GWR Bicycle Reservation Policy - Epic Fail

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.

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?

 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 [at] 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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...