Thank you Virgin Rail for your contribution to our 'Integrated Transport Policy'

A topic I feel has probably been covered before. But allow me the indulgence of a rant, as today was my first experience of the unbridled joy that trying to get a bike on a Virgin Train is. Jesus! It'd be easier to actually gain egress to a genuine Virgin. A decent looking one. Over the age of 20. In a ****ing sink estate in South London

FFS! Which muppet was in charge of designing those ****ing things. Perish the thought that you might be able to do something as ****ing revolutionary as open the door to the bike storage, and simply put your bike on the train. Oh no. Where's the fun in that? You have to get the 'train manager' to do it for you. Luckily Virgin have eradicated any potential problems on this front by scouring the country for the most petty, small-minded half-witted ****-wits to fulfill this role.

When stood by the train door the following constructive exchange took place:

Can I get my bike on please mate?
Have you made a reservation?
No
You need to make a reservation.
I didn't know that. Can I get my bike on please mate?
No. You've not made a reservation.
What? I didn't know I had to make a reservation. The bike storage is empty. Can I get my bike on please?
No. You need to make a reservation?
Oh FFS? Its empty. The train is leaving in 2 minutes. I'm on my way to work. Can I get my bike on please?
No. You haven't made a reservation.

At this point, Another member of staff intervened and opened the door for me.

You couldn't ****ing well make it up. Gggggggrrrrrrrr

But you hadn't made a reservation….

Complain to Virgin. I absolutely hate using their trains for exactly that reason.
It may be childish, but I have sent a letter of complaint every time I'ver used their trains in the last 6 months – just printed out a template and mailed it. They need to know how stupid the situation is, and how rude their staff can be.

I know. This is where it starts. And before you know it….. ANARCHY!!!

Contrast this with the service I had from Virgin on a train from London to Lancaster a few years ago…
Wheel bike up platform, try to find train manager to open the door and in the end resort to knocking on the drivers cab.
Driver came back, opened the door to the bike storage area, looked at the bike and said "I've got a Langster as well but in brown". There followed a short chat about our respective singlespeeds, he asked where I was getting off and sure enough, got to Lancaster and the driver was stood on the platform holding the bike for me. 🙂

But what if five mins later after you had 'blagged' your bike onto the train, a couple of people with reservations ruck up with bikes and find that there isn't room for them anymore?

It got better too. A rather nice female roadie got on after me. She was getting off at the same stop as me.

When we arrived it became clear we'd forgotten about and would soon be on our way to London. So she said 'oh well' and managed to open the door. She'd clearly done this before.

So, for future reference, should you need to know… You can open the door to the cycle storage on a Virgin train by jamming your sunglasses into the door-opening-thingmajig and twisting them. Though the afore-mentioned 'train manager' will not be best pleased with you for doing so 😀

it's not brilliant is it.

you should have made a reservation though, it's not that hard to find out you need to on the website.

Can't really blame the train manager, if someone got on at the next station who had made a reservation then you'd have been kicked off.

This has happened to us but luckily the train manager took pity on the (sexy) french girls and let them stay on with their bikes.

Done a lot of long distance train travel with bikes in the last year and experience has on the whole been positive but you soon learn to jump through the hoops and get your reservations sorted

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One return journey
2 people
2 bicycles
24 tickets!

recently did bolton to inverness return with bikes for £52 each first class

I guess it must be the luck of the draw but I never have a problem on the Chiltern service. Just rock up each morning and usually get a carriage to myself 🙂 Even when its busy on the home leg everyone mucks in and stacks their bikes in order to allow each other to get off when their stop comes.

There is always that sort of self important t0$$er though that sticks to the rules just for the sake of it. 🙁

Well Virgin trains must be run by Labour then and driven by Lib Dems! 😕

As per Nick's comments, it may be pre-reserved by someone else and you've just ****ed up their plans because you're disorganised.

Dear god. There's me complaining about small-minded pettyness and forgetting where i was.

Could you possibly update me as to how the **** we've ever managed to get to this stage in our evolutionary process without having reserved places for our bikes in the past? I'm surprised the world hasn't stopped turning and the sky fallen in.

Guess what? It hasn't and it won't

like i said it's not ideal but applying the rules is not small minded pettiness. It's just the system which is rubbish, there is no statutory requirement for train operators to carry bikes but people like CTC are tirelessly campaigning for change either through government (when we eventually get one) or directly with the operators.

coffeeking – Member

As per Nick's comments, it may be pre-reserved by someone else and you've just ****ed up their plans because you're disorganised.

If you;re using the train for commuting, do you really want to be reserving a ticket each way each day? fine if you're doing a one off big trip, but you shouldn't need to do it for regular journeys 🙄

It was the first time I've travelled on Virgin and I genuinelly didn't know I had to make a reservation

Its the system I'm criticising. It seems plain daft to me. Haven't we had a government that for some time has been banging on about the 'Integrated Transport Policy' mentioned in the title. Yet the ability for trains to carry bikes is little more than a token gesture? And one bitterly resented by the looks of it

They should have more of the disabled carriages when needed on the commuting trains. Seems straight forward to make a note of amount of regular cycles on a given route and accomodate them… or is that far too simplistic?

sadly policy seems to concentrate on storage and access to stations although all parties claimed to be aiming towards more access on the actual trains themselves

personally i'd happily pay to take my bike on the train if it meant i could guarantee a safe place for the bike and easier access to and from the train at stations and room for more than 2 or 3 bikes

If you;re using the train for commuting, do you really want to be reserving a ticket each way each day? fine if you're doing a one off big trip, but you shouldn't need to do it for regular journeys

You're either needing to book them or not, they don't know what journey length you're doing.

They should have more of the disabled carriages when needed on the commuting trains. Seems straight forward to make a note of amount of regular cycles on a given route and accomodate them… or is that far too simplistic?

That sounds very expensive.

Bring back slam door trains with huge mail cars.

I really can't see why there should be a problem travelling without a reservation – if someone else comes on with a reservation they should just make you get off.

So what happens if I have to work late one evening then? Is the booking transferable?

I can just imagine the bureaucratic meltdown that would occur if i wanted to do such a thing?

CaptJon has it, made it much easier.

i'd rather be told i can't get on the train at my start point than kicked off the train at some random station

it does get even more stupid though, the wife wanted to use B2W to get to work in milton keynes by train and bike but you aren't aloud to take a bike through MK station between 8am and 9am 😯

she had to buy a folder for that reason and has to fold the bike up for the walk through the station (and also gets round needing a bike res on the train)

Get a folding bike simples!

I'm not wild about Virgin, but in fairness if you have got a reservation it's usually reasonably smooth.

Out of interest, what proportion of an adult fare would people be prepared to pay for no-reservation bike space on fast trains? I reckon about 1/3 would be fair…

you cant really quantify it like that BD, fares vary so much.

I'd happily pay about 10% of the full flexible ticket price but that could amount to nearer 80% of the discount ticket price.

for instance for our summer trip last year i'd happily have paid an extra £30 or £40 for the bikes but our (super save mega cheap completely inflexible advance) tickets were £200 cheaper than the normal fare

BD – Don't let Virgin hear you saying that. Depressingly: I can imagine that'll already be on their agenda

True, true.

Absolutely everyone involved with British railways at the moment needs their heads banging together, for so many reasons. 🙂

true of a lot of the management i think, i've had overwhelmingly positive experiences with on train and station staff though.

Other passengers could do with a jump as well, their attitude seems to be a little like most drivers attitude to cyclists on the road. A mere inconvenience with no particular right to be there.

It's one of these things, sometimes I have been annoyed at NOT being able to make a reservation for a bike.

Like when using the train to go biking somewhere up north but the "journey isn't long enough" to warrant a booking so you just have to turn up and hope! (This is Scotrail by the way not Virgin)

It can really ruin your day out in the hills if you don't get on the right train…

I think more bike capacity is the, not unreasonable, way forward.

never had a problem even for short journeys on scotrail euan, in fact scotrail seem to be one of the best set up to cope with cycles. They all seem to vary massively though and more capacity is the way ahead but not necessarily financially viable with old rolling stock and no change to pricing structures

All the people flexing their hindsight and suggesting he get a reservation seem to be unaware of the fact that the maximum number of reservations on Virgin Cross Country trains is two. And they have three bike spaces in total. Yes, three. Want to travel somewhere with three of your mates? Tough.

Oh and folding bikes are overpriced noddy toss, and if you have one it's the equivalent of bending over and taking it from Richard Branson. 🙂

I'm with you there fella. If i was about to get another bike, there's an awful lot on the shopping list before some noddy folder. I wouldn't be seen dead on one 😀

me either, but then i'm never really going to be able to cycle commute.

mrsmw isn't aloud to ride anywhere near me on hers

I fear that Virgin Rail's policy will not be greatly affected by this heroic stand, sadly. 🙂

All the people flexing their hindsight and suggesting he get a reservation seem to be unaware of the fact that the maximum number of reservations on Virgin Cross Country trains is two. And they have three bike spaces in total. Yes, three. Want to travel somewhere with three of your mates? Tough.

Not unaware at all, just aware that there are limitations and it's tough if you exceed them. I'm not saying that's good, I think there should be more spaces definitely, I just think reserving them isnt an unreasonable request on their part and they probably have policy/legal issues booting people off once on, like how do you find who's bike it is to kick them off when the reserved people get on? If you have a limited number of spaces and operate a reservation system, it's very hard to deal with people who don't reserve in a way that isn't unfair to others or causes delays. If you travel by train, reserve your bike. Same with a plane – you wouldn't just turn up and expect to be able to take it, even if it was just an internal trip.

I don't have any problem with making reservations. But the hoops you have to jump through are getting ridiculous, and will only become more so with stuff like the extension of peak travel times.

Pretty soon, unless you are some filthy docile hippy who is prepared to effectively double your journey time by queueing at the station for hours, getting trains at ridiculous times and waiting around for the rest of your friends to arrive, and sorting through a profusion of little bits of orange card, you'll drive everywhere instead. Or get one of the few remaining proper trains with a guard's van which is aimed at transporting people from place to place, rather than topping up some Catweazle-a-like bawbag's swimming pool full of money.

In the latest addition to our wonderful "you-couldn't-make-it-up" transport saga, you can't actually make a reservation for your bike on the virgin website. How absolutely bloody marvelous.

I'm just going to headbutt my keyboard for a bit

as far as i know the only company with on line reservations is East Coast

everybody else you have to phone up to check there's space, then book you ticket (and pay a random price they make up on the spot) only then can you actually reserve your spot!

In my experience, making a reservation for your bike involves going to the station, queueing for eternity behind people who are seemingly planning to circumnavigate the globe via rail, then being told that the service you want to use is being replaced by a bus service on the day you want to travel, so you can't take your bike on it anyway.