Bikes on trains

[mjr]

You can reserve a seat and a cycle space now,

No, the vast majority of services do not offer cycle reservations.

but is there a guarantee that you'll actually get your bike on a train if the space is crammed with luggage, or an opportunist cyclist has got in there first unbooked? Just because you're paying for it, doesn't mean that anything will change.

I think the proposal is that a change in status to a right to and responsibility for carriage should be linked to the charge.

With train operating companies hell bent on making savings such as closing ticket offices, I doubt that they're too interested in improving services for cyclists. I suspect that given the opportunity, they'd rather not carry those nuisance bicycles at all.

Worse: there are frequent allegations that Sunak's Treasury and Transport ministers would rather not carry any nuisance passengers at all. Then they could finally enact all the long-blocked plans for conversions of railways to roads. Most famously https://www.londonreconnections.com/201 ... onversion/ but I know of similar and worse in other towns.

[Psamathe]

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I think I'd agree that all large luggage should come under the same charging structure, but I'm open to persuasion on this.
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I think I'd agree but also wonder of needs of society should encourage cycling so maybe some "charges" should be waived (e.g. cycling).

Ian

[Jdsk]

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What I do think would be useful, and if done worth pinning, would be a list of TOCs and their 'usability' for bikes, so examples where there are fewer restrictions and plenty of bike storage space would rate more highly (in my view) than those TOCs where reservations are mandatory and you need to hang your bike up in a wardrobe-sized cupboard!
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Details and photos of hooked storage on GWR:

viewtopic.php?p=1834563#p1834563

Jonathan