This is the Cardiff East Park and Ride to Heath Hospital. In fact it is the only Cardiff Park and Ride route currently operating. It aims, I guess, to take the pressure off parking in and around Heath Hospital or the University Hospital Wales to give it its proper title. It’s certainly a hospital that seems to have outgrown both its buildings and footprint since it was built in the 1960s and opened in 1971. I wonder if they still have my tonsils.
The Park and Ride has been operating for a number of years but is under threat as there are plans to build a data on the car park site. And there is nothing like a planned data centre to get the hackles raised these days. I was keen to try out the route in case it is curtailed shortly.
I drove into the car park and was instantly surprised by its size. Were all these people using the Park and Ride? If so then surly it shouldn’t be under threat. Perhaps the land owners, whoever they may be, have different opinions.
The H59 operates every 20 minutes, and only has one stop – at either end. It is a seven minute dash along the A48 Eastern Avenue to the hospital and then it comes back again. It must get a bit monotonous for the drivers but I’m glad they pay attention as the A48 is a busy road.
It is operated using a double-decker so guess where I chose to sit. Yes, upstairs at the front to get the views.
At the hospital I had to choose where to go for my beverage. I’d already had a few services terminate at Heath Hospital on this challenge to was running out of ideas of new places to go. I chose to walk over the footbridge and over to Whitchurch Road and have a coffee in Academy café bar. I took along Billy Connolly’s autobiography which I had taken on a previous trip but hadn’t yet finished.
To stretch my legs I walked back over to the hospital site and into Heath Park. I had a look at the miniature railway run by Cardiff Model Engineering Club. I just wanted to familiarise myself with the layout – not the train layout but the car park, and I am giving a talk there in a few weeks and will be arriving in the dark. Quite why they are interested in my talk on Captain Scott I don’t know. I think I will struggle to find a link between him and trains!
