a change from road rage, rail rage....

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I use the bike rail combination quite a bit and scotrail has been very good; Ive never had a problem with rush hour trains, "excuse me please can I put my bike there please" usually works.
There was one day, on one of the older trains where the rack is the connecting corridor. After I got on another 4 or 5 bikes got on, so it was slightly crowded and one drunk (middle of the day?) came by muttered something about "bl**dy bike" picked up the outside bike (a nice light weight road bike) and threw it to the side. The guard came along a second later gave him a bit of a lecture and moved him on and dealt well with the situation.
Another time I was on the last train from Dunfermline to Edinburgh on a Sunday and me and a student got on, this was the type of train where the luggage cabin had been converted to store bikes vertically. The guard insisted that the student store his bike vertically, the student argued that his hydraulic forks cost a fortune to re-blead if he was to do so. His arguments fell on deaf ears however, the guard put him off at Inverkeithing and when I stood up for him he threatened to throw me off too. Its not as if the train was overcrowded there was only me, him and 2 girls and the emergency exit was clear.
 

Pete

Guest
HLaB said:
the student argued that his hydraulic forks cost a fortune to re-blead if he was to do so.
Could anyone explain the technicalities behind this please? I've never had a front-sus bike myself, but my wife rides one. No-one ever warned us about standing the bike vertically....
 
If your hydraulic disk is an open system, which is cheaper than a closed system and thus more common, there can be a small amount of air in the system - totally benign when the resevoir is horizontal. But when turned vertically the air bubbles can travel along the hose and then you have mushy brakes, and for some reason the air won't travel back up the hose, so a bleed is necessary.

I have found guards to be totally inflexible on occasion in the same way, and sometimes they are very helpful indeed - it just depends on whether they put their happy cap on, or fancied a bit of a powertrip. The biggest example is if you try to travel with a bike at peak time. To go home from Clapham if traffic was light I could get the last train of peak time - usually it only had a sprinkling of passengers, and if it did I would try to board. Most times the guard used discretion, sometimes they got rather shirty about it.

By far the worst bit of tying to get into Lonond by train, before peak time is that if your train is late or cancelled, they start to try not allowing you on!! I was removed from a train at Woking by BTP last year for refusing to get off. The guard was appoplectic that I had dared get on a peak time train at Guildford.

I utterly failled to see his point of view, as if his train had been on time, it would have been off peak.

Unsurprisingly SWT didn't reply to my letters of complaint, they had my £3000 banked, so I could just bugger off.
 

John the Monkey

Frivolous Cyclist
Location
Crewe
I use Northern Rail on my commute, and they've been excellent so far. (I think they won the ATOC's "operator of the year" recently). The guards I've seen on the route I take seem to take a pragmatic approach to bikes (and Northern Rail's cycle policy allows them to do so) and the majority of them are friendly and courteous.

I use Arriva Wales every now and again and haven't had problems there either, although I've probably only used their services twice since I began my multi-mode commute.
 

Bollo

Failed Tech Bro
Location
Winch
SWT do well for cycle provision as well as running a reasonably efficient service. Like anywhere else, the vast majority of staff are nice, pragmatic helpful people. My main gripe is the cost, which is a MUCH bigger issue.

The only staff-related incident I've had in recent years was with a guard on the Pompey to Reading train. At the time I usually travel this train comes into Winchester stuffed-full of studes for the local six-form college. At Winch, the train empties - the whole train (a two carriage 158) is left with maybe 10 people in total.

On this particular morning, the previous train had been cancelled, so the train was extra-stuffed. Because of this, the signs were showing the train as "No space for bicycles". Fine, I'm not worried because I know that at Winch it will empty out. I double-check with the very nice dispatch ladies on the platform, and they tell me it will be ok. Sure enough, the train comes in looking like a sardine tin, but completely empties. I get on with the bike, along with another cyclist. We put the bikes in the now clear cycle-spaces and go and sit down.

While we are chatting, the guard comes up to us and greets us with "Can't you read?". Nice. "Pardon me?". "The sign said no bikes because we're full." Me and the other cyclist survey the carriage, our eyes pausing briefly over its one other occupant. After a brief, non-to-friendly discussion, he decides to "let us stay on", even though we're getting of at the next station (was he planning on throwing us out of the moving train as a warning to others?).

Complaint put in. Guard to receive customer relationship mentoring or somesuch.
 
i agree with you about the general quality of the SWT service bollo, and about the price!!

But seriously though, they have nice trains* and on the whole run a very good service on the portsmouth to london mainline.

Even though the Clas 450's are akin to cattle trucks, and one overweight person takes up two seats!
 
SWT do well for cycle provision as well as running a reasonably efficient service. Like anywhere else, the vast majority of staff are nice, pragmatic helpful people. My main gripe is the cost, which is a MUCH bigger issue.

That's privatisation im afraid.On my side my pay is much better but i'd rather go back to less pay and the British Rail days.Less pressure and the hours were better.

Sorry about your experience with the guard.Not all guards are like this and are very professional in their job.Perhaps it didn't compute in his brain.
 
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