Why do trains hate cyclists?

[vickster]

Except my line has platforms that are only long enough for 8 carriages and all are packed. It's 13 miles to London, perfectly cycleable if you want to. In fact it takes me the same time to cycle to my office as travel by train...just a shame I am not fit enough to do it right now especially with the good weather and less traffic now the schools are off

How do you make the trains less crowded and remove space?

 

[KneesUp]

Except my line has platforms that are only long enough for 8 carriages and all are packed. It's 13 miles to London, perfectly cycleable if you want to. In fact it takes me the same time to cycle to my office as travel by train...just a shame I am not fit enough to do it right now especially with the good weather and less traffic now the schools are off

How do you make the trains less crowded and remove space?

Train carriages are interconnected. If you can't extend the platform, stop with the front one beyond the platform, and people can get into it by entering carriage 2 and walking. That leaves room at the other end for the guard's van affair to be accessible for people to wheel bikes on.

I accept that rush hour in London is perhaps not the best time to add this service - especially given that there is often not enough room for people - but it should, and could - be a lot easier to get a bike on the train in this country. How nice would it be to get out and ride thinking 'when I've had enough I'll roll on to the next train station and come home' without having to worry about booking a week in advance and printing out your ticket on vellum and having it signed by the Chief of Police, or whatever the current nonsense regulations are?

 

[IHateTrains]

Except my line has platforms that are only long enough for 8 carriages and all are packed. It's 13 miles to London, perfectly cycleable if you want to. In fact it takes me the same time to cycle to my office as travel by train...just a shame I am not fit enough to do it right now especially with the good weather and less traffic now the schools are off

How do you make the trains less crowded and remove space?

I think your missing the point. The train isn't close to being even 3/4 full. Half the time I'm on the train but I'm told to get off. If there was no SS conductor, there would not be any problems.

Also I live 30 miles from my destination. I don't have time to do a 3 hour journey twice a day.

 

[vickster]

And who pays to extend the platforms, the additional rolling stock etc?

 

[KneesUp]

And who pays to extend the platforms, the additional rolling stock etc?

Everyone who benefits. So that will be all of us then, whether we use them or not.

As I said earlier, I'd rather pay for that than the medical treatments resulting from a sedentary population.

 

[vickster]

I think your missing the point. The train isn't close to being even 3/4 full. Half the time I'm on the train but I'm told to get off. If there was no SS conductor, there would not be any problems.

Also I live 30 miles from my destination. I don't have time to do a 3 hour journey twice a day.

KneesUp wants more vans with guards though...surely it's thus an issue with the jobsworth rather than the train

 

[ufkacbln]

One more cynical about the guards van

At my age one remember when they actually existed and if you had a bike event they would add additional carriages onto the train


Now what happens Is that they ban any bicycle anywhere on the network within a hundred miles of the event

The London Brighton run sees a ban on bikes between Portsmouth and Southampton!

 

[vickster]

Everyone who benefits. So that will be all of us then, whether we use them or not.

As I said earlier, I'd rather pay for that than the medical treatments resulting from a sedentary population.

But if the trains are less crowded and more people can sit of them, they are more sedentary. Isn't it better to ride the bike than transport it on trains?

On that note, as I am almost done with work, I am going go for a cycle and then to the gym

 

[KneesUp]

KneesUp wants more vans with guards though...surely it's thus an issue with the jobsworth rather than the train

Not quite - I said a "modern day equivalent of a guards van" - just a trailer really I suppose, where people could put bulky items like bikes, prams or any of the other things people move by train.

It's a bit depressing that the response to the suggestion was not "who will benefit and by how much?" but "what will it cost?" - you need answers to both questions to see if it's worth doing. Obviously the former is harder to quantify, but that's no excuse not to bother trying.

 

[KneesUp]

One more cynical about the guards van

At my age one remember when they actually existed and if you had a bike event they would carriage additional carriages onto the train

Barrel all in doing this bad any cycle use of the network for other miles per event

Long afternoon in the beer garden?

 

[ufkacbln]

Long afternoon in the beer garden?

Nope - trying to dictate on the IPhone and a poor signal not allowing me to edit

However I am about to spend 2 hours in the Parson's Collar and several pints of Skylark Wheat Beer

 

[Jefferson Meriwether]

When I worked as a guard there were two things I hated. One of them was when passengers sat in the bicycle area then were exceedingly reluctant to move out of the way for bicycles. If I had it my way I'd have had those fold down seats removed; remove the temptation for passengers to sit there in the first place. The other thing I hated was the fact that a lot of cyclists never had the courage to ask passengers to move away from the bicycle area.

During busy periods I was a bit strict on how many bicycles I allowed on my trains, purely because of lack of space. During quiet times though I was always happy to allow as many bicycles as I could get away with on the trains.

I started my railway career about a year before trains with guards vans were finally phased out of main line service. It's a shame the guards vans went; they were a valuable asset to the railway I think.

 

[mattobrien]

Living in Ipswich we have incredibly old rolling stock on out railways, meaning we do still have guards carriages on our 'intercity' service with plenty of room for bikes.

I must congratulate Abellio Greater Anglia for how they handled the extra volume of bikes for the Dunwich Dynamo, ipswich to London travel by train. Signs as you get to the platform to direct bikes in the right way, a queue her sign for bikes and fitting as many bikes on as humanly possibly. They let us on an earlier train, despite prebooking, as they were keen to get everyone to London as speedily as possibly.

 

[theclaud]

It's not really the trains' fault. There's loads of bike room on the First Great Western intercity services between London and Swansea, but it's closed, presumably because they are scared that if they make it easy for people to travel with bikes, people will, er... travel with bikes. So much for demand-led theories. Arriva Trains Wales, on the other hand, has rather limited dedicated bike storage, but they are less scared of cyclists, so in practice it's usually easy to travel with a bike.

 

[Crankarm]

To the OP. Your train journey sounds like a right PITA. Forget the train, I think you are just going to have to drive. Why not cycle the full distance 2 or 3 days of the week and drive the other days? Just a suggestion.