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GWR (and LNER) are much worse than they used to be. Cos no guards van and the hitachi "bike spaces" are a joke: you need to hang the bike, tyres >35c don't fit, deep section (>45mm rims) don't fit. If you have wide bars and someone else is there you won't fit even if you have a space booked. Etc, ad nauseam.
wence-
It was still shit ~10 years ago. I think I only ever got to use a guards van (or equivalent) twice in my life. Once when I bought my Colnago in ~1998 and got to sit with it in a proper old school guards van on the way back from Portsmouth, almost the whole van to myself so the bike could just lay flat on the floor.
Other time was, I think, a train back from Edinburgh where the bikes went in an area in one of the front coaches with hooks for ~20 bikes and proper space for non-standard bikes (recumbents, tandem, etc).
The rest have been standard shit bike provision like the 3 bike space with wheel benders opposite the toilet (common on SWR trains), or nothing at all and the bike just squished into some space in a vestibule.
Greenbank
Haven't done an Audax for ~7 years so I don't really take bikes on trains any more (apart from commuting bike at pissed'o'clock when too hammered to ride home sensibly) but for all of the Audax riding I used to do I think I only had one or two non-good experiences in 60+ return train journeys. Even then the only problems were minor shit like the bike spaces were full despite having a reservation but guard used common sense and still let me get on the train.