Hello, I hope this is correct place to post, it is the result of an entire day's worth of frustration, perhaps someone can explain here.
I work 3 days a week in Manchester and live the rest of the time in Llanfairfechan in north Wales, and do a long commute, so needless to say I am quite reliant on regular train transport and have to manage my entire life around the timetables.
So I pretty much always get the 18.50 from Manchester Piccadilly to Chester, then the 20.34 (Holyhead service) to request stop Llanfairfechan.
I was trying to get my advance ticket for March 29th today for my commute back, but it wasn't coming up as usual, and then found the 20.34 to Chester was running, but it didn't have any of the usual stops between Landudno Junction and Bangor listed. I thought this must be an anomaly so I tried Arriva Twitter support, who had no clue, I got through to the overseas call centre - trying to get them to understand Llanfairfechan was fun and of course they had no idea what was going on, I eventually spoke to a manager at Arriva who didn't know anything either, eventually I had to leave my number and eventually got a voicemail.
So far I don't really get it. He said due to the engineering works around Wrexham line they've had to change some timetables to make sure trains are in right places etc, so the 20.34 Chester to Llanfairfechan service isn't running.
But it is. It's just not apparently not stopping at most of the places between Chester and Holyhead. So they shave 20 minutes off the journey time?
They are causing massive disruption to people, unannounced, for the sake of 20 minutes? When the trains regularly run 25 minutes late (like today) anyway?
Can anyone please explain why they would decide to run a service, but not stop at the usual stops in between, when there is no physical barrier to them doing so?
I really don't get it. Now my options are to cancel a business appointment I had arranged and squeeze onto the 17.50 to Llanfairfechan (and lose money), hang around in Manchester or Chester for hours and get home past 11pm (not great really) or stay in Manchester (lose sanity).
All so they can cut a journey time by not stopping at some stops?
I don't understand how these things work - perhaps there is a simple explanation as to why this is necessary, I would understand how 20 minutes on a half hourly service could be crucial but not a very infrequent one!
There is nothing on Arriva website about any timetable alterations that day. I wonder if I've really been given the correct information or not?!
I work 3 days a week in Manchester and live the rest of the time in Llanfairfechan in north Wales, and do a long commute, so needless to say I am quite reliant on regular train transport and have to manage my entire life around the timetables.
So I pretty much always get the 18.50 from Manchester Piccadilly to Chester, then the 20.34 (Holyhead service) to request stop Llanfairfechan.
I was trying to get my advance ticket for March 29th today for my commute back, but it wasn't coming up as usual, and then found the 20.34 to Chester was running, but it didn't have any of the usual stops between Landudno Junction and Bangor listed. I thought this must be an anomaly so I tried Arriva Twitter support, who had no clue, I got through to the overseas call centre - trying to get them to understand Llanfairfechan was fun and of course they had no idea what was going on, I eventually spoke to a manager at Arriva who didn't know anything either, eventually I had to leave my number and eventually got a voicemail.
So far I don't really get it. He said due to the engineering works around Wrexham line they've had to change some timetables to make sure trains are in right places etc, so the 20.34 Chester to Llanfairfechan service isn't running.
But it is. It's just not apparently not stopping at most of the places between Chester and Holyhead. So they shave 20 minutes off the journey time?
They are causing massive disruption to people, unannounced, for the sake of 20 minutes? When the trains regularly run 25 minutes late (like today) anyway?
Can anyone please explain why they would decide to run a service, but not stop at the usual stops in between, when there is no physical barrier to them doing so?
I really don't get it. Now my options are to cancel a business appointment I had arranged and squeeze onto the 17.50 to Llanfairfechan (and lose money), hang around in Manchester or Chester for hours and get home past 11pm (not great really) or stay in Manchester (lose sanity).
All so they can cut a journey time by not stopping at some stops?
I don't understand how these things work - perhaps there is a simple explanation as to why this is necessary, I would understand how 20 minutes on a half hourly service could be crucial but not a very infrequent one!
There is nothing on Arriva website about any timetable alterations that day. I wonder if I've really been given the correct information or not?!