Bikes on trains

[Alun]

Just rung Virgin Trains to book a bike space from Liverpool to Glasgow in 11 weeks time, no can do apparently! No bike spaces available, nor the next train nor the one after that! Nor the return journey a week later.

ScotRail told me they couldn't book my bike on the train from Fort William to Glasgow for my return as the places hadn't been released yet, could I ring back in a couple of days, now that I can understand !

All calls are recorded for staff training purposes.

 

[ColinJ]

Do Vigin not keep one or two spaces unreserved?

I don't know but many Virgin trains only have 2 or 3 bike spaces altogether so it would be annoying if they didn't allow all of them to be reserved! Why put people off who want to book in advance just to keep spaces free in case somebody turns up on the day with a bike?

I've reserved a bike space before now and then got on the train to find that all the available spaces have been taken. You are supposed to attach a copy of your bike reservation ticket to your bike to prove that you are entitled to the space.

Trains can be very overcrowded and it isn't unusual then to find the bike spaces full of suitcases, baby buggies, whatever.

I got on one Virgin train and found that it had an old-fashioned "guard's van" and my bike was put in that. The staff changed at Birmingham New Street and I then spent an anxious 10 minutes running up and down the train looking for the new member of staff with the key to get my bike back out at Coventry. I had visions of either being stuck on the train with my bike and ending up in London, or getting off the train to speak to someone on the platform at Coventry and the train then leaving with my bike still on board!

Another time the train didn't included a carriage with bike storage so I had to bungee cord my bike into a wheelchair space and sit next to it, having promised that I would be prepared to move it if a wheelchair user needed it. NB - it is always a good idea to carry a couple of bungee cords when taking your bike by train. You can stop the bike swinging about from the storage hooks. Alternatively (as above) you can secure your bike somewhere else if the bike storage isn't available. A lot of local railway services don't allow you to reserve bike space so it is quite common to have to improvise on them. You might struggle to get a bike on one of them during peak travel time.

I've never yet failed to get my bike on a train, but I did fail to get myself on a train just after Christmas when I didn't have my bike with me. It was so seriously overcrowded that the station staff refused to intervene. They said that there would be a riot if they tried to get 100 people off the train so that 100 of us on the platform with seat reservations could get on.

 

[Alun]

I had thought I might ring back in a few days to see if a Virgin bike space had mysteriously become available, or if they had the same arrangement as ScotRail but were keeping it quiet! However from Colin's experience it looks like a reservation is no guarantee of a place. Suppose I'll end up driving to Scotland and sod the carbon footprint, not what I wanted to do!

 

[ColinJ]

It's usually not too bad if you avoid certain days/dates.

Sundays are often iffy because that's when track and signals maintenance is done.

Fridays are often busy with people going away or travelling home after working away all week.

Bank Holidays can be busy as can the start of school holidays.

The period around Christmas is a nightmare! For example - if Christmas Day was on a Sunday then I wouldn't travel on the Saturday because it was Christmas Eve. I wouldn't travel on the Friday because it was a Friday AND it was just before Christmas. I suspect that a lot of people might travel on the Thursday because they knew they shouldn't travel on the Friday or Saturday! I'd probably choose the Wednesday. On the way back after Christmas I would avoid the Monday because it was the Boxing Day bank holiday. I'd probably avoid the Tuesday because the people avoiding the Monday would probably choose the Tuesday! I'd come back on the Wednesday.

Obviously the bike is an added complication, but my worst journeys have been when I didn't have my bike with me.

 

[Alun]

Hmm, that's a lot of times not to travel, but I don't fall into any of them, so why are there no bike spaces on the Saturday that I want to go? I suspect that Virgin may not have "released" the places in the way that ScotRail haven't, and I have been misinformed by the enquiry line. Either that or there's a lot of Scousers cycling around Scotland in May.

 

[cygnet]

Virgin Trains phone ticket lines and booking bikes don't work. I've had this happen several times (I kept trying hoping they'll improve)

The last time I tried I got told no spaces left. I asked about the train after that; and after that, and after that, and the two trains before as well. All of them were apparently full of bikes, but they were still trying to sell me a ticket for these trains without a bike space. Useless. I stopped off at the station on my way home, and booked a ticket and bike reservation from the staff there, for the original train time I wanted Out of interest I asked about the other times, since there were apparently so many cyclists traveling that day, and was told there were no bikes booked on any of them.

If you can get down to a ticket office, you'll probably find there are no bikes booked on the trains you want to travel on too, and that their phone staff/booking system are/is just rubbish.

 

[Alun]

Thanks Cygnet, I think I'll try that !

 

[ColinJ]

Oh yes - I always do my research online, and then walk round to HB station to buy the tickets!

You can sometimes get much cheaper deals by splitting journeys up in weird and unexpected ways - see this post of mine.

 

[Alun]

I tried to book a return to Glasgow, but the online system shows the journey as 2 singles, it's only about £25 in total which isn't too bad. The single from Fort William back to Glasgow is nearly as much. I'll try a couple of alternatives tonight, before going to the station and speaking to a real person to sort the bike reservation out. I want the minimum number of changes as hopefully there'll be less to go wrong.

 

[ColinJ]

I tried to book a return to Glasgow, but the online system shows the journey as 2 singles, it's only about £25 in total which isn't too bad. The single from Fort William back to Glasgow is nearly as much. I'll try a couple of alternatives tonight, before going to the station and speaking to a real person to sort the bike reservation out. I want the minimum number of changes as hopefully there'll be less to go wrong.

That's pretty cheap - it would probably cost me over £35 to get to Coventry and I usually end up paying more like £45 because I don't book far enough in advance. On the day it is over £50!

In the example I linked to, the trip between Leeds and Birmingham was split into separate tickets at Derby but each way it was a single train and I stayed in the same seat for the whole of each journey - it was just cheaper to buy multiple tickets.

It's the same thing travelling via Manchester. Tickets from Hebden Bridge are expensive. It is cheaper to buy a return ticket to Littleborough and a separate one from Littleborough to Coventry, but you just stay on the train, you don't hop on and off at Littleborough.

 

[skrx]

I booked a cycle reservation with eastcoast.co.uk last time, which worked out fine.

I usually take a couple of elastic bands and wrap them round the brake levers (to hold the brakes on). On some trains it stops the bike rolling around and falling over.

 

[killiekosmos]

I tried to book a return to Glasgow, but the online system shows the journey as 2 singles, it's only about £25 in total which isn't too bad. The single from Fort William back to Glasgow is nearly as much. I'll try a couple of alternatives tonight, before going to the station and speaking to a real person to sort the bike reservation out. I want the minimum number of changes as hopefully there'll be less to go wrong.

If you can get to Carlisle you could use the Carlisle - Dumfries - Kilmarnock - Glasgow route run by Scotrail. Uses Sprinters which can hold 8 or more bikes. Every Sprinter has a bike area. No need to book on that line.

 

[Crankarm]

You know the solution?


























Buy a Brompton .