What? All of it?

[PaulSB]

I've had a fair few incidents with cycle storage on my commute. You all know the "these tip-up seats are available when not needed for cycle storage." It's remarkable how many intelligent looking people don't understand written English!

This morning was the best yet. Seats were available six feet from the cycle storage area but the guy getting on ahead of me sat in the area.

Me: (my standard approach) "Excuse me I need to get my bike in there"

Other Guy: "What, all of it?"

Now I'm not a comedian and don't know where this came from but:

Me "Well I can't take it apart!!"

He wasn't amused but did move!

 

[upsidedown]

Used to have that all the time before London Midland upgraded their trains to 172s. Human behaviour on trains is unlike anywhere else, the act of getting on the train seems to activate a stupidity gene.

 

[Brains]

Had that situation last summer
We had two bikes getting on to London from mid Kent
Carrage was almost empty but there was a guy in the tip up seats
We asked if he would mind moving.
'yes' he replied and stayed where he was all the way to London, whilst we blocked the doors and stood all the way moving the bikes back and forth as required.

 

[biggs682]

never tried taking bike on train have sold a couple where people have caught train up and back and taken bike back on train , do all trains have this facility !

 

[oldroadman]

Had that situation last summer
We had two bikes getting on to London from mid Kent
Carrage was almost empty but there was a guy in the tip up seats
We asked if he would mind moving.
'yes' he replied and stayed where he was all the way to London, whilst we blocked the doors and stood all the way moving the bikes back and forth as required.

Why not have a word with the guard/conductor/train manager, or whatever they are called now. Surely then said blokie would have been informed of the error of his ways?

 

[Hawk]

Why not have a word with the guard/conductor/train manager, or whatever they are called now. Surely then said blokie would have been informed of the error of his ways?

I tried that once, ticket inspector shrugged his shoulders and didn't seem to clock that my only other option was to block the door and thus delay the train's journey....

 

[Brandane]

We have new trains on the Glasgow/Ayrshire line with that facility. Five tip-up seats which are clearly signed as a bicycle storage area. I once put my bike in the cycle storage area and strapped it in. Train then started to get very busy and of course somebody had to get annoyed about the bike taking up 5 seats. "There's a place for bikes in the next carriage" she tells me. No, I explained, THIS is it; and pointed out the signs. She was less than happy at having to stand. TBH I would normally move the bike on a busy train and stand with it in the doorway, as I don't think it is right to take up 5 seats with it, but on this occassion it was not an option as someone with a pram was at the doors.

The proper solution would have been to design the cycle storage area properly in the first place! Do away with the seats altogether, and have an arrangement similar to French trains where you hang your front wheel from a padded hook on the ceiling of the train, and your back wheel fits into a slot on the wall. That way you are not upsetting people who just MUST use those seats, and you are increasing the space available for bikes to about 4 instead of 1. I might just fire off an e-mail to Scotrail.....

 

[vernon]

In Germany it quite common for the passengers to make a bee line for the bike area as it's adjacent to the point of entry rather than walk a few steps further and site away from the storage area.

On one journey there was one bike in the storage area and the remaining space was taken up with a mountain of luggage. The German cyclist, a mild mannered man, took up cuddgels on my behalf and politely asked the luggage owners, fronted by a blond haired barrel chested stereotype of a fascist bully boy of old, berated the cyclist before throwing all of the luggage into the space occupied by four seats and a table and the best insult that he could come up with was to accuse the cyclist of being a bureaucrat. The cyclist's retort , ' I might be a bureaucrat but at least I can read and say please' fanned the flames further.

It was an amazing spectacle.

In Exeter, a train manager told the folks that were occupying the cycle space that the train would not proceed unless they moved and made space for me and my bike. They grumbled and stared daggers at me and I had a degree of sympathy for them, it was a four coach train and it should have been a couple or three coaches longer but a breakdown had led to a substitute train being used.

 

[MontyVeda]

bring back the goods carriage!

 

[steve52]

its at times like this when i wish for cronic wind so we can both enjoy it, or the right to thump the a hole as his refusal is only given as a personal insult, and should earn its onw reward

 

[gary r]

once i had my bike in the bike area on the train (in front of the flip up seats) i was standing there in all my cycling clothes next to my bike on a busy train, i could see a woman pointing to the unused seats and whispering to her boyfriend,he came over to me and said " excuse me,is that your bike" i replied "no" trying not to laugh,he scuttled back to his now angry girlfriend !!!

 

[dawesome]

My mother and father had reserved seats in a train to Manchester. There was a chap sat in their seat and he refused to move, they stood for 40 miles. They were in their seventies then.

 

[sabian92]

My mother and father had reserved seats in a train to Manchester. There was a chap sat in their seat and he refused to move, they stood for 40 miles. They were in their seventies then.

The sad thing is, they never enforce the fine they apparently give out for this. It pisses me off to no end too.

I'm taking my bike on the train for the first time soon, wish me luck....

 

[fimm]

I have had a train guard get people with buggies in the bike area to move them so we could get bikes in. Just a bit of re-organisation. Same guard didn't object to there being more bikes on the train than there "should" have been. Not all guards are jobsworths.

 

[dawesome]

The sad thing is, they never enforce the fine they apparently give out for this. It pisses me off to no end too.

I'm taking my bike on the train for the first time soon, wish me luck....

If I'd been there I'd have enforced it with my fist.