The great British train scandal

[PaulE]

I agree about the Spanish ones - just booked the high speed Barcelona to Madrid train for 2 adults & 2 kids, complete with reserved table seats, and it's £57 one way... which is probably less than the cost of petrol for the journey so all round excellent.

Currently sitting going backwards at 298km/h, in quiet smooth comfort. I'm just contemplating a gentle stroll along the train to the onboard tapas bar...

[sqibjib]

Have a great time Paul, I bet you didn't even need to book your bike on. .

I drove in the end so no messing about with trains.
Good job as well as it was the weekend of the floods so I slept in the van or my tent would have been washed away.

[PaulE]

Have a great time Paul, I bet you didn't even need to book your bike on. .

I drove in the end so no messing about with trains.
Good job as well as it was the weekend of the floods so I slept in the van or my tent would have been washed away.

On a family trip, so no bike involved this time, but the massive open spaces between Barcelona and Madrid do look very tempting for a future trip

[sqibjib]

Ha ha I get told off for that, ooo that would be a nice place to ride. Mrs ( can you stop thinking about your bike we are on holiday) never

[pistonbroke]

the massive open spaces between Barcelona and Madrid do look very tempting for a future trip

Mrs PB and I did a trip in that area, it's called the Monegros, in June. 300km and only passed through about 5 villages. We rode the 160km back home to claim the Restrap Solstice Century patch. West of Zaragoza you pass through areas we ride on the Spanish Divide trip in the Spring. Let me know if you want more route info.

Ps, the high speed train called the AVE doesn't allow bikes so you have to get creative if you want to do long distance.

[thenorthwind]

As I'm currently sat on a train with my bike and nothing better to do, I thought I would make a positive contribution to the bikes-on-trains discussion rather than just moaning all the time (it won't last) - we tend to remember the times it goes wrong and forget the times it all goes smoothly.

Used the train to get to Darlington for an audax today. Booked in advance (about 10 says ago) it was about a fiver each way. It's a bit frustrating having to book specific trains, but since (mostly) you have to reserve a bike space anyway, you don't gain much with an open ticket (about £18 I think, slightly cheaper if you limit yourself to a particular train operator no, don't get started... stay positive ).I knew roughly when I would finish all being well, and gave myself a bit of lee time, which I could always fill having tea in the pub at the finish and chatting to other riders, which is what I did. That was a nice bonus, and could have had a pint if I'd felt like it (already had one mid ride ). I left the house earlier but then again, you can't eat porridge while driving (or at least you shouldn't). Probably cost more than the petrol, even by myself in my fairly thirsty car, but not a huge difference.

Booked through LNER and can reserve a bike space as part of the booking now (just like you could, ooh, 10 years ago). They emailed a bike reservation separately, which said I needed to show it at the station AND print it, which I didn't bother doing. Outward journey was XC so I messaged them separately via Facebook and they sent a confirmation almost instantly (not a perfect system, but it seems to work pretty well IME).

Outward journey was fine, found the bike spaces, which are reasonably sized (though I've struggled to fit a MTB in before), and put my bike in.

Return journey was on one of the new Azuma trains. The dispatcher couldn't have been more helpful - she saw me arrive with my bike, checked the reservation, told me where to wait and that she'd come get me on, got on and opened the door to the bike space and cleared a bag of rubbish out. She agreed with me that the bike spaces on these new trains are terrible, but with only my road bike, it was fine. They now lock them, which probably helps stop people putting luggage in there, but she assured me someone would be waiting at my destination to unlock it (I'll let you know if me and bike end up in Edinburgh).

So on the whole, it worked out pretty well. Would be nice to hear other positive experiences!

[RIP]

Glad to hear it's working out. Positive? OK, quick recent example: my Stoke trip. Avanti. Booked the bike a couple of days in advance, dispatchers very helpful, trains on time, had brews and cake, looked out the window, chilled, chauffeured, twice as fast as motoring, half the heart rate, slightly cheaper than car fuel (far cheaper if including tax, insurance, servicing, depreciation etc).

Always go to WRT and WE by train, never had a problem (apart from strike day this year - hah!) Plenty of other examples.

Plainly nothing's perfect (looking at you, Northern!) and some services are regularly too crowded (XC Birmingham - Sheffield - York), and my rose tinted specs much prefer the simplicity of the 1970s.

Apologies for now jinxing the rest of your journey

[thenorthwind]

Apologies for now jinxing the rest of your journey

I think I spoke too soon and jinxed it myself. No-one appeared at Newcastle so I had to hold up the train by standing in the door with one foot on the platform waving at the (considerably less friendly) dispatcher to get her to open the door. She asked me where I got on so I've probably dropped the nice lady in it too

I know you're a big train fan Reg, but always good to hear it.

[RIP]

Apologies for now jinxing the rest of your journey

I had to hold up the train by standing in the door with one foot on the platform waving

Mm, learned that lesson . Generally I now just do exactly that every time and stand there until someone appears

[thenorthwind]

The other option is just to get one of those square keys that opens all sorts of utility locks... I wonder if they do them in Ti...

[RIP]

Apparently the Heart Of Wales Line (Swansea-Shrewsbury) is soon to be featuring 'Active Travel' trains with many more bike spaces, similar to the West Highland Line ones. If so, will have a go on that next year. The current single-coach trains are a risky hit-and-miss affair for bikes.

[yourguitarhero]

We were looking to get a train between Tarbert (Head of Loch Lomond one) and Crianlarich - 3 of us and bikes.
Scotrail app said all the bike spaces were booked, as did their call centre.

Got the train anyway, and there were 2 bikes on the train - had space for about 20. Conductor said he's never seen it full of bikes even in the height of summer.

Moral of the story is: don't trust Scotrail when they say there's no bike spaces.

[riderdown]

Might be people booking the space and not turning up?