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@BoardinBob Sorry, but it was this Inverness to Edinburgh train I was on that was a nightmare in both directions. Stand up for yourself, be pushy…pray to the bike gods you don’t get my guard. Also, be aware that your bike is likely to end up being squished and squashed with a load of others, so don’t be precious about the frame etc. Also, expect to have to remove your panniers/bar bag whatever
Ah, bugger. To make matters worse it's a saturday afternoon so will be double carnage. In addition the bike will be fully loaded with panniers etc.
Looks like I better sort the hire car now
BoardinBob
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Anyone know what the Inverness to Glasgow bike on train situation is like?I’m doing the Hebridean Way in a couple of weeks. On the way home I’m cycling from Ullapool to Garve then I’ve got a train booked from there to Inverness and I’ve got my bike booked on that OK.
For the Inverness to Glasgow leg I have a ticket booked but the booking site had no bike reservations available, nor were there any for days. Going to turn up and hope I can get on. Otherwise I’ll be renting a car and driving back
You're basically taking a chance on that one tbh if you've not got the bike booked on. Might be ok, but....
FAO: you can book bike reservations on the Scotrail website. Sometimes they don't show for services provided by other rail companies but I have found this to be rare.
I'm not aware of any other website that does so, tho bike reservations are sometimes easy on twitter, faceook etc rather than a call-centre.
I'm involved in a Twitter discussion with the @Transpennine team at the moment. All reasonably standard "you booked two" "theres only space for 2" etc etc brush offs. But when I mentioned the young women cyclists left in tears on the platform (which is true- although they were upset and furious in equal measure) the tone of Transpennines responses changed. So the answer to the question "how best to grumble" appears to be "create a more engaging narrative that will look worse on the front page of a newspaper."
I had a bike booked recently for Inverness to Aviemore last month, train was heading for Edinburgh. It was chaos really, the slots for bikes just aren't up to bike shapes at all, then a Dutch chap gets on with full on tourer - so out came my bike, his went in - just - then mine came on the outside. Conductor was a bit nippy about tit, had to be strapped in - luckily was heading one stop down the line.
On the way back, couldn't find the bike coach -- guard wqs great, door opens and in the bike goes to get lodged in a proper guards van - tip, get lots of straps to hold it in and get the slot by the cage/netting.
@bigjim -- yes, been in Copenhagen a few times in last couple of years. Bike provision just blew me away TBH.
You could do worse than try to speak to Lee Craigie about it. Bike Jenga is definitely a thing, and you can see from the comments that it's possibly easier to cycle around the world than to get your bike from Inverness to London.
On a bike trip planned from Zeebrugge to Rotterdam we ended up having getting the ferry to Rotterdam (different story) and had to get the train from Rotterdam to Bruges. 4 of us, loaded up touring bikes. 2 trains, no advance booking, no paying for bikes, bike carriages like the ones bigjim posted above, no problems. This is how I'd like to see it work here please.
RM.
I have had my bike on the inverness to Edinburgh train a few times - even the tandem whch is expressly forbidden with no problems whatsoev er. Scotrail actually has a policy of not turning away bikes if its possible to get them on safely - at the guards discretion.
The only time I was refused was with the tandem at pitlochry. the guard wsas very nice. he said " I have 5 bikes and a wheelchair user on the train - I am sorry I just can't let you on. Fair enough - I was trying my luck
Literally just trying to book 3 of us with bikes on a train from Sheffield to Glasgow to ride the Badger Divide. Massive no go... Maximum spaces for bikes is 2 except for Arriva who have 3 but you can only reserve 2 of 3.. What the..??? How on earth do they think this is an acceptable policy??? Now it means instead of jumping on a train, we have to bloody drive to Glasgow.. Its a joke.
Boardingbob - my experience is that you will have no issue. Get there early, be polite and it will be no issue.
I will say that GWR staff are almost always helpful. Just a pity about the woeful storage on the new high speed trains.
Yes, tried to book two bike spaces from London to Gloucester for a weekend cycling. Was told they only had one space per train (not, it's busy, just that they only have one space). Their suggestion was to take separate trains and meet up at the other end. Ended up taking the car in the end which was alright as we were doing a circular route but wasn't ideal
According to my wheely friend getting a wheelchair on a Scotrail train is even more of a bawache than a bike as they need to book 24 hours in advance
That's perilously close to being in breach of the DDA if not way the wrong side of the line. An able bodied type can rock up, buy a ticket and get on. IF you're in a wheelchair that's verboten. Hmmm.
That’s perilously close to being in breach of the DDA if not way the wrong side of the line. An able bodied type can rock up, buy a ticket and get on. IF you’re in a wheelchair that’s verboten. Hmmm.
You *might* find it's actually so they can ensure the correct assistance is in place...
An awful lot of the stations and trains around here (Manchester area, the delights of Northern Rail) are way outside of DDA - there are plenty of stations that are partially or completely inaccessible to wheelchairs, the dreadful Pacer trains are totally non-compliant (although they do have ramps that the guard can access which is part of the reason for all the strikes about the role of the guard) but actually, booking a wheelchair is a way of ensuring that there are staff at the station to assist.
At least, I'm assuming that's why they do it rather than for any discriminatory reasons.
I’m up for campaigning on this one. I was intending to do more when the TransPennine ‘book 24 hours in advance’ rule was created but I got busy.
Anyway, it’s bonkers that we have active travel targets but the train operators are not helping achieve them. There is a system problem in that franchises are tilted towards getting as many people sitting as possible which means cramming the seats on and minimising space available for other uses. So the DfT needs to specify that providing seats isn’t to the detriment of enabling wheelchair / pram / luggage and bikes to be carried on trains. A guard’s van would be the solution.
Scotrail has now dedicated bike / winter sports areas on trains that serve outdoor sports areas but I think that might be because Transport Scotland is generally more sensible in its requirements for franchising.
Easy fix! Just tell them you have a family emergency and need to get back home asap. Your mother has had a fall and you need get to the hospital asap.
Sometimes when people are being egotistical and trying to win a war you have to pull out a different weapon so you can win and nobody loses.
Anyone know what the Inverness to Glasgow bike on train situation is like?
I did Inverness to Edinburgh on Saturday, same issue we couldn't book our bikes on the train as all 6 spaces were booked. When I went to get on the train the guard asked if we had a reservation and told us we would have to remove our bikes if no space. No one else turned up!
Advice is get there as early as possible and be prepared to go on Edinburgh train if Glasgow one full
The 'big' train from Inverness is probably the safest bet, the Highland chieftan, leaves inverness at 0750 and the one back from london arrives about 2000 from memory, it's run by virgin trains or whoever is currently running that service into the ground but it has the guard carriage with several bike spaces.
I’ve looked at getting back from Inverness to Glasgow and gave up. We’ve booked a one way hire on a small 3 seater van and will drive back to Glasgow and drop the hire van there. Works out £120 + fuel for the trip which is a bit more than the train but less hassle.
So disappointed with the UK rail setup in general when it comes to bikes. LNER new trains have 8 spaces all reservable but they are only operating on the east coast main line at the min.
Makes logistics so expensive and complicated.
Tomorrow, Transpennine's access manager is going to call me. I suspect the line will be that although the wheelchair space was totally empty, they needed to keep it free just in case. Is that true? Is it guards discretion or is there an equalities thing they will look to hide behind?
(Clearly had a cohort of wheelchair users got on, we'd have all got off. Because we are nice people)
I was trying to get Helen Pidd interested in the idea, but she's not responded.
Tomorrow, Transpennine’s access manager is going to call me. I suspect the line will be that although the wheelchair space was totally empty, they needed to keep it free just in case. Is that true? Is it guards discretion or is there an equalities thing they will look to hide behind?
There's a whole load of what-iffery going on there.
What if a load of wheelchair users had wanted to get on and you didn't want to move and the guard had to get arsey and there was an argument and the train was delayed and ... and ... and...?
What if more cyclists who had booked got on one stop down the line?
My guess is it's a whole combination of things. A guard who was perhaps a bit too arsey (maybe because he's had exactly that argument with other cyclists and simply didn't want a repeat of it). The fact that you were trying to get 3 bikes onto what is technically a 2-bike-only service (although that is very open to interpretation as well).
TPE recently (very quietly) dropped their 24hr in advance booking policy, it's now 10 minutes in advance so you can just rock up at a station and book on but IME that doesn't translate well into an actual practical policy since it doesn't stop cyclists turning up 2 stops down the line, booking on and trying to board (the system isn't clever enough to say sorry, there's no space on that train cos someone got on 2 stops ago...). Really, the system is there to discourage cyclists from travelling and to give the guard a fall back when he/she doesn't ant to let you on.
Northern might be utterly shit in pretty much every other aspect but one huge advantage that the old Pacers have is a proper bike storage area that can, with some creative stacking, accommodate about 6 bikes. And there's no advance booking policy.
To give scotrail some credit, their cycle rescue thing is pretty decent for a train company
https://www.scotrail.co.uk/plan-your-journey/cycling/plan-your-cycle-rail-journey
Thats handy Bob, noted.
Have we done Eurostar yet?
Transpennines Accessibility & integration Manager is charlie.french@firstgroup.com . He was a nice guy, hid at first behind the health and safety/ overcrowding/ wheelchair line. And never at one point said "we could have avoided all of this if the guard had shown a bit of initiative" or more fairly "I wish we had policies in place that allowed the guard to take some initiative."
Personal experience only, but I've never been turned away by Scotrail whether booked or not. Most memorable was a Glasgow-Oban trip where I think there were 12 bikes. The guard just opened the doors and let us sort ourselves out.
Not sure the new Scotrail waggons are in service yet but there are holes in the provision as they don't cover Central Belt to Inverness.
There are a few companies doing bike transport round the Highlands. Can be a bit spendy for one/two folk but great if you are happy to share or if you have a larger party.
www.johnogroatsbiketransport.co.uk also do a courier pick-up and delivery service that works well for many folk (and they do a lot more than John O'Groats)
First time Pedal for Scotland ran the early morning Edinburgh-Glasgiow train had about 40 bikes on board. Guard turned up, said they all had to be taken off. Somebody pointed out that this would leave the train with zero passengers. Everyone refused to get off & after a bit of unhappy tooth sucking away we all went. Picking up further bikes on the way. Strength in numbers.