Bikes on trains in the UK

It's the railways

Yeah, even Train People™ have smartphones these days. I've seen them.

They do, its true (clipboards were fine, grumble grumble....)

But no one has bothered to work out how to translate the technology to bike booking and how you attach notification to bicycles.

It's not a toughie though, probably just not very far up any ones to do list, across the various Train Operating Companies

Just spoke to them was space left, he’s emailing me a bike reservation over.
One of my better call centre experiences lately

I’m not surprised, what kind of idiot goes cycle touring in Scotland in October?

Well I’m moving to Scotland next year so trying to toughen myself up/scope out places to go house hunting.

You cray cray

It's OK, edmundro has all the skills to cut the wood needed to build a cosy log cabin up in the Highlands ... what do you mean, 'clearances'?

Sad news (from our perspective).

Am I the only person who thinks it’ll be fine? Between you lot, my co-workers and friends north of the wall you’d think I was touring in Finland in January in flip flops...

It’ll be fine, I was joking. I was riding up in Scotland for October half term once about 25 years ago (Christ I’m old) and the weather was glorious.

I also rode all through a Dundee winter when I was at University there, and I can only remember a few days where the weather was too bad to ride, mainly through a huge cold spell which saw the University shut for ten days.

I need to call during office hours but has anyone any experience of making such an amendment? Obvs if all bike spaces are already booked I’m outta luck.

Try Twitter.

Obviously not as quick as calling, but it's a good way of getting it booked and having their respond on your phone to show to the antsy ticket collector.

It’ll be fine...

That what you told @Sparky ?

pretty cold in scotland today (central belt) - dry though. hope it holds for you

What the worse could happen?

Thanks Ed, in the end I let my apprentices do all the work while I spent 20mins on hold. There was space on my train, I’ve got my confirmation and they’ve moved my seat to be closer too. A rare customer services win!

I'm sure it'll be fine, with the right clothes...

I’ve got my confirmation and they’ve moved my seat to be closer too.

A lot's less anxious than being sat on the opposite end of the train!

Fell fowl of this before on the 1st train of the day north, office closed till 6.30am and then there is an instant huge que.
I tried, then saw that I had only a few minutes left and the bike compartment is at the far end of train, so just rode past him like a bellend. Have a train key so just let myself on (often have to let myself on and off as the guard/ticket person /train manager doesn't know or can't open the door due to time and place constraints.
If you get really stuck an 8mm Allen key will just about turn it. You turn and hold the position for around 5 seconds

brass balls behaviour that

someone was telling me recently that scotrail have a policy that they'll get you home if you have a mechanical. could maybe slip your chain or even just let the air out your tires to feign a puncture... would confirm this policy first before relying on it though

Yeah, but he wasn’t happy with that. In the end I just walked past him. Guard was fine.

In the end I just walked past him. Guard was fine.

Yeah, which makes me question the point of his existence in his role. I'm not printing anything out that doesn't need it. If concerts and airlines and shit are happy scanning barcodes off phones then train stations can suck my lumens and take it.

which makes me question the point of his existence in his role

Straight to ASLEF with you

googles

Quite a long article about some recent complaints from train passengers:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/bike-blog/2019/nov/04/rail-companies-bike-policy-bicycle-storage-trains

Nothing new, really, but always interesting to take the temperature, and informative if you haven't looked into this before.

Yep, vertical narrow storage for 1.25 bikes on a train is a useless pile of shit. Still, it "is" "cycle provision" I suppose. If only it was way better, with a much larger capacity.