Great Western Coffee Shop

I travelled on the 1803 from Bristol Temple Meads to Clifton Down on Tuesday. The two coach train was healthily loaded, with passengers standing throughout. This is fine, and to be reasonably expected on a peak, short distance commuter train. The situation was made rather less comfortable by the number of bikes on the train. There were at least four bikes in the designated cycle space, plus bikes in each of the door areas. Big bikes, not folders! As well as taking up lots of space, there was a right palaver at each station as bikes were extracted from underneath each other to alight, and more bikes boarded at Lawrence Hill and Stapleton road. This added delay at these stations.

I know that one could argue that additional capacity should be provided for bikes. My observations however are:

1. FGW has a cycling policy booklet which states a limit of two bikes per two coach train (or four when it's quiet at guards discretion) - I wonder if this is ever enforced?
2. Most of the cyclists got off at Redland and Clifton. Surely easy cycling distance from Temple Meads (or is it a case of cycle in to work in the morning because it's a nice downhill run, and let the train take the uphill strain in the evening? ;))

I think it's wonderful news that cyclists are using the service in such numbers; one hopes a FGW person reads this and does something to cater for the demand.  In the old days a GWR  B set (a two coach consisting of two brake composite vehicles could have handled it all (if seating were changed to all 3rd) with no probs.  Admittedly there would have been someone on the station (called a porter, my uncle served at Lawrence Hill) who would have been there to see the doors closed safely, that there was no yobbery, and elderly passengers helped and everyone reassured, etc, etc....

Are we progressing or regressing in local transport?

Whenever bikes and trains are mentioned in the same breath we see barricades manned (staffed?) and entrenched positions dug in deeper, so it is with trepidation I enter this fray.  I make my comments as a non-cyclist, but a supporter of those who wish to use such transport. It seems to me that cyclists are but one of a number of groups of passengers battling for space on a railway now costed on a pence per square mm basis (amongst other things) which has meant the squeezing in of more and more seats and less and less baggage/storage space.  Airlines have increasingly added extra charges for anything other than the most basic of items and slowly but surely the railways are applying the same principles of charging/encouraging advanced booking etc to maximise income, and it would appear to be a horrible fact that cycles take up more than their 'fair share' of space.  However, so do the large items of luggage often carted around by students at certain times of the year and  the increasingly large baby buggies, which are also more numerous than they once were. Having battled from Clapham Junction in the peak with a suitcase and been subject to scowls I know how bikers might feel.

At the moment those who configure rolling stock apparently have a model of train user who is slim, carries minimal baggage and has a high degree of mobility, apart from those whom the Law dictates must be catered for.  It seems to me that we need to make more noise to tell those people in no uncertain terms who we are in reality and we need more non-seating space in keeping with the real lives we lead.  Yes, it will cost, but being treated with civility in providing not just good staff (which on the whole is done) but also with the vehicles offered to us for travel.

In the meantime, I wish the best of luck to anyone trying to enforce the bike rules in the cycling city of Bristol.

Wonderful, unless you're a commuter who has a muddy or oily bicycle swung against their work clothes, or has to squash up even more because each bicycle takes space for an additional two standing passengers, yet the owner pays no more.

 

I was just doing my 'old codger' bit and yes you are correct that these units now just are not suitable for bikes.  But it would be a bit off to let one on and the others not.  Perhaps better just to refuse them and ask the new Bristol mayor to do what they have done in London.

Foldies only during peak!

Or just rent a nice purple Brompton at Temple Meads and lock it up there on your way home.

I'd be happy to see a booking fee re introduced and I've travelled with a bike on the train for nearly 20 years.