I was travelling from York to Cardiff, a journey of just over four hours. It was late. It had been a long day and I just wanted to relax, so I sat in the quiet zone of the train. The conductor came down and I heard him say to someone, ‘Change at Bristol Parkway. This train goes on to Bristol Temple Meads but there won’t be any trains to Cardiff there tonight, so make sure you change at Bristol Parkway.’ He then said the same to me after checking my ticket. The person who he said it to first, after the conductor left the carriage, put on some headphones and turned them up all the way. It was so loud I could hear it from half a carriage away. Another guy asked him to turn them down, which he did, but he turned them up again a few minutes later. I couldn’t get to sleep, and this was the quiet zone, so I asked him to turn them down (they were so loud he must have caused damage to his hearing: I could hear every goddamn lyric of his crappy taste in music). This pattern continued every fifteen minutes or so for about an hour, by which time I gave up. I just grumbled to myself and waited for Bristol Parkway, which took about another two hours.

When we got there, the conductor announced on the tannoy something like ‘Change at Bristol Parkway for services to Wales and the Westcountry’ (it was pretty late – approaching midnight). I got off the train and stood on the platform, only to see the idiot with the headphones fast asleep through the window. He was meant to change at Bristol Parkway also. I could have easily gone back on the train and woken him up – it waited on the platform for several minutes – but instead I watched him sleeping until the train departed for its next stop, Bristol Temple Meads, where the service terminated. There were no more trains to Cardiff that night, apart from the one which I was about to get on at Parkway, and a taxi would have cost him about £100, which is what you get for disturbing me in the quiet zone.