Mini-Rant/first world moan/am slightly annoyed with stuff; off for a cheeky ride of the northern part of the Highland way on Monday, went to book a return train ticket from Fort William to Tyndrum get to the Scotrail website where in huge letters it says call this number if traveling with a bike. Dial the number only to be told “nope, gotta go to the station to do that, soz.” Really! I live on the other coast how’s that supposed to work!!!! Anyway, a very nice lady from customer services is trying to arrange a reservation for me. Though honestly Scotrail you upgraded your systems on the first of April, two weeks is plenty of time to make it all work. Meh.

Tell us where you live and we will come over and give you a hug 🙂

It annoys me that you used to be able to book the bike on line but now can’t since abeillio took over.

Wait until you get there with booking to be told there is no bike spaces available…

Was gonna say, it used to be the case it was just first come first served with a bike.

I could do with a hug if he doesn’t want it… Nothing to rant about at the mo though

Hm, I booked a seat and then phoned the number, got a reservation code over the phone. This about a month ago. has it changed again?

It really does seem to be backwards.

I must say, as much as I bitch and moan about trains in other circles, Northern rail and trans-pennine express are fantastic with bikes, if there’s room to get it on, then you’re all good. No booking or reservations.

Booking a bike on guarantees nothing anyway IME.

Final word is with the driver, if the trains arrives full at your station your reservation will mean nothing, health and safety trumps it.

I booked up a while back (over the phone BTW), bikes are required to be booked on between Glasgow and Mallaig. It is not possible to book on between my home station and Edinburgh, or Edinburgh to Glasgow. So only had a reservation for the final leg of the journey – seems like a bit of a lottery.

Turned out ok in the end, but I couldn’t even get myself along early as I was on the first train of the day.

On east coast scotrail. Reservation trumps already being on the train. Ive watched conductors ask folk to ge off the train if they have no reservations.

And if going via inverness – always book

Abellio took a thumping when they unveiled their new train- with no more bike space!

The west coast train has been first come first as long as i can remember though

The west coast train has been first come first as long as i can remember though

Not any more according to the website:

Cycle reservations are required on services between:

Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen
Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness
Glasgow, Oban, Fort William and Mallaig
Aberdeen and Inverness
Inverness, Wick, Thurso and Kyle of Lochalsh

Link

Edit: FWIW the number on that page is the one I used to book on around a month ago, no issues.

Why on earth they don’t just have a coach dedicated to bikes these days I’ll never know

I’ve managed it twice recently, AFTER booking my ticket, worked fine, if a PITA over the online version.

You could legitimately remove the word ‘biking’ fromm the title too.

It is quite absurd that they can only take a very small number of bikes on trains that head to areas that people want to take bikes to. My local trains are great for bikes though, been using them for years to get to trails up the coast, means we can have an ale or two post ride – and I’ve never had an issue getting my bike on the train. Electrified line, with big wide doors and loads of space for bikes.

Which reminds me that I need to get the train tickets sorted for ride to the sun.

Abellio you say, have a look at the cluster**** that they made of the Dunwich Dynamo return transport. As a Dutch company you would expect that they would know how to do this moving bikes by rail business.

My other half is doing the sustrans C2C in a few months with two friends and thought they’d get the train to Workington to start. Except you can’t book more than two bikes. To a station that is at the start of an incredibly popular touring route. It really is just messed up.

I used to get the (Scotrail) train in to work at Dyce with a bike. There were 2×2 bike spots and usually at least 8 cyclists. The regular conductors turned a blind eye, one non-regular took a bit of an earbashing when he tried to make half of us get off…

There should really be some communication between the conductors (who know how many bikes come on regularly) and the people who spec/design the trains. Bet there isn’t though.

The fort bill train used to have really good bike provision… But I remember doing a trip, edinburgh to glasgow then up to the fort and it was impossible to guarantee bike space on the glasgow train. So I was left booking the second leg of a trip knowing I might get turned away at the first. Really weird.

OK firstly thanks for the offers of hugs, commiserations, etc etc. In the end a very nice lady from customer services did what can’t be done and instead of taking my complaint phoned fort bill and got my bike booked on the train (despite the dire warnings from Scotrail there were loads of spaces – 10 as opposed to 2!). Secondly, wow what an epic ride. I won’t post times – suffice it to say we had to peddle down hill just to keep moving into the wind. But that is some scenery you go through! Wish I’d had a proper camera. Just stunning.

good news !

i love the west.

It’s been such a long time since I was over there TR that I’d forgotten how grand it is. Hope to head back over in the summer.

although nowhere near where you were….. still indicative that west is best.

Aye the old Super Sprinters were the best as they have a rack for about 8 bikes IIRC?

We had Junipers on the Ayrshire lines that had huge amounts of room for bikes and wheelcharis, replaced by 380’s with next to none. Thanks First.

FWIW Abellio are trying to make the cycling thing work but they can only work with what they have. They have already installed double decker racks and a bike hire point at my local station, I think tbh they would struggle to get much more space without adding carriages which would require platform extensions etc.

Fort William has only just been properly made Scotrail, it was contracted before so that may account for disruption.

Last Easter we were staying up in Taynuilt and decided to ride into Oban and get the train back – 2 stops with 4 bikes. The ticket collector comes up and asks to see our reservations – “we are only going to 2 stops” says I, “you still should have booked” he insists. There is such an ingrained lack of interest/desire to helpful or open in a big number of conductors and staff on Scotrail it is quite sad.