[BRX]

I'm in the middle of a bit of a dispute with Southern Trains.

Basically this relates to an incident where I and others wanted to take bikes on the train to return home after a cycle ride. Unfortunately this coincided with the London-Brighton cycle ride and for that day Southern had a one-off policy which disallowed bikes on their trains within a wide area around Brighton (we were trying to board at Shoreham). This caused us a load of hassle trying to get back home.

We hadn't been aware that the London-Brighton was happening that day, and we'd checked on NRE before setting off that there weren't any service alterations on the trains we'd need to take back home. I consider that as taking a reasonable measure to plan our journey with the bikes. There was nothing on NRE about this one-day restriction. The section on NRE about southern's "cycle policy" didn't mention anything, just the standard peak restrictions etc.

Southern are telling me that the restrictions were mentioned on their website and they consider that to be enough. I say that it should have been on NRE (just like, for example, engineering works are).

Southern say:

If the information is not displayed on National Rails website which you chose to check rather than the actual train operator who was displaying the information we are not responsible for this so we did not fail to do anything. We have no control over what National Rail chose to display on their website.

Is this true?

I remember checking trains a few weeks ago (I'm pretty sure on NRE) and getting a notification that certain stations may be busy due to the Olympic torch relay...so it seems that the system is entirely capable of displaying such information.

[cjohnson]

It's possible for there to be a disconnect between what the TOC says and what NRE says - it's the wonderful world of this country's fragmented railway system!
A few years back I noticed NRE were showing engineering works on some SWT line, but SWT's site said that the planned engineering work had been cancelled. After calling up NRE the helpful operator double checked and NRE's website was corrected within the hour.

[tsr]

I'm afraid it seems you should have checked with the TOC - in this case, Southern, of course. I refer specifically to what is implied by Condition 48 of Section II of the NRCoC:

48. Cycles
Except for a few routes, the Train Companies allow cycles to be conveyed by train. However, restrictions may apply at particular times of day and/or days of the week. Any restrictions will be set out in the notices and publications of each Train Company. A charge may be made for conveying a cycle and a reservation may be required.

NRE is not a TOC, so you cannot rely on them to provide information for a TOC. They do in many cases, and are perfectly capable of doing so; however, whether or not they have a contractual burden to do inform you, you still need to check with the TOC about cycle restrictions.

[BRX]

Hm - I can see that that bit from NRCoC does imply that you have to check with the TOC. Which means that if you are planning a journey with several changes you would have to check through several several websites individually.

Thing is I've just had a look at Southern's website. Here's their cycle policy page. It seems reasonable to assume that anything affecting cyclists would be notified there. But I happened to notice elsewhere on their website this talking about restrictions applying to another London-Coast bike ride...but it's not mentioned in their cycle policy page. Their cycle policy page says

we cannot accommodate ordinary cycles on Southern services at these times. This means on trains travelling towards either London or Brighton and due to arrive between 07:00 and 10:00 and trains leaving either London or Brighton between 16:00 and 19:00. Outside of these times, we accommodate ordinary cycles free of charge on our trains and without a prior reservation.

Difficult to say now whether the same applied to their restrictions on the London-Brighton day. If we had looked at their website, gone to the cycle policy page, and it had said the above, then it would seem reasonable to have assumed that we could take bikes on a train on a Sunday.

As for the question of whether Southern could have got an alert put on NRE... sounds like you are saying they could have, in which case what they've said to me in their letter is untrue. Perhaps I should get clarification from NRE.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Ctually I've just used the internet archive site wayback machine to see what their website said a week before the date in uestion...and there was nothing on the cycle policy page:

http://web.archive.org/web/201106092.../cycle-policy/

[cjohnson]

Originally Posted by BRX

Ctually I've just used the internet archive site wayback machine to see what their website said a week before the date in uestion...and there was nothing on the cycle policy page:

http://web.archive.org/web/201106092.../cycle-policy/

That archive page is from 2011.... I recall seeing tweets from Southern about the restrictions before the event around a fortnight ago.

[BRX]

Originally Posted by cjohnson

That archive page is from 2011.... I recall seeing tweets from Southern about the restrictions before the event around a fortnight ago.

You're right - my mistake. However the fact it wasn't shown there in 2011 makes it likely that the same was true this year.


I don't think they can rely on making tweets to let people planning a journey know about stuff. I'm not on twitter, and even if I was, would it be reasonable to expect me to be following all the UK's TOCs in order to know about stuff like this?

We didn't even start (or finish) our journey in the Southern trains area, neither do any of us regularly use their services.

[Class377/5]

Originally Posted by BRX

I'm in the middle of a bit of a dispute with Southern Trains.

Basically this relates to an incident where I and others wanted to take bikes on the train to return home after a cycle ride. Unfortunately this coincided with the London-Brighton cycle ride and for that day Southern had a one-off policy which disallowed bikes on their trains within a wide area around Brighton (we were trying to board at Shoreham). This caused us a load of hassle trying to get back home.

We hadn't been aware that the London-Brighton was happening that day, and we'd checked on NRE before setting off that there weren't any service alterations on the trains we'd need to take back home. I consider that as taking a reasonable measure to plan our journey with the bikes. There was nothing on NRE about this one-day restriction. The section on NRE about southern's "cycle policy" didn't mention anything, just the standard peak restrictions etc.

Southern are telling me that the restrictions were mentioned on their website and they consider that to be enough. I say that it should have been on NRE (just like, for example, engineering works are).

Southern say:

Is this true?

I remember checking trains a few weeks ago (I'm pretty sure on NRE) and getting a notification that certain stations may be busy due to the Olympic torch relay...so it seems that the system is entirely capable of displaying such information.

As someone inside a TOC who deals with information giving out I'd never ever recommend going to NRE website. It's fine for generally checking but I've always found it to be off the mark.

Basically NRE get the information from the TOC's then edit it then sent I out to the public with (quite often) different timescales. There has been issues with bugs and false information on the site that doesn't appear to have been generated by anyone.

Bottom line is always check your TOC or TOC's websites prior to leaving as this will contain information given from their control Center, not an office that actually have little or no contact with the operational railway.

[GadgetMan]

Originally Posted by BRX

However the fact it wasn't shown there in 2011 makes it likely that the same was true this year.

Going by this logic, it'll never get a mention as it must be true for 2013,14.... too.

[BRX]

Originally Posted by Class377/5

As someone inside a TOC who deals with information giving out I'd never ever recommend going to NRE website. It's fine for generally checking but I've always found it to be off the mark.

Basically NRE get the information from the TOC's then edit it then sent I out to the public with (quite often) different timescales. There has been issues with bugs and false information on the site that doesn't appear to have been generated by anyone.

Bottom line is always check your TOC or TOC's websites prior to leaving as this will contain information given from their control Center, not an office that actually have little or no contact with the operational railway.

Ok - but would you not agree that

1) It's reasonable for a member of the public to assume that the information given on NRE should be correct, given its name and what it says it is on its website:

National Rail Enquiries (NRE) is the definitive source of information for all passenger rail services on the National Rail network in England, Wales and Scotland. NRE is part of the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), which is responsible for providing business services to the Train Operating Companies.

2) There would be nothing stopping Southern from providing NRE with the information about widespread cycle restrictions applying on a certain day (information which is known well in advance). If NRE fail to pass this on to passengers, and someone has a problem as a result, then at least Southern have done the best that they could have done to get the information out there, and the complaint can be passed on to NRE.

3) It's pretty stupid to have a system where there is a central information source, yet passengers are told that they ought to check the websites of potentially several separate companies before each and every journey they make. Especially as NRE is part of ATOC, which the TOCs are by definition members of.

[Helvellyn]

Originally Posted by BRX

I'm in the middle of a bit of a dispute with Southern Trains.

Basically this relates to an incident where I and others wanted to take bikes on the train to return home after a cycle ride. Unfortunately this coincided with the London-Brighton cycle ride and for that day Southern had a one-off policy which disallowed bikes on their trains within a wide area around Brighton (we were trying to board at Shoreham). This caused us a load of hassle trying to get back home.

How many of there were you in the group? Even if this restriction hadn't been in place, you might not have been able to get on the train if other bike users had used up the available bike capacity. For example, on my compaby (SWT) a 4-car 450 holds 2 bikes (same with a 2-car 158 and 3-car 159) and a 5-car 444 holds 6 bikes, yet you quite often get more people than that wanting to cram their bikes on.

[rail-britain]

I have to agree, the National Rail website "should" have up to date AND correct information
However, it tends to only provide core information and service (punctuality) information
For any service restrictions you rarely find this, and have no choice but to visit the website of the relevant TOC

I pointed this out to National Rail (ATOC) before, but they weren't interested and agreed it was up to the customer to ensure the travel arrangements they had in place were acceptable

I have pointed out to National Rail that Glasgow Airport (station) still appears, and when entering Glasgow this is the first to appear which is annoying when you are using tab keyboard

[BRX]

Originally Posted by Helvellyn

How many of there were you in the group? Even if this restriction hadn't been in place, you might not have been able to get on the train if other bike users had used up the available bike capacity. For example, on my compaby (SWT) a 4-car 450 holds 2 bikes (same with a 2-car 158 and 3-car 159) and a 5-car 444 holds 6 bikes, yet you quite often get more people than that wanting to cram their bikes on.

There were 3 of us. If the train we'd wanted to get on already had loads of bikes we'd have accepted that we would have to wait for the next one if the guard had said so.

But the train was very lightly loaded, and our bikes weren't causing anyone a problem. And we were heading away from the direction of Brighton so it's not like there would suddenly be loads of people wanting to get on further down the line. Nevertheless the guard chucked us off because of the rules (which he said he thought were stupid, but seemed to have no sympathy for us and apparently didn't have any discretion in making such a decision).

By the way I've always found SWT to be very good with bikes. Never had problems with SWT staff.

[Class377/5]

Originally Posted by BRX

Ok - but would you not agree that

1) It's reasonable for a member of the public to assume that the information given on NRE should be correct, given its name and what it says it is on its website:

2) There would be nothing stopping Southern from providing NRE with the information about widespread cycle restrictions applying on a certain day (information which is known well in advance). If NRE fail to pass this on to passengers, and someone has a problem as a result, then at least Southern have done the best that they could have done to get the information out there, and the complaint can be passed on to NRE.

3) It's pretty stupid to have a system where there is a central information source, yet passengers are told that they ought to check the websites of potentially several separate companies before each and every journey they make. Especially as NRE is part of ATOC, which the TOCs are by definition members of.

1) Agree, I don't like NRE and always directed passengers to the TOC's website.

2) Er, what makes you think Southern didn't supply the information? You can't blame Southern for what a 3rd party do.

3) It's a pretty stupid set up in general on the railways but that's what you get.

However there are changes coming to the industry with long term projects to change the way information is dealt with and creating a unified information system. Still in the development stage but will make the varies TOC's systems sync up more.

However NRE is separate from the TOC, they get the information from the TOC's then change it to show the public a completely different message. It's something of a sore point but not something that's picked too much up.

[BRX]

Originally Posted by Class377/5

1) Agree, I don't like NRE and always directed passengers to the TOC's website.

2) Er, what makes you think Southern didn't supply the information? You can't blame Southern for what a 3rd party do.

3) It's a pretty stupid set up in general on the railways but that's what you get.

However there are changes coming to the industry with long term projects to change the way information is dealt with and creating a unified information system. Still in the development stage but will make the varies TOC's systems sync up more.

However NRE is separate from the TOC, they get the information from the TOC's then change it to show the public a completely different message. It's something of a sore point but not something that's picked too much up.

2) I don't know whether Southern supplied the information to NRE - their email to me doesn't seem to suggest that they did - but I'm going to clarify this with them. If they say they did, then I will take it up with NRE.

[rail-britain]

Originally Posted by BRX

2) I don't know whether Southern supplied the information to NRE - their email to me doesn't seem to suggest that they did - but I'm going to clarify this with them. If they say they did, then I will take it up with NRE.

How odd, as they supplied information to all other external providers on their distribution list
I received two copies
The first was about a night event Sat 26 May
However the second didn't make much sense as the dates were from 2010
I am wondering if National Rail ignored it due to this