Online booking of bike spaces on trains.

[Racing roadkill]

Looking at the details it says that you may have to take tyres off.

Depends on the bike’s dimensions. A large frame with 700c wheels won’t fit without removing the front wheel. A smaller frame with 650bs might fit without taking the wheels off. I’ve only tried it with the former, it’s no biggie to take the front wheel off.

 

[Reynard]

Great Northern and Anglia are both a doddle with a bike, as long as you are aware of which services have restrictions - no pre-booking needed. There aren't any dedicated bike spaces on the trains, but still, works well enough. Generally, as my bike-on-a-train journeys only tend to go as far as Cambridge, so the restrictions usually don't apply.

My one experience of SWR is also pretty positive. Dedicated bike spaces on the train, again, no pre-booking needed, and bike spaces are in the quiet carriage, which is an added bonus.

 

[Brandane]

Despite my rantings about public transport in general, I have to admit that on SOME Scotrail services, provision for bikes appears to be at the discretion of train staff and I have never had a problem getting a bike onto the train on lines serving the "Strathclyde Passenger Transport" area, which includes my local line to/from Glasgow. There is no charge, and no need to book. Just don't attempt to travel with a bike on the peak hour trains or you will incur the wrath of fellow passengers if you try to use the dedicated bike space which is a row of 5 fold down seats. Rightly or wrongly, that doesn't go down well on a train bursting at the seems with standing passengers!

Different story on the lines serving Inverness and John o' Groats. They are VERY strict on the number of bikes allowed and definitely not allowed without pre-booking. Which is only fair on other passengers; they can't be expected to accommodate bikes when a group of 30 LEJOG'ers turn up at Thurso wanting to travel south.

 

[Bazzer]

Agree totally about platform and train staff. They are great. But my other criticisms stand. Or have they brought the call centre operation back to the UK with properly trained staff?

With regard to seating, pretty sure you can specify the seat online (or am I thinking of East Coast?) - whatever, in practice I usually find that there are seats free near the bike storage area so despite often having booked a table seat I often plonk myself there. Handy for popping through the door at stations to check that nothing untoward is happening to your bike. Sometimes there are reserved labels on these "airline" seats but no occupants - I assume the folk have moved to somewhere they find more comfortable away from the bike louts.

East Coast can be a pain - very often a mega gap between the platform and the bike storage area. A real problem, bordering on dangerous, particularly if with a loaded tourer.

An East coast person one accused me of making their train late because of my bike loading and when we hit London brought a more senior chap along to hurry me off the train! Incredible. I didn't make the train late at all - it was late on arrival at Peterborough. They made me feel as if I'd just crapped on one of their seats.

As said my experience is with West Coast and the last time I used them it was a non UK call centre.

Virgin (the only run the west coast now) always have two reserved bike seats in carriage A next to the bike storage. Only found out as a guard told us. The stressful bit us worrying you will not be able to get the bike off if your stop is not the terminus.

Meanwhile in Italy every orher carriage takes bikes.

Agreed. On my last West Coast journey my stop was the last before London, which was 200 miles away. I waited for what seemed an age for the door to be opened and it seemed from what I could see through the windows, all passengers who had disembarked had left the platform. Eventually I took my bike through the carriage and out through an open door, just as the guard/manager appeared on the platform. It turns out he had not forgotten me but had been at the far end of the train when it pulled into the station, had helped another passenger and was now coming to the rear of the train to let me out.

 

[Soltydog]

While I'm having a railway rant. £63 for a one way off peak ticket from Lancaster to Scarborough? WTAF?? I thought we were supposed to being encouraged off the roads and onto public transport? I guess I'll take the car then, and avoid the great unwashed public, set the air-con to a temperature of my choice, listen to music of my choice, leave at a time to suit me, etc. etc... Shove your dirty, overpriced, unreliable Great British public transport system where the sun doesn't shine!

Just a word of caution if you do decide to travel on the train, since the introduction of the new timetable in May, TPE have been suffering quite a few problems with trains coming East out of Manchester & many run late. It seems that if the Scarborough service is running quite late they have a tendancy to terminate them before they actually reach Scarborough, so they can make their return journey on time This could leave you stranded somewhere between York & Scarborough, or with a longer than planned bike ride

Northerns new rolling stock is sat in Liverpool with brake problems. They've found the brakes don't work. That's on those units whose fire issues have been sorted out on, all 31 of them.

I work for Northern & haven't heard that, although I've just been off for a fortnight, but it really doesn't surprise me I remember the 333 trains coming into service at Leeds & they really didn't like the cold & frosty mornings, caused no end of problems

 

[mjr]

[QUOTE 5444143, member: 9609"]
Seriously - if you split the journey its cheaper ?
what a piece of crap our rail system is. (not just the rail the whole country is)[/QUOTE]
In Germany 25 years ago, it was sometimes cheaper to buy two regional day rover tickets than a single, so we're not alone in odd ticketing features. Sadly, increased German ownership through arriva hasn't yet resulted in more regional rovers for the UK.

I think it's odd that people resent spending any time learning how to get the best performance out of mass transport systems, yet seem to ignore the many hours and hundreds if not thousands of pounds they spent on learning even basic motoring.

Stuff like silly rules, broken websites and ineffective government regulation is fair target though.