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Last Updated: Fri 29 Aug, 7:50 pm BST

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UK commuters still struggling to get bikes on trains

By Rosee Woodland, commuting editor

The worrying trend of UK train firms banning bikes at peak times shows no sign of abating.

Welsh commuter Shaun Barker is just the latest victim of the practice, and is now facing a 30 miles round trip on his bike to get to work each day. Mr Barker had planned to get the train from his home town of Newport into Cardiff Central and then cycle on to Cardiff Bay where he works as a software developer. But he's been told by Arriva Trains Wales that he can't take his bike by train on their services between 7.30am and 9.30am and 4pm and 6pm, Monday to Friday.

Across the UK there is no standard system for allowing bikes on trains. The Eurostar from London to Paris only allows folding bikes in passenger carriages. You can book your bike on separately for an extra £20 each way but the company won't guarantee your bike will travel on the same service as you. Standard cycles are banned at peak times from the London Underground but are allowed at other times on parts of the surface network.

First Great Western - which runs major services from the South West into London, allows bikes on a first come, first served basis, although reservations can be made to guarantee a space. Virgin Trains, which controls trains running north to south through Birmingham, has the same policy, while GNER, operating between London and Yorkshire, will only carry bikes with a reservation.

It's often the smaller train operators which ban cycles, as they typically run services with fewer carriages, which don't have dedicated racks.

Standard bikes are banned at peak times in and out of major cities by companies including Arriva Trains Wales, c2c, Chiltern Railways, First Capital Connect, and Heathrow Connect.

Mr Barker told his local paper, the South Wales Echo, "When I checked the Arriva website there was loads of information about how rail transport is helping the environment. But then there was small print saying you can't take a bike on the train at peak times. That's completely pointless. The only reason I would want to take my bike to Cardiff is to get to work."

He's now cycling between Newport and Cardiff Bay, but says he'll be driving once winter sets in.

The situation for cyclists is unlikely to improve in the short term. A recent Government strategy designed to overhaul the rail network left the power to ban bikes at peak times firmly in the hands of the UK's train companies, saying local conditions needed to be taken into account.

Elsewhere in the world attitudes to bikes on trains vary wildly. In France cyclists are often required to put their bikes into specially designed bags for long distance services - local services usually offer an on-board rack. In the United States bikes can be checked in or stored on racks on long-distance Amtrak services, while in Australia you may need a special permit to take your bike on board a train at peak times.

To find out more about taking your bike by rail in the UK, visit this regularly updated and highly detailed list.

You can read the full story of Mr Barker's woes here.

User Comments

There are 6 comments on this post

Showing 1 - 5 of 6 comments

  • eir act together. In the Netherlands 41% of rail passengers cycle to the station and 14% travel onward by bike - yet the Dutch consider the concept that everyone can take their bikes on the train as laughable. After all you have no need for a bike to ride whn on the train, and most of the time there are realistic laternatives!

    The solution for regular commuters is very straightforward, and Hitrans has delivered a first for the UK in Inverness, where the rail & bus stations are typically 1-3 Km from places where people work (Rather like Cardiff IIRC) (see www.hitrans.org.uk, and press release (Sept 07)). This is not unlike the Dutch OV Fiets which operates at over 100 commuter destination stations and costs £2/day to subscribers who get 24/7 access to the basic hire bikes. At their 'home' station they can choose between taking their chances in open racks or paying a small premium for more secure facilities - typically 75p/day. Some options - see below - may even qualify for your employer reclaiming costs against the workplace cycling scheme.

    Both charges reflect the value of the bike to the user and often measure up very well against the alternatives of bus fares, car park charges, and personal time savings, and as an exmaple a typical Home Counties commuter in to Central London who cycles potentially cuts up to 30 minutes from a 90 minute home-to-office commute in absolute terms door-to-door at considerably less cost than the eye-popping amounts spent to speed up the trains. Further that commuter saves £500/year on their Central London Zones Travelpass, and at least £500/year if they then cut-ot the car park charges by not driving to work. to which they might consider the removal of any need to belong to a Gym - saving over £1000/year in most cases, and saving in theory the £4000 cost of a car that gets parked for a great deal of time in a station car park - so giving the cycling rail commuter a potential saving of £6000/year- that buys a lot of very nice bike(s) or permits a high rate of attrition for a hack left at the station.

    I mentioned The workplace cycling scheme and many popel don't realise that it does not HAVE to buy the bikes and it does not HAVE to be used to provide individuals with personal machines. Your employer can avoid the complications of setting up a salary sacrifice scheme and lease a pool-bike fleet in a variety of ways, and examples include a scheme run in Southwark and the OYBike (automated bike hire) system - this latter is used on Park Royal, Farnborough, and Reading (Green Park) estates, and University campus sites in Gloucester, Southampton, and East London, with London Boroughs of Tower Hamlets & Brent usig the system as a pool bike operation. Leased bikes have an advantage for the company in having servicing delivered by a bike shop and for the bike shop in givein them a block sale withan ongoing workload for regular maintenance. Typically a 2-bike scheme is a starting point (compared with15 biks or more but the big delay on shemes is the inability of rail operators to deliver these solutions to the problem which brings so much conflict with commuting cyclists.

    I still want space on trains - ideally flexibly available so that trains running off-peak (around 90% of the time) can carry a vast number of bikes, prams, luggage and given the paucity of the DfT and TOC's spec to deliver more than the minimum of wheechair user's spaces - when wheelchair users often travel in scoial groups ...of more than one person.

  • I went into London with a friend for a days cycling, then wasn't let back on the train to get home

    We had to cycle the 30 miles home after an already long cycle in/around London.

  • This has been a problem for over 100 years.

    We need solid legislation that requires the railway companies to make provision for an adequate amount of bicycle spaces on a train on EVERY route and every service.

    There should be substantial penalties for noncompliance.

    BTW FirstScotrail want prebooking and have turned away cyclists without this even when there was room on the train.

  • There aren't any time restrictions but there are restrictions on numbers of bikes on Scotrail services. I found this out when I got stranded at Leuchars at 10 at night having been refused onto a train because there were already 2 bikes on it. Didn't matter that there were only about 10 people on the whole train, there still "wasn't any room".

    That said, surely "Welsh commuter Shaun Barker" could just get a folding bike?!

  • where do i stand if i want to take my conventional bike on at peak times, if i remove the wheels, and put them either side of the frame atached with toe strap!! it.s compact, but i would prefer a soft unpadded bag to slip it into, that i coulod fold down into a rucksack, or carry folded on a rack. Do you think i would be let on from west malling in kent to victoria?? Size wise can't be much bigger than a dahon cadenza, and when i phoned rail enquires i was told there isn't a size limit

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