Great Western Coffee Shop

Cycling UK are looking for comments on experience of travelling with a bike on trains:

https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/bad-train-trip-share-your-experiences-taking-bikes-trains (https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/bad-train-trip-share-your-experiences-taking-bikes-trains)

Does seem to be looking for bad news rather than positives. Possibly a little late in the day for the Willimas Review?

My easiest experience of travelling with a bike would probably be on a class 423 (4 VEP) EMU; put the bike in the guard's cage, lock it to the cage and go and find a seat. Also would work for surfboards and other oversized items (if such units still existed in service and in third rail territory at least). The negatives at the time were for customers using wheelchairs who had to endure travelling in this less than hospitable part of the train.

Every bit of stock/policy since then has made it harder for cycles IMO for various reasons.

Going off at a bit of a tangent, when class 165s turn up on Gatwick services there actually seems to be more room than 166s equipped with luggage racks. Customers end up using seats for luggage, but then there are more overall seats available.

Indeed, but you cant expect those sorts of facilities these days. In designing trains the emphasis has changed from "what improvements can we make" and towards "what downgrades can we get away with"

There is also the problem of consistency.  My son used to live in Bristol and cycle to work in Yate.  When he had to work late he liked to get the train back.  This was scheduled as a local train with no bike problems.  About 20% of the days an HST turned up and he couldn't put the bike on because he hadn't booked, even though it was supposed not to require a bike booking.