ATOC - Cycle-Rail Toolkit

[mcshroom]

I've just received this document from another forum: -

http://cycle-rail.co.uk/hq-cy/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/ATOC-Toolkit-low-res-single.pdf

It covers a number of areas of increasing the partnership of cycling and rail use. It would be interesting to see what others think

Personally my first thought (well second, the first was look at that massive stem on that Raleigh on the cover) was that it looks well thought out, but is lacking in the area of actually carrying bikes on the trains themselves, with a vast majority of the document considering ways of getting people to ride to and from stations but on different bikes.

 

[srw]

I had an interesting conversation with someone working on the railways last week. He confirmed what I suspected - that train designers have the mindset of "squeeze as many seats on the train as you can", because they think that commuters prize a seat over anything else. His view was that a space for a bike on a train means that he can get three fewer seats in his carriages, which means that three fewer paying passengers get to sit down. And he likes bikes to have their own space rather than to share, for instance, foyer space with passengers.

I suspect the industry isn't quite right on any of the counts - as a commuter I prize space over anything else, which actually means fewer seats per carriage. And surely it's possible to design decent tip-up seats these days?

Nothing to do with the link, I'm afraid mcshroom, but I thought it was interesting and fairly relevant - it might illustrate why the train industry is more interested in getting people to stations on bikes than on trains with bikes.

 

[snorri]

It's not just commuters though!
The present sytem does not lend itself to casual day cycle/rail trips as there are concerns that the return train will not have cycle space to get the cyclist home in the evening.