London to Brighton bike ride stock to get the bikes back

[Robertj21a]

Why is this a big thing this year ? - hasn't it been the same for many years now ?

Where does 'PR disaster' and 'arrogance' come into it - or do people simply fail to understand the issue ?

 

[squizzler]

Really? How much do you think converting that lot would cost? And how do you get the investment back?

Ripping out the interior of the designated bike wagon(s) and installing some appropriate bike hooks? Your guess is as good as mine!

 

[swt_passenger]

Why is this a big thing this year ? - hasn't it been the same for many years now ?

Where does 'PR disaster' and 'arrogance' come into it - or do people simply fail to understand the issue ?

Concur. Exactly what I’ve been trying to say since early in the thread. Old problem, already solved by the organisers, but newbies who don’t know the background keep bringing it up.

For a second opinion someone kicked off the same discussion over in the general discussion forum, I reckon that one won’t bring trains back either...

See you all in 2021...

 

[route:oxford]

Off topic perhaps, but with all the Mk3's being made redundant in the next few years might there be an opportunity for an enterprising charter operator to convert some into a dedicated bicycle rake?

Exactly. If all 30,000 participants were each to prepared to invest, say £500, it would give a budget of £15M to invest in stock to use once a year for this event.

I'm absolutely convinced that if you went to VivaRail with a £15M budget, they would be prepared to build a cycle friendly interior 12-car unit that could carry, say 50 bikes per carriage.

 

[Bikeman78]

ok, maths time
For the Dunwich Dynamo GA accommodate, with pre-booking, 50 bikes in a DVT.

So let#'s take 50 bikes as a reasonable number to accommodate in a van type carriage.

Approximately 25000 people take part in the London-Brighton. Let's say ~1/3 of those, 8000, want to take a train back to London.

That's 160 carriages. Which at 12 carriages per train would be 13.33333 trains.

Which are just carrying bikes

a typical 12 carriage passenger train seats (and that's important) say 800 people. So that's another 10 trains.

So, we want to run 22 trains to carry all these people and their bikes.

That's 22 EXTRA trains, above the existing service, which is very busy all day at weekends.

That's a lot of extra trains to path.

How many train loads of EPBs used to run? I don't remember much about it personally except that it was one of the rare occasions that 12 car EPBs ran.

 

[talldave]

Can't the riders just cycle back?

Quite a few do!

 

[jopsuk]

How many train loads of EPBs used to run? I don't remember much about it personally except that it was one of the rare occasions that 12 car EPBs ran.

as far as I can find out, numbers on the ride have risen massively in the last ten years

 

[43096]

Exactly. If all 30,000 participants were each to prepared to invest, say £500, it would give a budget of £15M to invest in stock to use once a year for this event.

I'm absolutely convinced that if you went to VivaRail with a £15M budget, they would be prepared to build a cycle friendly interior 12-car unit that could carry, say 50 bikes per carriage.

I'm absolutely convinced that you'd never have the £15M in the first place. All the participants contribute £500 each?

 

[squizzler]

I'm absolutely convinced that you'd never have the £15M in the first place. All the participants contribute £500 each?

And presumably at the end of the journey the next set of passengers buys the train of the first lot who pocket their £500 (more or less depending on whether the cost of trains has gone up or down in the meantime. Is 32343 proposing this as an innovative new "people's crowdfunded" ownership model for railway stock to do away with the roscos, banks, and so forth, along with such stale business models as just selling transport services? Perhaps such a radical idea warrants its own thread!

 

[gazthomas]

Just stick them in a lorry and pick the bikes back up in London

 

[jon0844]

other thoughts, in addtion to the maths above, seeing as people still don't seem to appreciate the sheer numbers and that in BR days the numbers were much, much smaller:
with so many bikes, if you're loading nothing but bikes into some trains/some carriages with the riders (who really, really need to have seats, not standing) then given that people will be on bikes from £300 to £3000 or more, you really need a check in/check out system. Which means sealing off/dedicating a platform at each end (maybe a single island, with the bike carrying service on one side and the passengers on the other), it means more staff, probably needing staff to help with loading too, long platform occupation, etc, etc

As far as I understand with the lorries and buses, this is roughly what happens. But then they're using a field, not a busy railway station.

Lorries are by far the best solution for riders, who will have far less hassle in a big field compared to a busy train station. Less stress for all concerned.

Hand the bike in, do the paperwork etc, then get on a train back home. Sorted.

I can't imagine people are moaning about this in large numbers anymore as people have clearly realised that as the event is now so popular, it isn't enough to just run a few more trains. It would be an awful lot of trains, and specially adapted ones at that. And who would want to wait for hours to get a bike on a train, only to be told to wait. I assume the places using lorries will take the bike off you and do the waiting themselves?

No PR disaster at all IMO.

 

[bnsf734]

TNT did/still do? a similar thing for the London Marathon participants by transporting their clothes and belongings in 40 foot artics from Greenwich into Central London ready for them to be collected at the end of the race.

 

[Via Bank]

The Southwark Cyclists hire a coach for the Dunwich Dynamo to get riders back to London.

Now, there's no reason GTR couldn't co-ordinate to run a cycle courier service along with a passenger special or two. Pop the bikes in an artic in Brighton, jump on a train that runs non-stop to somewhere reasonably central in London and meet the lorry at the other end (Elephant and Castle and Farringdon spring to mind, because there are rail routes there and they're both on CS6). This way you might also be able to maintain a service for people wanting to travel with their cycles but who've got nothing to do with the London to Brighton ride. A similar system is used by the Caledonian Sleeper if all the bike spaces are booked out, albeit on a much smaller scale.

 

[jopsuk]

TNT did/still do? a similar thing for the London Marathon participants by transporting their clothes and belongings in 40 foot artics from Greenwich into Central London ready for them to be collected at the end of the race.

As it is run by the same people as London marathon, there's trucks transport belongings from the Olympic park to constitution hill for the RideLondon100. Supplied bags with your event number only.

I don;t think there's been any actual "outrage" this year for London-Brighton, I can find little evidence of a "scandal" beyond the OP of this thread.

 

[swt_passenger]

The Southwark Cyclists hire a coach for the Dunwich Dynamo to get riders back to London.

Now, there's no reason GTR couldn't co-ordinate to run a cycle courier service along with a passenger special or two. Pop the bikes in an artic in Brighton, jump on a train that runs non-stop to somewhere reasonably central in London and meet the lorry at the other end...

The numbers of potential users from this event would still overwhelm the railway no matter what you suggest. That’s why bike transport was withdrawn quite a few years ago, and has been accepted by the event organisers since.

 

[jon0844]

As it is run by the same people as London marathon, there's trucks transport belongings from the Olympic park to constitution hill for the RideLondon100. Supplied bags with your event number only.

I don;t think there's been any actual "outrage" this year for London-Brighton, I can find little evidence of a "scandal" beyond the OP of this thread.

Probably because it sounds like the train is a poor method of transport for the bikes compared to road. Let the trains move the people in comfort and get the bikes later.

 

[OxtedSignaller]

Why is it the railways job to transport bikes around? The organisers have arranged road transport for the many bikes as they do year after year. It makes no sense paying to run freight trains transporting bikes between Brighton and London.

 

[DarloRich]

ok, maths time
For the Dunwich Dynamo GA accommodate, with pre-booking, 50 bikes in a DVT.

So let#'s take 50 bikes as a reasonable number to accommodate in a van type carriage.

Approximately 25000 people take part in the London-Brighton. Let's say ~1/3 of those, 8000, want to take a train back to London.

That's 160 carriages. Which at 12 carriages per train would be 13.33333 trains.

Which are just carrying bikes

a typical 12 carriage passenger train seats (and that's important) say 800 people. So that's another 10 trains.

So, we want to run 22 trains to carry all these people and their bikes.

That's 22 EXTRA trains, above the existing service, which is very busy all day at weekends.

That's a lot of extra trains to path.

Why is this a big thing this year ? - hasn't it been the same for many years now ?

Where does 'PR disaster' and 'arrogance' come into it - or do people simply fail to understand the issue ?

Just stick them in a lorry and pick the bikes back up in London

The correct answers are set out above.