Tram takes bikes but only uphill!

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Cyril Haearn
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Tram takes bikes but only uphill!

Post by Cyril Haearn »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_Rack_Railway

This rack railway in Stuttgart takes bikes, but only up hill! The vertical difference is 205m.

Seems the wrong way round to me, I want to take the tram down and ride up.
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blackbike
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Re: Tram takes bikes but only uphill!

Post by blackbike »

Be grateful they take bikes at all.

N my local line In Manchester they replaced trains which took bikes with trams which don't in 1992.

Incredibly, given all the pro-cycling government hype over the last 20 years or so, a new Manchester tram line opened last year which bans bikes, and also replaced trains which took them.
Elizabeth_S
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Re: Tram takes bikes but only uphill!

Post by Elizabeth_S »

Well the rack railway (it's not a tram) also only takes them from Marienplatz to Degerloch, you can't get off in between and the driver keeps an eye on the bikes as they go up to make sure they don't fall off (I've been on it, but not with a bike). You can take a bike down on the U bahn anyhow, or the S-bahn.
ANTONISH
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Re: Tram takes bikes but only uphill!

Post by ANTONISH »

I can remember in the 50's paying half fare to take a bike on the train. There was of course a goods van in those days.
I wonder how much train companies would expect to charge nowadays to make it an economic option to carry bikes.
I know many do allow bikes on for free - some with limited numbers of bikes allowed. I am fortunate that I can use South eastern trains which have a very accepting policy towards bikes. At the guards discretion of course although I've never had a problem in that regard.
Flinders
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Re: Tram takes bikes but only uphill!

Post by Flinders »

I remember under BR being able to take my bike, without ever having to book, on trains including intercity services on the WCML for free.
Then Virgin took over with their badly designed rolling stock with no guard's vans and next to no luggage space.
:evil:
blackbike
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Re: Tram takes bikes but only uphill!

Post by blackbike »

Flinders wrote:I remember under BR being able to take my bike, without ever having to book, on trains including intercity services on the WCML for free.
Then Virgin took over with their badly designed rolling stock with no guard's vans and next to no luggage space.
:evil:


Virgin were nothing to do with it.

The rot set in while BR still ran things . ''High Speed Trains' on the East coast main line and 'sprinter' type local trains, both with no guard's van, were introduced years before privatisation.

The ever increasing difficulty of getting a bike on a train with no booking ahead or payment of a fee were a large part of the reason I bought my first car in 1991, a few years before BR and nationalised railways ended.

Looking back I'm not surprised guard's vans were phased out. During the years I took my bike on trains I rarely saw any cargo in the large space in the guard's van, I was never unable to get my bike aboard a train because of lack of space and on most trips my bike was the only one on the train.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Tram takes bikes but only uphill!

Post by Cyril Haearn »

circa 1978 there was an agreement (CTC involved) that bikes could go free on trains, so many applied for free tickets that the website crashed (back then ;-)) and then one could just take ones bike for free, no need for a ticket

another time a railway manager said: he had learned as a boy never to cycle so far from home that he could not cycle back before the gloaming.
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LollyKat
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Re: Tram takes bikes but only uphill!

Post by LollyKat »

Cyril Haearn wrote:circa 1978 there was an agreement (CTC involved) that bikes could go free on trains, so many applied for free tickets that the website crashed (back then ;-)) and then one could just take ones bike for free, no need for a ticket

I remember that, though I think it was 1977. I applied (by post, as this was pre-PC days) for two tickets in what I thought was good time, so that we could go to the York Rally. Unfortunately the demand was so high that not enough tickets had been printed, and we had to pay £3 for each bike - a significant amount of money in those days.
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Paulatic
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Re: Tram takes bikes but only uphill!

Post by Paulatic »

Edinburgh are trialling bikes on trams [emoji3]
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Cyril Haearn
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Re: Tram takes bikes but only uphill!

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Surely that is not a first in Edinburgh, many years ago most large towns in the UK had trams, surely they took bikes.

If I am forced to ride downhill, I want a dynamo that drags enough to keep my speed under 30 kmh, not brakes that erode and destroy my rims, and produces lots of energy so I can make a cup of tea. Has anyone invented this? If not, why not?
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ferdinand
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Re: Tram takes bikes but only uphill!

Post by ferdinand »

HSTs came in on the East Midlands route from 1976-1981.

Privatisation was 1992 iirc.

I read up about trams and it seems that *none* of them at present take non-folding (what's the word - full-size?) bikes, while light rail setups seem to do so. In Nottingham the Trams don't while the Robin Hood line treat bikes similarly to trains - walk up and get on, but space is limited to just a few bikes, with the conductor having discretion for extra bikes.

I can see the logic in that 'trams are for short distances so use your bike', but I'm not sure the line is in the right place. Off peak bikes on not full tram would not be much of an imposition IMO.

Ferdinand
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