Trains and space for cycles

atoz
Posts: 577
Joined: 5 Jan 2007, 4:50pm

Trains and space for cycles

Post by atoz »

On reading some recent issues of Modern Railways, it has become obvious that the last thing on the minds of some people in the industry is space for cycles. I get the feeling that it may be worth the CTC at national level having a go at serious promotional and campaigning activity explaining the benefits of better rail carriage for cyclists ie encouraging people out of their cars and onto trains because they can cycle to the station, and (we live in hope!) actually being able to take the bike on the train.

CTC need to do this now, since there has been much recent investment in rolling stock. According to these magazines, there will be shortages of rolling stock quite soon, so when new stock is purchased, now's the time for CTC to speak it's mind.

People may think that's what the Right to Ride network is all about. But the reality is that that relies on willing volunteers. Some sections don't have Right to Ride reps- in fact, many sections are in long term decline.

We need national input and leadership from CTC to take this forward. Forget the naff Cyclehero video- this is a priority one issue.

Rather than just relying on the contributors to this forum to make their (very worthwhile) contributions to this posting, can we hear what CTC is doing nationally on this issue- from the horse's mouth? What has been the outcome of negotiations with train companies, if any? Or are we "waiting for Godot"? Because if we are, we'll miss the train...
Oracle
Posts: 415
Joined: 27 Feb 2007, 11:59pm

Post by Oracle »

atoz

Keeping Cycling on Track is the CTC Cycle-Rail campaign.

Read more at:

http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=4801
montmorency
Posts: 271
Joined: 31 May 2007, 11:00pm
Location: Oxfordshire

Post by montmorency »

With the new Arriva takeover of the cross-country services from Virgin, according to various press reports, there seemed to be an agreement for even more fares to be allowed to rise (i.e. a larger proportion of unregulated fares, and higher rises allowed).

There was going to be even more pressure on seat-space as they try to increase their profits (or reduce their losses).

The government seems to be looking to reduce the subsidy and allow the companies to screw even more out of the passengers.

All in all, the prospect of maintaining, let alone improving, cycle provision on trains looks increasingly bleak :-(


IMHO, what the incoming government should have done in 1997 was to insist that all companies provided carriages with proper cycle storage (re-invent the old guard's van, in effect) on all services, giving them a realistic, but strict timetable to do this. Those who failed to do this would have had to hand over their franchise to public ownership (at no cost to the government).

They could probably have got away with this given the momentum and excitement of the period. Bit more difficult now I think, even if they had the appetite for it, even though the general enthusiasm for cycling seems rather more than it was 10 years ago.


Regards,
M.
User avatar
essexman
Posts: 641
Joined: 12 Jan 2007, 8:31am
Contact:

Post by essexman »

Theres a wee myth here about the halcyon days of yore. The guards van used to +carry mail. By the late 70s the mail had all gone on the road and so BR came up with the idea of letting bikes on for free.

Flip to now. Crowded commuter services where space is an expensive premium. Who would pay for a guards van to be re-introduced?

I think CTC is campigning for a more pragmatic approach. ie always let bikes on when theres space. When its sardines into london, the cyclist wont even try to get on.

In fact thats what my line One do. Bikes are banned, but ive never ever seen it enforced. Its self regulated by passenger numbers.
I hate snow.
glueman
Posts: 4354
Joined: 16 Mar 2007, 1:22pm

Post by glueman »

essexman wrote:Theres a wee myth here about the halcyon days of yore. The guards van used to +carry mail. By the late 70s the mail had all gone on the road and so BR came up with the idea of letting bikes on for free.

As a regular bike hauler on the railways in the 70s I can confirm it was touring nirvana compared to now. The smallest railcar had a guards 'van' -you turned up and the bike went for free.
The bleak prognosis looks about right. Overcrowded trains are as long as the platforms allow. If more space is made it'll be for revenue raising passengers, not packages or bikes. One of the operators (forget which)was reported as saying the sooner bikes are off the railways the better. Not looking good.
mhara

Post by mhara »

Having read the shocking figures in The Independent yesterday - about how the cost of car travel is down 10% on ten years ago while trains and buses have nearly doubled - maybe we should think further than just trains. Maybe it's time that bicycles could be carried by national coach services too. I know that in Africa the coaches will always sling a bike on the roof-rack. That's not terribly practical for here, but surely something could be done?
glueman
Posts: 4354
Joined: 16 Mar 2007, 1:22pm

Post by glueman »

If ever a utility was asking to be re-nationalised it's the railways. Paying a dividend to shareholders while running the nation's trains is a dumb idea.
User avatar
CJ
Posts: 3405
Joined: 15 Jan 2007, 9:55pm

Post by CJ »

glueman wrote:As a regular bike hauler on the railways in the 70s I can confirm it was touring nirvana compared to now. The smallest railcar had a guards 'van' -you turned up and the bike went for free.
The bleak prognosis looks about right. Overcrowded trains are as long as the platforms allow. If more space is made it'll be for revenue raising passengers, not packages or bikes. One of the operators (forget which)was reported as saying the sooner bikes are off the railways the better. Not looking good.

Indeed it was nirvana in the 70s, but it was not free. Bikes were half fare with no discounts. In the late 70s we took a train-assisted trip with our CTC section, which comprised mostly teenagers (remember those days?) on some kind of "family" deal, when the bikes cost more than the people! But halcyon days they still were.

I think it was the year after that trip that a century of campaigning by CTC finally secured not just cheaper but FREE carriage for bikes on trains! It felt too good to be true - and indeed it was. A year later came the inter-city HST, with a pokey little cage into which you weren't allowed more than three bikes if memory serves. Bikes on trains became an option only for singles and the happy family of four on British Rail's biking by train leaflet was replaced by a couple of teenagers. Cycling families were now supposed to go by car and several families that I knew got one around that time. But we soldiered on for another three decades, including as a family of four.

If those decades taught cycling campaigners anything it should have been that a free service is a worthless service, initially for the provider and ultimately for the consumer. Bicycle carriage is now used by rail companies as a loss-leader, something to entice a few extra customers onto under-subscribed services, a tap that can be turned on and off at will. But cyclists continue to demand free rides for bikes!

By 2004 the opportunities for putting bikes on trains had become so fragmentary and uncertain that we finally got a car - and discovered how cheap motoring really is! As a reluctant motorist I've counted every penny spent on the thing, in a spreadsheet with mileage etc, starting with what I paid for it (so the first mile cost a lot!) and the curve seems to be bottoming out at only 25p a mile! Fuel would have to be a fiver a litre before train fares could compete. I really do hope that one day it is, because then so many other things will surely come better for cycling, including trains. But I don't expect bikes will go free, and neither do I think they should.
Chris Juden
One lady owner, never raced or jumped.
glueman
Posts: 4354
Joined: 16 Mar 2007, 1:22pm

Post by glueman »

All too true. The period of grace lasted a bit longer than a year if I recall. Loco hauled trains (not units like the HST) had a guards van before I went to college, the three years I was there and for a while after. I remember the shock of having to book space on a train again. Till then even a day ride meant you could keep heading in one direction till your legs gave out so long as you didn't veer too far from the network and a student railcard meant it was cheap.

The only fly in the ointment was the guards themselves. Some insisted the bike might alight at an intermediate station if you didn't lock it in the cage, others went into a blue fit if they couldn't wheel it around for incoming. Railways as a common carrier had ended before then but hessian sacks were still common and friendly guards would let you curl up in them after a post ride pub stop.
Sometimes the consist would see the van a long way from second class and a quick dash up the platform would ensue to much blowing of whistles and swearing but I'd move down the train way before the stop. These days operators wouldn't allow it because of fines for late running.

'Owt for now't was always to good too be true except for those years when we lucky few invented our own integrated transport system.
atoz
Posts: 577
Joined: 5 Jan 2007, 4:50pm

Post by atoz »

Actually I don't believe all is lost. There are adaptations that can be made to existing rolling stock. And as for the attitude of railway companies- well, it's up to change that, because noone else will.

I also think we should make common cause with others who are badly served by the train companies. And if we start to talk with the rail development lobbies, we may learn a few helpful hints on how to campaign on these issues.

As for CTC policy- I'm more interested in action, rather than policy statements. I have read the relevant part of the website...
User avatar
horizon
Posts: 11275
Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 11:24am
Location: Cornwall

Post by horizon »

The price of a rail ticket is based purely on social policy (the railway companies aren't allowed to make excessive profits as they must hand over part of their surplus and receive a subsidy if necessary).

On that basis, the ticket that you buy may reasonably be assumed to include the carriage of essential items for your journey, including a bicycle or luggage. The fact that many people don't avail themselves of this doesn't invalidate it or suggest that cyclists are getting something for nothing. And neither do suitcase wielding passengers request to be charged for their luggage space.

The social policy (not the train operator) that determines the price of a ticket also takes into account the benefits that accrue from allowing bicycles on trains. Please don't anyone think that the rail companies are doing us a favour - it has nothing to do with them except in as much as they can't be bothered to carry out their responsibilities, on part-empty trains, and are under the boot of the leasing companies in the case of full ones.
glueman
Posts: 4354
Joined: 16 Mar 2007, 1:22pm

Post by glueman »

A very good point Horizon. The plea for re-nationalisation was only partly a knee jerk from an old socialist. It seems common sense that a transport infrastructure based on both competitive tendering and paying dividends with a permanent way that is effectively under state control is no way to run a railway.

I concede that heavily used commuter trains with a separate bike carrying facility would be a nightmare to timetable - the free days of yore relied on so few people carrying bikes on trains - but that still gives a lot of leeway for hybrid carriages of convertible seats on regular routes.
dave holladay
Posts: 284
Joined: 4 Apr 2007, 12:25pm

Post by dave holladay »

CTC has been working on the issue of Bikes WITH Trains and next week may seee some of that work come to fruition if we succeed with your help over the past months in lobbying for an effective Rail White Paper that recognises that trains do not deliver you from door to door and a Rail Policy has to be framed to embrace this clear fact.

We are pressing for more operators to follow Stagecoach/SWT lead and invite cyclist in at the design stage and urge those interested to keep asking thir MP's to ask what the design of the new IEP trains (AKA HST2) will have to incorporate cycle carriage.

At the same time thay can ask quastions about the new High Speed Kent Express 'Javelin' trains the first (built in Japan by Hitachi) has just set sail for the UK. The trains and the service were specified by DfT experts and Southeastern (who will operate the trains, except over the period of the 2012 Olympics) have pointed out that the trains have a) no convertible space for luggage or bikes and b) for the Paralympic Games it will be necessary to remove seats and modify the internal layout to accommodate the likely greater percentage of passenger in wheelchairs. Many are unimpressed by Ebbsfleet idea - effectively getting passengers to drive a long distance to a huge car parking lot rather than walk to their nearst station and then pay a premium fare to travel to somewhere which is a tube trip away from where they work (the City) which will still be served by the old and non-premium slow services to a Station just as short walk across London Bridge (unless you go to Cannon Street).

Other big questions to ask and campaigns to track are on website, with details of how to connect with your Regional/TOC campaigns and cycle forums.

We hope to get to speak to Bombardier and Arriva over improving cycle storage on the Voyagers when they are rebuilt internally, and are talking to Stagecoach East Midlands. Sitting on your hands makes your fingers go numb....

Dave Holladay
Ron
Posts: 1382
Joined: 5 Jan 2007, 9:07pm

Post by Ron »

essexman wrote:Flip to now. Crowded commuter services where space is an expensive premium. Who would pay for a guards van to be re-introduced?

"Crowded commuter services" is just a local problem, a serious problem for those affected, but not a nationwide problem.
User avatar
horizon
Posts: 11275
Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 11:24am
Location: Cornwall

Post by horizon »

I agree. You can see the picture on another post of mine which showed an empty South West train (4 -5 passengers over 5 coaches) and a completely empty bike compartment. I wasn't allowed to board the train with my two daughters. That is just sick, nothing to do with money, overcrowding or practicalities.
Post Reply