Bike stolen from Avanti West Coast train

but I thought that was the Avanti process, your bike doesnt get in the special cycle storage carriage without a printed reservation, that you then need to show to get access back to the bike, and there should be no walk ups even if theres space, you still need a printed reservation.

the mistake here seems to be the guard gave access to someone simply with a bike reservation, but then didnt match the right bike with right passenger and basically let them take any bike they fancied instead.

Ive never used Avanti to carry a bike so I dont know if thats because theres a gigantic hole in Avantis process because it relies on people to be honest and only take their bike, or the guard screwed up and didnt check the reservation matched properly.

and that maybe just because Avanti trains are frequently late, and theres time pressure on dwell times in stations, which the whole cycle carriage thing creates more problems with.

I never used to use Anglia's special train carriage for that reason, which totally relied on people being honest fwiw so Avanti havent created a new thing, but because the whole process of getting the bike off the train, meant rushing down the platform to the special bike carriage, hoping the guard remembered you and was unlocking the door to get your bike out, which all easily added 5mins to their stop time, and trains dont usually stop in stations for 5mins, let alone an additional 5mins.

Yes, obviously complain, a (registered) letter to the CEO perhaps? This should not have happened by Avanti's stated procedure.

British Cycling or Cycling UK legal cover (with membership) may support a claim. Were you a member of either at the time of the theft?

brooksby wrote:

Quote:

Avanti does not allow locking bikes on trains.

What does this mean?  You can't lock your bike to some part of the train, or you can't lock it to itself?  And, in either case, why not?

My guess is that they might conceivably need to move the bikes (e.g if handlebars got tangled) and they wouldn't be able to do that if they're locked.

And what happened to the would-be thief?

Unfortunately they got away  

BTP should be able to identify the thief

I foresee BTP following the example of the terrestrial police and resorting to the GDPR dodge: we can't tell you whether we hold that information as it could lead to the identification of a person who could then suffer a telling-off.

Yes - or replying with "sorry, all of our officers are either off sick or attending a mandatory residential training course on preferred pronouns" 

I agree with this. I've only ever travelled with my bike on trains where you can sit beside the bike. I accept responsibility for the bike in that situation.
From what I've read Avanti make you reserve a space for the bike, print the reservation and attach it to the bike so they can see whose bike it is. Passengers have no access without supervision from Avanti staff - so they're taking responsibility for the bike and preventing you from doing so yourself.

The wording on their website is about the "secure area" that only staff can access and the need to show your reservation to collect the bike.
"Your printed bike reservation will need to be shown to our team members to gain access to the train to board your bike, it will also be required to retrieve your bike on reaching your destination" - in this case they've let someone leave with a bike without checking their reservation matches the bike they've taken.

https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/travel-information/onboard/bikes

I've only ever travelled with my bike on trains where you can sit beside the bike

I must put in a commendation for Merseyrail here- excellent service from Southport down through Liverpool to Chester. I have travelled with a trailer both ways. Lots of places for bikes, although it can be hard work on the lifts. It's also easy going up the escalators, although I haven't yet braved a downwards trip.

IanGlasgow wrote:

I agree with this. I've only ever travelled with my bike on trains where you can sit beside the bike. 

aside from the ridiculously small lockers, reservations that don't mean shit if someone get's their luggage in there first. My peeve with GWR is that when making a bike booking you must reserve a seat. That seat is almost certain not to be adjacent to the bike lockers.

Why would any cyclist want to be 3 carriages away from their bike?

Also impossible to book from Maidenhead to Bristol/Exeter with a bike booking. Bikes must be booked, bike bookings nead a seat reservation, but this is not possible on the short leg from Maidenhead to Reading which is a free for all. So two tickets must be bought, increasing the expense.

Try contacting them via Twitter direct messaging - I've used them to make bike reservations in the past and had very rapid, helpful replies. They'll probably tell you if there's bike space on the longer-distance train you want to book with one ticket covering two trains before you commit to booking. They may also be able to change your seat reservation to be near the bike storage.

More generally, DMs on Twitter seem very effective for getting rapid and helpful responses to all sorts of things. Not sure why but it's the only reason I retain a presence in Elon's house of hate.

Via tw*tter? And then people are getting upset because the minimum age is being lowered. The world has gone nuts.

Aren't you thinking of WhatsApp? Either way, what's the relevance here?

You're right--that was the other one. The relevance is that people keep complaining about how damaging the platform is, yet they carry on using it.

The good news is that GWR no longer insist on bike bookings. Though this doesn't solve all the other issues with carrying bikes on GWR trains.

For the Maidenhead to Bristol booking, it would probably work out cheaper to split the ticket at Didcot. It usually does.

GWR also allows you to make bike and seat reservations on its services yourself via your online account, regardless of where you got your ticket.