[Canyon48]

Hi all,

So before I start, I’m generally supportive of the idea of bicycle reservations on HST services. If you could really easily guarantee your bicycle a space on the train using a simple booking system, it’d work really well.

Last weekend, I booked the train to go flying (of all things) as my car was broken. I use my bike to get to the train station then from the fianl station to the airfield. I used GWR’s online booking 24 hours before my journey to buy my tickets and attempted to make a bicycle reservation. It didn’t let me as I couldn’t reserve a seat for whatever reason.

So I called the GWR bicycle booking number and eventually got told that the system wouldn’t allow bicycles to be booked on the train and there were no reservations made and thatd itd be best to go to the ticket office to try and book then explain my situation to the train manager.

So I went to the ticket office and was told that reservations cannot be made on this service and that there were no bicycles reserved on the service anywhere.

I went to get on my train and the train manager refused to let me on with my bike. I explained all the above and he said he was sticking to company policy and wouldn’t let me on without a reservation in case a load of people with bike reservations turned up. I told him that the booking system said no bikes were booked (the bike spaces were all empty too) and I asked that, given it was a quiet Sunday morning, if he’d make an exception given my situation. He refused and said “you lot all complain when the train is late and complain when you can’t get bikes on”. I also explained that a seat reservation wasn’t possible therefore I couldn’t book my bike on and he replied with “you don’t need a seat reservation to book a bike on”, well you do if you book online…

The customer ambassador came over and explained my situation to the train manager, he didn’t budge. The train was leaving in 1 minute so the customer ambassador took my bike and secured it in lost property, this allowed me to at least get my train, though I had to get a taxi to the airfield in the end.

 

This all left me pretty peed off….

Why the hell have GWR implemented a system which is total rubbish if you can’t even book a bicycle on an HST!?

Why don’t the train managers have any access to a system which tells them where bicycles are booked on so they can be a little lenient?

Why hasn’t GWR told the train managers how the actual system works (or doesn’t at all work).

This system they have implemented is a total pile of rubbish and clearly hasn’t been tested well at all (if at all). GWR’s management clearly hasn’t told train managers about how the booking system works.  

Great Western Railway, ha, Brunel would be ashamed if he could see how hopeless some aspects of GWR are.

Did I also mention that after the train manager was not particularly helpful or friendly, he didn’t bother to check anyone’s tickets? Clearly sees one bicycle in an empty bike compartment as more of an issue than people using the railways for free.

 

For god’s sake GWR, employ a group of people, preferably all engineers, programmers and scientists, to fix the appalling bicycle booking system.

I’ve used GWR HST routes around 10 times with my bike. Out of all those times, only on one occasion did I manage to reserve a space for my bicycle and that was after being on hold to a foreign call centre for 20 minutes. The call centre operator couldn’t even fathom what I was asking, I just wanted to book a bike on without buying a bloody ticket! 

Poor management, poor implementation and a total lack of integration.

But as I said, I support the idea of bike reservation, if I could do it online by just ticking one box.

Ben

Topic

[willythepimp]

I work for GWR at a depot,

I work for GWR at a depot, not customer facing. We have free travel passes and as such never bother to book/buy unless we are travelling on the sleeper. 

Even with my staff pass the train managers have turned me away from Penzance with no other bikes booked or indeed on board.

When it was first encountered as a policy, the MD said that there would be some discretion applied bythe T.M. which seems to be lacking. 

There is also the fact that all HST power cars have a four bike rack in the boot, never used. If they were you would increase the capacity to carry bikes by 8 and effectively get rid if the problem in its entirety.

It is a failure as it is, and they don’t seem to care.

[Canyon48]

The whole system GWR is just

The whole system GWR is just absolutely pants, to say the least.

The idea is great, I REALLY want to be able to book my bike on a train so I know that I have a reservation and there will be no issues.

Clearly, GWR’s management has totally flopped. They’ve said “do this now” without considering how to even make it work….

They are correct when they say there are no longer issues with cyclists trying to get on trains and finding there’s no room for bikes…. Though that’s because cyclists can’t actually use the booking system.

I think the situation is something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

 

Haha 

[IHateSummer]

The old East Coast, now

The old East Coast, now Virgin Trains East Coast, website has always served me well for booking bike spaces, and the long distance trains are normally fine for me. In fact, I’ve rarely had any issue with bike spaces. The Caledonian Sleeper is particularly good, plenty of space, and by default, they book a (seat) space in the bike car.

I have nearly had a train leave without me getting down to collect my bike – having checked with the train staff, and being told that there was plenty of time to get down the platform.

The shorter ‘long distance’ trains – e.g. Birmingham to Stansted Airport, however, are awful. I only managed to get my bike on by standing right opposite the bike space door (purely by chance). Otherwise, there would have been no way of getting on, such was the busyness. Also, said ‘bike space’ is also a ‘priority by law’ wheelchair space. What happens if a bike is booked on (as is mandatory) and a wheelchair needs the space?

 

[Canyon48]

Edgeley wrote:

 The person to write to at GWR is

 

 

Andy Saunders l Integrated Transport Manager l Great Western Railway

Milford House l Milford Street l Swindon SN1 1HL

 

e: andrew.saunders@gwr.com l

 

 

I have communicated with him in the past.  He is a nice chap and very pro-cycling, but has ended up having to justify an appalling system.  

 

GWR’s new arrangements are appalling, and prevent people from commuting with bikes, using bikes to come back from a ride, and in your case, from doing something else.  Hopeless.

 

 

Thak you very much, email sent!

[Edgeley]

Rapha Nadal wrote:

BigglesMeister wrote:

Once upon a time, trains had a guards wagon in the middle for lobbing yer bike into without any problem whatsover.  I’ve tried the West Coast bike booking service on a few holidays in recent years but it’s such a hassle that we’ve given up and now hire vans instead.  What we need is an act of parliament requiring the train co’s to put bike carrying carriages (space for wheelchairs + mobility scooters + luggage too) onto every train.  Until that happens we’ll have to suffer the persecution dressed up as a bike friendly policy.

The older Gatwick Express trains still have these guard wagons and they still have the bike rack mounted within.  You’re not allowed to put your bike in them though, oh no.  And you also can’t get into London with a non-folding bike on a train before 10am, which is understandable due to over crowding, but wouldn’t it make sense to allow those with bikes to use the fucking guards wagon?!

 

The current GWR HST’s have cycle compartments.  They are currently empty because it is impossible to use them.  Before the new policy they were well used.

 It is completely ridiculous.

[Rapha Nadal]

BigglesMeister wrote:

BigglesMeister wrote:

Once upon a time, trains had a guards wagon in the middle for lobbing yer bike into without any problem whatsover.  I’ve tried the West Coast bike booking service on a few holidays in recent years but it’s such a hassle that we’ve given up and now hire vans instead.  What we need is an act of parliament requiring the train co’s to put bike carrying carriages (space for wheelchairs + mobility scooters + luggage too) onto every train.  Until that happens we’ll have to suffer the persecution dressed up as a bike friendly policy.

The older Gatwick Express trains still have these guard wagons and they still have the bike rack mounted within.  You’re not allowed to put your bike in them though, oh no.  And you also can’t get into London with a non-folding bike on a train before 10am, which is understandable due to over crowding, but wouldn’t it make sense to allow those with bikes to use the fucking guards wagon?!

[Edgeley]

 The person to write to at

 The person to write to at GWR is

 

 

Andy Saunders l Integrated Transport Manager l Great Western Railway

Milford House l Milford Street l Swindon SN1 1HL

 

e: andrew.saunders@gwr.com l

 

 

I have communicated with him in the past.  He is a nice chap and very pro-cycling, but has ended up having to justify an appalling system.  

 

GWR’s new arrangements are appalling, and prevent people from commuting with bikes, using bikes to come back from a ride, and in your case, from doing something else.  Hopeless.

 

[Dnnnnnn]

Al__S wrote:

I regularly use what’s now Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) with a bikle and have never had any issue with the system. As long as you know whether your train is a diesel (bike reservation will say Coach A) or Electric (Coach P) then, apart from the rare cases where the train is reversed (they’ll almost always annouce this to ensure 1st class and standard class passengers are in the right place) on the diesels the bike spaceis at the north end, next to Standard Class and on the electrics, it’s at the south end next to First Class.

Even when the service has been completely up the spout I’ve never had an issue- though the last time I travelled north when I changed at York another guy was supposed to be getting off there too with his bike and he was at the far end of the train and had locked his bike to the rack, which the staf were not impressed with.

Being at the wrong end of the train is a pain. I’ll usually ignore my reservation is there’s a free seat closer.

On their West Coast services, VT have auto-reserved the closest four seats for cyclists. Shame they couldn’t do that on the East Coast electric trains, as that would put us in first class!

[riotgibbon]

this was a guy from my office

this was a guy from my office, who went with a BBC camera crew to test out the system. The GWR press office booked him a reservation to make sure all went well. Sit back and enjoy!:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-36484134

http://velobake.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/cycling-and-trains.html

 

watch how the train guard physically manhandles the camera-man, just like on Rogue Trader. From what I hear, the GWR press office put out word that there was a camera crew coming, and whatever the situation, the bike *had* to go on the train. Alas, by the time it reached the train manager, it was *not* to go on train

I’ve used it once, and they didn’t even ask for the booking reference

what a shambles, I know someone else who gave up a job in Oxford after booking reservations then not being allowed on anyway

 

It’s almost as if GWR were trying to discourage bikes on their trains. I’ve certainly decided not to go by train because of the uncertainty – sometimes you just don’t know what train you’re going to be on

[Al__S]

I regularly use what’s now

I regularly use what’s now Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) with a bikle and have never had any issue with the system. As long as you know whether your train is a diesel (bike reservation will say Coach A) or Electric (Coach P) then, apart from the rare cases where the train is reversed (they’ll almost always annouce this to ensure 1st class and standard class passengers are in the right place) on the diesels the bike spaceis at the north end, next to Standard Class and on the electrics, it’s at the south end next to First Class.

 

Even when the service has been completely up the spout I’ve never had an issue- though the last time I travelled north when I changed at York another guy was supposed to be getting off there too with his bike and he was at the far end of the train and had locked his bike to the rack, which the staf were not impressed with.

[Dnnnnnn]

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

It’s really no wonder people use cars. The cost of train travel is utterly stupid now and makes no sense if there’s a group of you. Once you add in delays and time getting to stations I don’t know why anyone bothers at all……and don’t even get me started on scumbags who want to sit in your reserved seat.

It really is a last resort scenario for me these days.

Yet rail travel has boomed over the past couple of decades while rising car use has levelled-off.

Some rail travel is super-expensive, it’s true, but some can be very cheap. It can also be a very pleasant and productive way to travel. Just depends on the specifics of your trip.

And I haven’t had trouble with anyone sitting in my seat!

Where in Yorkshire are you?

[Anonymous]

It’s really no wonder people

It’s really no wonder people use cars. The cost of train travel is utterly stupid now and makes no sense if there’s a group of you. Once you add in delays and time getting to stations I don’t know why anyone bothers at all……and don’t even get me started on scumbags who want to sit in your reserved seat.

It really is a last resort scenario for me these days.

[BigglesMeister]

Once upon a time, trains had

Once upon a time, trains had a guards wagon in the middle for lobbing yer bike into without any problem whatsover.  I’ve tried the West Coast bike booking service on a few holidays in recent years but it’s such a hassle that we’ve given up and now hire vans instead.  What we need is an act of parliament requiring the train co’s to put bike carrying carriages (space for wheelchairs + mobility scooters + luggage too) onto every train.  Until that happens we’ll have to suffer the persecution dressed up as a bike friendly policy.

[Dnnnnnn]

Sounds pretty shit. I hope

Sounds pretty shit. I hope you will write to GWR with this tale of woe.

The root of the problem with your service seems to be that no seat reservations were possible – which is odd on an HST or any other long-distance service. In that scenario you’d hope staff would take a common sense view (being charitable, perhaps yours was an isolated problem?). 

Might also have been worth trying a different website, in case the problem was with GWR’s site rather than the train – www.virgintrainseastcoast.com is quite good, although it would only work if seat reservations were possible.

It’s all more hassle than it needs to be though… 

 

[Author]

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