Cardiff Valleys ticketing query

[ValleyLines142]

Morning,

ATW haven't replied to me on Twitter yet.

I'm popping to Aberdare this afternoon (god help me). I'm planning on purchasing an Off-Peak Day Return from Waun-Gron Park to Aberdare, which is £4.50 with a 16-25 Railcard.

Does that ticket allow me to travel via Cathays, as I need to alight there briefly, or only via Radyr? The journey planner shows all journeys via Radyr, so I would guess not, and furthermore I believe the Aberdare train departs just before the City Line arrives, so unless the City Line arrived majorly early and I just made the connection, I'd have quite a long wait at Radyr, which isn't the most appealing of stations purely on the basis that there isn't much there to kill time!

I've tried to find the routing maps for my fares but I'm not having much luck.

I will be travelling Waun-Gron Park - Cardiff - Cathays - Aberdare then Aberdare - Radyr - Waun-Gron Park.

If anyone could fill me in on this within the next hour I'd be grateful! Thanks.

 

[yorkie]

Does not appear to be valid via Cardiff.

This is unsurprising as the fare is cheaper than the fare from Cardiff.

(If it was valid, then once that fact appeared on this forum it would have had its validity removed very promptly, as is common when such anomalies are revealed)

 

[Romilly]

The journey planner I used indicated that your proposed ticket was not valid via Cathays.

But a £1.20 Waun-Gron to Ninian Park single, plus a £5.15 Ninian Park to Aberdare return, would cover your journey assuming you go out via Cathays.

If you change your mind and return via Cathays instead of going out via Cathays, the single you would need would be a Ninian Park to Waun-Gron single.

The point is that you can't use the unused segment of the outward part of a return ticket after you have used the return part of the ticket.

 

[ValleyLines142]

In the end, I informed the conductor on the train of the route I wished to take, and he still continued to charge me £4.50 for my journey! Furthermore, not a single conductor said anything on any of the trains I caught. So all in all, a good result.

However, I must admit that an extra £3.10 just to go via Cathays instead of Fairwater when both routes lead to Radyr anyway is a bit steep, but that's my personal opinion and I'm saying no more on the matter.

Shortly after I posted on the forum, Arriva replied to my tweet. Thank you yorkie and Romilly for your swift replies nonetheless.

On a different note, I was surprised to see Revenue Protection on the platforms at Trefforest Estate this afternoon, at about 2.15; well, not surprised to see them as they're doing their job, but to see them at a little used station in the afternoon at least. Yet on my return at about 6.30, they weren't there. I would have expected them to have still been there during the rush hour, unless they had just finished when my train arrived.