I've just had a weekend's cycling and camping with my son, in the course of which we used three trains: Temple Meads to Gloucester, Gloucester to Stroud, and Cam & Dursley to Temple Meads. The trains to and from
BRI» were both Weston super Mare to Worcester services. Everything worked well but a few things seem, perhaps, worthy of consideration – or at least have prompted thoughts in me.
The first train, from BRI to
GCR» , was busy with bikes; there were four or five already on when we boarded. They were getting off earlier than us so we started playing bicycle jenga – always worth asking where people are going – when a
GWR▸ staff member told us there were more bike spaces at the other end of the train. So a point to GWR for helpful staff.
The spaces at the other end were a type new to me. Rather than the tippy seats, there was a sort of cycle cupboard with two sturdy wheel grippers underneath a general luggage shelf. Once I'd moved a suitcase from floor to shelf, it was easy to get our two bikes into the cupboard, where they fitted quite nicely. Not perfectly, as the cupboard was a tad short for my bike – and it's not a particularly long bike – but well enough. Getting the bikes from the platform through the carriage door was a problem however; it's a particularly narrow door with a tight angle. It was just possible to squeeze my bike with four panniers through, but not in the reverse direction. Now, I know GWR (and I think most/all
TOCs▸ ) say you should remove luggage first but this highlights a problem: it's much easier to lift bike and luggage as one unit than as two. You can leave your luggage on the platform and then squeeze past the other boarding passengers to retrieve it, but that's not easy for you, them, or the train staff who don't want to be delayed. In this case, as only bike had luggage ('cos he's only 12 and I'm trying not weigh him down; he doesn't like hills as it is), we developed a system where he'd board/disembark with the panniers, I'd then hand one bike to him, then take the other bike. With more luggage or fewer people, it would be more of a problem.
We were the only bikes from GCR to STD, which was a Swindon service, but there was a man in a wheelchair – convenient for us, in fact, as we were able to use the ramp after him! – so both tippy benches got tipped and one of the station staff got a bit shouty at some of the othe passengers for not moving along the train. The man in the wheelchair's companion wanted to put one of the benches back down for them both to sit on, folding his wheelchair, but no one, including me, could quite work out how to do it. There were little handles on the hinges that looked as if they should be pushed, pulled or levered but they didn't actually want to move in any direction.
The train back to BRI was identical to the BRI-GCR train (it might even have been the very same train) but we didn't realise that till we got off. Only then did we see the tippy-seat space, having stowed our bikes in the cupboard. On this occasion we managed to get three bikes in the cupboard – there was another waiting at Cam, with one pannier – but they fitted ok.
When I was planning this trip, I was leaning towards these services rather than the
XC▸ Voyager to get to Gloucester because I knew from previous experience that it's difficult to hang a bike up in those spaces while dealing with luggage as well; dealing luggage and a child's bike would have been worse. He's not tall enough to hang the bike up himself. Plus, often those three spaces are already (more than) occupied even if you book.
My conclusions: in the absence of a guards van, the bike-carrying systems our trains have work reasonably well as long as the bikes don't have luggage. Also, demand for bikes on a particular train seems to get very high on certain services and be low/zero on others. There very rarely seems to be just the number of bikes a space was designed for.
IME▸ tippy seats deal with this reasonably well, dangly spaces not well at all – the space is there even when no bikes are but is inflexible, no way can be made for it to carry more than the designed number of bikes. Dangly spaces also have access problems – you can't access the inner (r/h) of the two spaces while the outer (l/h) is occupied. And current fashions in mountain bike handlebars mean that some bikes take up the width of two spaces anyway!
Bike symbols on carriage doors should be made much more obvious. At present you cannot tell which carriage to put your bike on till you're almost by the door. It would also be great (though probably not possible) if there was some standardisation, eg always one end.
Putting bike spaces in carriages with narrow doors is a very bad idea.
Where bikes are stored longitudinally (and I don't think I've ever seen them go laterally), one end of the bike spaces should be left open to allow any bike to be removed without having to remove others first. This includes pillars and handholds!
End carriages are a good place for bike storage as that's less likely to get in the way of people walking up and down the train.
The bike cupboards with shelves over provide some flexibility for a bike to be loaded with luggage – this is usually much easier than taking the luggage off in advance – then removing the luggage to slim down the profile and storing the luggage on the shelf. If one end could be kept open they would be a very handy design.
On the thorny topic of booking and paying for bikes on trains, I think a small charge – a bike ticket – might be a worthwhile solution preferable to having to select a train in advance.
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