jfowkes
Member
- Joined
- 20 Jul 2017
- Messages
- 884
This is a subject close to my heart as I cycle quite a bit and often take my bike on trains.
BUT.
The attitude of TOCs to bikes seems to vary from "OK, if we must" to "we're actively going to try and put you off travelling", and I can understand why.
Bikes are slow to board/alight, take up valuable space and are a potential safety hazard. Also cyclists can be smelly (I include myself firmly in this category).
Some classes of rolling stock are really, really bad for storing bikes. Class 222 have the bike spaces behind a frequently-locked door. Class 170s have an area that's ostensibly a "bike space" which is actually just "the bit in front of the loo". Some sprinters have a weird narrow room that you can't actually fit a bike into. Other sprinters have a nice big bike space that you can't get to because the door and vestibule are too small to manoeuvre a bike through.
Given all this, should we give up the pretence that bikes and trains are a good mix? Is it really worth spending money and time catering to this tiny, tiny segment of the market?
BUT.
The attitude of TOCs to bikes seems to vary from "OK, if we must" to "we're actively going to try and put you off travelling", and I can understand why.
Bikes are slow to board/alight, take up valuable space and are a potential safety hazard. Also cyclists can be smelly (I include myself firmly in this category).
Some classes of rolling stock are really, really bad for storing bikes. Class 222 have the bike spaces behind a frequently-locked door. Class 170s have an area that's ostensibly a "bike space" which is actually just "the bit in front of the loo". Some sprinters have a weird narrow room that you can't actually fit a bike into. Other sprinters have a nice big bike space that you can't get to because the door and vestibule are too small to manoeuvre a bike through.
Given all this, should we give up the pretence that bikes and trains are a good mix? Is it really worth spending money and time catering to this tiny, tiny segment of the market?