Summer is full of woe (From Penarth Times)

Summer is full of woe

8:10am Thursday 16th August 2012 in Letters

I LIVE where I can catch the Barry Island train to do my banking, as we don’t have my bank here in Dinas Powys.

The trains are heaving by 9.30am with people travelling to Barry Island, so last time I went to do my banking in Cardiff instead – bad mistake.

On my way home at 10am there was standing room only. I saw a Penarth train with four carriages empty! We had only two – why? My 13-year-old daughter can’t travel by bus as she gets travel sick, nor will she use the trains with me on a hot day – there is no room to breathe and she gets claustrophobic so she stays at home. But I recently decided to take her to Port Talbot for a day out, again a bad mistake. On our way back from Swansea the train was so heaving we were stuck in the corridor with no air, cheek by jowl with other passengers.

She was sweating with no air and panicking, so I told her to kneel by the toilets on the floor – no room for even her handbag – she managed this for 34 minutes! I myself being 5ft had nothing I could reach to hold onto, no room to spread my legs for balance, I kept praying I’d make the journey home (I am 54-years-old - no spring chicken). I have now come to the conclusion we have no option but to go to Barry Island in the rain and pray the weather doesn’t improve, or my daughter is stuck in Dinas Powys with nothing to do for the rest of the holidays.

‘Never on a sunny day’ train traveller Dinas Powys