Today's 1B46 excuse for stowing the trolley early and going and hiding in First Class: hadn't charged handset battery enough. I wonder why GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) don't put in a counter so that they can attach their POS system to a socket...

Their timetable changes certainly don't look like adding in extra trains. It looks more like:

• messing around with which of the Rhymney Valley services are the anomalies that don't run through to Penarth (no doubt these will be the Tractor-hauled trains)
• trying to extend some Treherberts to Penarth to fill in some of the half-hour gaps they just created
• eliminating the anomaly that is the 0716 Cardiff Central to Aberdare (which currently runs non-stop to Radyr via the City Line, not serving Queen Street, Cathays, and Llandaff) by having it start at 0711 and thereby plugging a 10-minute gap in the service between Central and Queen Street
• retiming the odd train here and there by one or two minutes
• a late night Marches Line train switches from coming from Manchester to coming from Chester (probably operationally nicer not crossing the West Coast Main Line at grade, although strange that that's only an issue late at night)

I can't see any extra journeys on the South Wales Main Line, the Valleys Lines, or the Marches Line. They can't be using all five of their extra trains on running between Liverpool and Chester, can they?

Urgh. That stadium and that infernal queueing system. X2 to Bridgend and X30 to Newport are handy bus routes...

But I really wish that when the Welsh Rugby Union draws too many people into central Cardiff, the police would enforce supporter busing regulations. Then Central station could just be made exit and interchange only so that people who are going about their day-to-day business in Cardiff can use Queen Street and Cathays as normal and change for the big trains at Central. Either that or make the WRU pay for reopening the Vale of Neath line from Aberdare to Neath so that we have an alternative route west from Cathays avoiding their stadium's chaos, oink oink, flutter flutter.

The Eggs Benedict was good though. Definitely miss that.

Do we get chocolate and cream totem signs and diesel-hydraulic locos too?

The problem was that the split was in the wrong place. Alphaline services generally belonged in Intercity.

Noticed another weird one in much the same vein:

Bristol Parkway to Newport
SDS  ANYTIME DAY S          ◊    STD  SINGLE   ADULT: £12.30   CHILD: £6.15
CDS^▸ (Off Peak Day Single [ticket type] (formerly 'Cheap Day'))  OFF-PEAK DAY S   W1    ◊    STD  SINGLE   ADULT: £12.00   CHILD: £6.00

Bristol Parkway to Cardiff Central
SDS  ANYTIME DAY S          ◊    STD  SINGLE   ADULT: £12.00   CHILD: £6.00

Both set by GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway). Presumably this is a mistake, as I can't exactly see them getting many 30ps from people who want to go to Newport and never come back.

Could actually do it for £1.50 by walking over to the X26 bus.

On the 1648 Cardiff to Swansea (1445 ex Pad) last night, the lady sitting next to me asked me whether it was possible to get a drink on this train. I restrained myself from laughing and suggested that she walk to the other end of the set and bang on the kitchen door where the staff in the front unit were hiding.

The worst bit of it was that the trolley had been in the vestibule of carriage B when I got on at Cardiff, but all too typically it promptly did its vanishing act, rather than bothering to serve customers. GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s management really need to get a grip on this sort of knocking off early behaviour from its staff (the buffet used to stay open until just before Port Talbot; so there should be a blanket ban on stowing trolleys before this point). They may think that they're invisible when they're hiding in a kitchen the wrong side of First Class in the unit the guard isn't in, but they need to learn that this definitely is not the case.

And of course the late Shirley Holms Halt.

Mathematically the way to achieve this is a flat peak surcharge irrespective of distance.

One wonders whether it's really worth their while repairing whatever clapped-out "heritage" diesel unit they're proposing using. For that much money, they could have bought six class 139s, which would actually have been reliable (so they could donate four to other branch-line reopenings...).

Meanwhile, NR^» (Network Rail - home page) still has this brilliant advice on its website: "All tickets are valid via any reasonable route unless specifically stated on the ticket."

Presumably the effect of a good chunk of the kids being on study leave for exams?

I think you're thinking of this incident:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/report-152017-serious-irregularity-at-cardiff-east-junction