Petition for Bikes on Trains
- Thread starter citydreams
- Start date
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
Sounds great- Now that's joined-up transport!
Well it is if I can take my bike on the train
I did have a folder, but got sick of lugging it up and down stairs 
so I sold it.Only had one run in with a 'gripper' so far, and since I was getting off at the next stop anyway, there was nowt the miserable git could do..........
(to be fair most CrossCountry staff are cool as long as I keep out of passenegers way)
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
A good fold up bike, but a tad expensive.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Last year I was in Austria and was impressed to see that on many local lines they include a dedicated bike van in the consist, seemingly on every service on some routes. Like the one here:
Likewise most long-distance trains in Germany have a dedicated bike storage area, which often takes up half of a carriage. You make a reservation just like you would for a seat, and I think you pay 5 euros or something like that.
The problem in the UK is of course that many rush-hour commuter services suffer from lack of capacity so you can see why there is little motivation for train operators to make space for bikes which would just use up space that could be occupied by fare-paying passengers. You can argue that not making space for bikes makes people who would otherwise make their journey by train/bike go by car instead, but the train operators don't care because the services are already oversubscribed.
On the other hand there's no excuse for rural and off-peak services not taking bikes and I think that on lightly loaded services there's little justification for insisting on reservations or even a fee.
Likewise most long-distance trains in Germany have a dedicated bike storage area, which often takes up half of a carriage. You make a reservation just like you would for a seat, and I think you pay 5 euros or something like that.
The problem in the UK is of course that many rush-hour commuter services suffer from lack of capacity so you can see why there is little motivation for train operators to make space for bikes which would just use up space that could be occupied by fare-paying passengers. You can argue that not making space for bikes makes people who would otherwise make their journey by train/bike go by car instead, but the train operators don't care because the services are already oversubscribed.
On the other hand there's no excuse for rural and off-peak services not taking bikes and I think that on lightly loaded services there's little justification for insisting on reservations or even a fee.
Bahnhof Strasse
Let's av ya fuckin' dancin'!
On a similar note, in San Francisco they have bike racks on the front of the busses, cos of all them hills and shit.
I have just received this response to the petition http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page20260
a bit pathetic really
a bit pathetic really
Ooh! Fabulous! They're having a competition to find the best trainy-bikey idea!
What a load of governmentese bollocks
all too predictable.I'm surprised they bothered as it only attracted a piffling number of signatures - less than "Retract the Knighthood offered to Teddy Kennedy" - clearly a far more important subject........
London_Calling
Pleasant and unpatronising
If they put the mail back on trains this would be such a simple thng to do - carry the mail in the mail van/section in the mornings and night, put your bikes in there all other times and at weekends. Room for 40-50 bikes then, and a lot less mail in lorries.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I don't think mail is ever going to be carried on trains in that way again, unless the whole distribution system were to be totally changed. Any mail trains running these days are from RM distribution centre to RM distribution centre, and while there might be scope for introducing more of these type of services (and taking quite a lot of lorries off the roads) carrying mail on passenger trains seems unlikely to return.
Ah - but it's got until 6th March 2010 before it closes.....
Sunray
Its sunny somewhere.
10 miles on a bike takes me 30 mins and a dual carriage way is fine, they have small slip roads.
Prefer the hills though, for me cycling is all about hills. Get that heart pumping hard.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
Back more vaguely on the topic, I was on a train recently and a woman got on with a bike. There was plenty of space on the train (the middle of the day) but the jobsworth conductor goes "Sorry, there are only two bike spaces on this train and they're already full. You have to get off and wait for the next train."
Fortunately as he was speaking the train doors shut and the woman shrugged and said she couldn't get off now could she.
But what a stupid rule - if it is a real one - and what a silly twat to insist on enforcing it when no other conductor on the railways does (presumably because they know it's completely unreasonable). I nearly wrote to the railway operator about it but then forgot.
Fortunately as he was speaking the train doors shut and the woman shrugged and said she couldn't get off now could she.
But what a stupid rule - if it is a real one - and what a silly twat to insist on enforcing it when no other conductor on the railways does (presumably because they know it's completely unreasonable). I nearly wrote to the railway operator about it but then forgot.
Similar threads
