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Dawlish Railway Station (licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 on Wikimedia Commons by Geof Sheppard)Great Western Railway introduces mandatory cycle reservations for high speed routes
From Monday May 16, any passenger travelling with a non-folding bike on one of Great Western Railway’s (GWR) high speed routes will need a cycle reservation. The firm says it is making the change due to limited space on trains.
Anyone wishing to travel with a bike can reserve a space when they book online, over the phone, or at a station ticket office. GWR say you should ideally do this by 6pm the day before, although some services have availability up to two hours before departure.
The firm’s website states:
From Monday 16 May 2016, reservations for bikes will be mandatory on all our high speed trains.
- storage is in Carriage A; secure your bike with the strap provided, but don’t lock it up
- tell the train manager your destination
- remind them when your stop is coming up and they’ll make sure you can leave the train safely
When the decision was announced earlier in the year, Sam Jones from what was then CTC (now Cycling UK) said he feared that commuters would be worst hit - particularly those who may not always know what time they will be returning from work.
There was a suggestion at that time that there wouldn’t even be an online booking system. While this has been addressed, Jones points out that bike reservations can still only be made with a train ticket - not separately - which will have a particular impact on season ticket holders.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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21 comments
Trains and bikes are a perfect combination. It just needs sensible implementation. Maybe a small fee to carry a bike might be an answer.
Recent GWR experience, booked bike reservation as it was a bank holiday : no staff knew what carriage to take the bike on. Had to run entire length of platform to front of train on finding out trying to save everyone time - opened carriage door to see the train manager "you're holding up the train!" then was informed all bike spaces were used 'you're not allowed on here, it's all taken'.
Explained I had a reservation "Oh, ok then" then had to squeeze bike between others, no big deal but non-secured, then had to listen to train manager's rant about how cyclists hold up trains and it's my responsiblilty to find out the correct carriage (which is fine I guess, as long as you can actually find out!)
GWR attitude to cyclists is woeful. We're just an inconvenience to them.
I usually get an Arriva train home sometimes with my bike but yesterday I got the GWR as it was late coming into my station so I thought I would get that one. There were 3 bikes including mine. The bike space was empty and we all got of at the next stop, so no more bikes would be getting on between obviously. The train guard helpfully let us know that reservations would be required but I challenged him and said in situations like this where we have managed to catch and earlier train that was delayed with no bikes on it are we able to still get on without a reservation; apparently not, he told us we would have to wait for the next train depsite every bike space being free. Free bike space and no reservation? Sorry, can't let you on because we are petty and jobsworth.
Used to have to do this on Virgin trains up to Glasgow from London. You couldn't book the reservation online, and so had to phone up. Half the people on the phone didn't know you could make a bike reservation, and hardly any could actually do it. And woe betide you if you had booked a ticket online, and then wanted to book a bike.
But I'm sure it will all work perfectly for GWR.
Strangely, you could and can book bikes on other companies' trains using the East Coast website - even when you couldn't do it on the company-that-was-running-the-train's website. East Coast used to have a good rewards scheme too - and then Virgin took it over...
At least the cycle-booking facility still works.
And when the rail provider cancels your train you find yourself on the next service with no reservation?
I have witnessed this happen on existing services that require a bike reservation and the guards/train managers on the replacement service are not sympathetic your plight.
No plan B in place.
Part of the problem is that there's a lot of commuting using the HSTs on this route. HSTs were not designed for commuter services. Once electrification is complete a lot of HST services won't be replaced by the new Super Express Trains (Class 800/801), they'll be using commuter-spec units (Class 387) with no reservations, whilst services using the Turbos will get Networkers "cascaded" from the Cambridge/Peterborough route (plus there will be overgrown tube trains on the Crossrail "Elizabeth Line" all the way to Reading
If GWR think I'm leaving my bike "secured" in a space I can't see by "a strap", you've got another think coming. If I lock it up, what exactly are they going to do? Or do their staff carry battery powered cutting tools?
I wonder what their policy on the transporting of shopping is? For instance, if I'd been shopping for bike components. Perhaps a frame, a wheel... maybe another wheel... you can see where I'm going here.
I remember the old trains where you could chuck your bike in the mail carriage. During busy times you could have over 10 bikes in the cage easily. Right next to the guards room so no hassle at all. A big old sliding door so really easy to get on & off. That was back when you could smoke on trains. Oh the good old days.
Spot on. And it was a LOT cheaper. The downside of the good old BR days was the choice of food and drink...(3 day old curled-up egg sandwich and a can of Watneys red barrel)
They're softening us up for the day when they finally switch over to their new trains which, instead of six bicycle spaces in a special compartment with enough extra space for tandems, will have one, maybe two in longer trains, of these bicycle storage spaces. And, judging by what happens with the similar alcoves inside the main passenger carriages on the Class 220s used by Cross Country trains (you know, the ones that perpetually smell of piss from the malfunctioning toilets), good luck getting a guard (sorry, revenue protection officer) to confront other passengers who refuse to move their bags from those spaces, regardless of whether you've got an official bicycle reservation or not.
Remind me again, wasn't progress supposed to make things better than they were in the past? Oh yes, I forgot, what was once a public service is now a money-making venture, owned by money-grubbing bus companies, so if you aren't contributing to shareholders' dividends then prepare to bend over.
You're right about the new trains reason but blaming the private sector is a little harsh here. The new GW trains are designed, procured and mandated for use at excessive expense by your democratically-accountable civil servants and their masters at DfT.
The franchise holder mightn't have done any better (although they'd do what the terms of their franchise required them to) but it's not their doing on this occasion.
Except that that new trains are designed by Hitachi, not the civil service, and the Intercity 125 was designed by British Rail Engineering Ltd.
I'll be impressed if the new trains are still running in 41 years time. The 125s really were great trains.
On the other hand, I accept that the specs in this case were probably set by DfT. I have no idea whether that included the number of bike spaces.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/.../tts-redacted.pdf
OK, the civil servants don't actually do the technical stuff but they did specify a lot of the train's characteristics in considerable detail. Hitachi just gave them what they asked for.
125s are good trains and will keep on screamin' for quite a while yet. They'll be replacing much more modern stock on inter-city routes north of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
www.railmagazine.com/news/2015/08/25/scotrail-hst-fleet-plans
That car park to the right is very expensive. I'd recommend taking a bike instead.
As a commuter with a season ticket this will affect me quite badly but I can see GWR'S point.
They don't earn extra money for carrying bikes and it does cause quite a lot of hassle.
I was also told that the new trains replacing the 125s will only have 2 cycle spaces and as such they are implementing the reservation system in advance in order to get everyone used to it before the number of spaces drops dramatically.
May have to bite the bullet and get a Brompton...
I suspect that after a while, GWR will stop enforcing these stupid and unnecessary rules.
In the meantime, there will be empty cycle spaces. Which is stupid.
And/or people like me who will have to book more than one train to avoid missing one in the rush hour.
I see you're doing something similar with your comments.
I doubt that you'd be able to book a space for a train that you're not buying a ticket for, but then again, do they allow bookings for open returns etc? If so, then you should be alright.
I usually commute to WSM from Bristol and weather permitting, I cycle back. This could be a problem if the weather turns and I'm wanting to catch a train with my bike. I'd have to wait for a non high speed train to turn up which seems unnecessarily awkward.
What grinds my gears is that they don't treat cyclists as valued customers. You'd think that more demand for bike spaces would lead to them devoting more space for cycles, but instead they often refuse bikes when there's too many (which is usually just a value judgement from the ticket inspectors).
I suspect that after a while, GWR will stop enforcing these stupid and unnecessary rules.
In the meantime, there will be empty cycle spaces. Which is stupid.
And/or people like me who will have to book more than one train to avoid missing one in the rush hour.
They wont left you use it, but there is plenty of space at both ends of 125 in the rear of the power car.
So more bikes are being carryied on trains and as such there is less space to carry them. If only there was an alternative to making it more difficult for cyclists. Such as 2 and a half under utilised carriages that could be converted into more space for passengers and cyclists. If only someone could come up with a first class idea of where they could find that space!
And I thought I had calmed my ranting about trains...