instead Hopwood's geniuses waste so much time reversing that at their little halt in Stoke Gifford that the 1751 also runs non-stop Cardiff to Swansea. But by this time, all the passengers from two IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) have ended up on TfW's two-car Pacer 1806 all stations Cardiff to Swansea. Which then gets held at Port Talbot so that Hopwood's empty 1751 (cough, 1820) can delay anyone going home to Neath even more. Why does Hopwood hate Neath so much? It's a large town and a much more convenient station for Mid and West Wales than that dinky terminus in Swansea. It is not, unlike Stoke Gifford Crossing Parkway Halt, an appropriate station to skip. Ever. Here endeth the rant.

I think the data seem to back up your perception of things here.

For what it's worth, there was a late quarry train going the other way. But it does strike me as odd that Fairwood Junction to Clink Road Junction isn't four-tracked. It's only a couple of miles with pretty much nothing in the way, and the two-track section there just introduces needless opportunities for things to go wrong.

I'm sure someone perverse went around South Wales putting the car stop markers in the most inappropriate places possible. The 2-car stop marker on platform 3 at Cardiff Queen Street ensures that the train is sufficiently onto the narrow part of the platform by the cafe that the waiting hordes funnelling in from the wide bit of the platform block anyone getting off from getting to the stairs. It would clearly have been too obvious to put the 2-car marker level with the cafe entrance; there's even a wall there to mount it on...

We had a 9-car 802 on the 0629 from Swansea this morning, which is usually 5+5. Sounds like whatever's going on, the sets are just in unusual places.

I think you're overestimating the extent to which passengers will (a) bother to read and (b) believe the information on information displays. It's much better to ensure that trains are in a consistent formation.

You also will struggle to get many people to stand out in some numbered zone beyond the end of the canopies – even if it's not raining, the end of the canopy has a psychological effect. Consequently, the easiest passengers to put out there are those with reservations (and the argument then goes that reservations in Standard Class should not be available in carriages D-H, and should only become available in C once B and J are completely reserved).

Maybe revenue apportionment between them and another operator will discourage GWR from doing that. After all, it would make far more sense for them to cancel the Oxford IC services first, direct Oxford passengers to Marylebone, and Slough and Reading ones to the stoppers, but then the money would, as I understand it, go to Chiltern.

There is the issue that these fares are set by two different operators (TfW to Swansea, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to Bristol). Although, having said that, TfW are quite capable of creating their own anomalies, e.g. Ebbw Vale Town and Chepstow both being 29 and a bit miles from Cardiff Central, but very different prices, despite both being set by TfW.

Actually, if one looks at the Travel to Work data by method of train, the high-level logical divisions are there. If one disregards the noise on the map where there are very few railways (Mid and West Wales, North Devon and Cornwall, Central East Wiltshire, Lincolnshire, the Highlands of Scotland), then:
1) Wales makes sense as an entity in itself, with surprisingly little success in re-annexing Herefordshire and the Forest of Dean
2) Bristol, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Somerset form a unit with broadly sensible boundaries -- the South Somerset/North Dorset area is a mess, but that's hardly news (Somerset should clearly have annexed the Blackmore Valley back when eoldormen marched around with men with pointy sticks, but it's too late now)
3) Devon and Cornwall form their own unit -- one of the silliest bits of the Western Gateway carve up is that it disregards the one county boundary that is absolutely bang on, that between Somerset and Devon
4) Dorset, at least the bit where most of the population is, really belongs with Southampton, the South East, and the Great Wen


The issue is probably deeper than Beeching. On a regional scale, many sensible lines never got built in the first place. Just look at the stubby little Calne branch: yes, Beeching put it out of its misery, but from a regional perspective it's bizarre that it never got extended on to Marlborough (where the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) station was perversely oriented the wrong way round) and consequently was doomed to languish as a not particularly useful little stub, rather than forming part of a secondary through route.

And looking a little further south, why were the railway pioneers quite so averse to building a line from Salisbury to Amesbury (and then keep going and aim for Devizes, perhaps...)?

What genius designed the trains with the kitchen at the end, rather than between Standard and First? Could even have put a counter at one end then...