London Banter - View Single Post

[email protected] · April 14th 11, 10:28 AM posted to uk.transport.london

*From:* d
*Date:* Thu, 14 Apr 2011 08:36:38 +0000 (UTC)

On Wed, 13 Apr 2011 20:00:40 -0500
wrote:
He got very huffy because my bike was in the doorway which he
wanted to open the doors from at Putney, starting as the train
left Wandsworth Town (where he had used another doorway), long
before he needed to get me out of my seat to move it. He was very
unpleasant about it. Taking a bike on slow trains from Vauxhall to
Putney is a bit of a pain because the side the doors open on keeps
changing from one station to the next. There are bike spaces in
class 450 trains with tip-up seats but even well into the evening
or mid-afternoon you try shifting someone sitting in one of them.

Having had the misfortune of clambouring past a couple of
his-n-hers bikes blocking a doorway on a cambridge service recently
I can rather share his frustration. If you're going to take a bike
on a commuter train take a fold-up.
Large suitcases are bad enough but a bike with dirty wheel and a
greasy chain getting in your way is just taking the ****.

B2003

I can see both sides of the argument about taking bikes on trains and I
realise that everybody's not the same, but I wish they'd ban them from the
Overground, at least at peak and other busy times. Having travelled on the
Overground many times over the past couple of months, bikes are a menace.
It's bad enough trying to find a space as a passenger in rush hour, let
alone having to try and squeeze past a bike or stand there with a bike
sticking in you.

If bikes are to be allowed on trains, there should be a special place for
them. I know some trains on FCC have the fold-up side seats near the doors
on some cars, which I assume can be used for bikes as I have seen bikes
there, but if those seats are the only ones available (and I don't like
using them), I'm not going to give up my seat and stand, just so a bike
can take my place!.

I don't know what stock they are, but the diesel units that run from
Norwich to Yarmouth / Lowestoft etc. have a special place for bikes as you
enter the door. It's a good design and holds several bikes and seems to be
well used.

Mind you, I have similar feelings about buggies on buses. I fully
appreciate that mothers need to use buses, but then they should use
fold-up buggies and fold them. Now, it seems, everybody must have the
three wheel buggies which don't (I assume) fold up. They struggle to get
them on the bus and along the aisle. One seems to fill up the whole
wheelchair / buggy section. I was on a single deck bus the other day where
the wheelchair / buggy area was occupied by a shopping trolley and a large
buggy, with a second buggy parked in front of the centre doors and a third
parked in the aisle. The bus was almost full and passengers were having to
struggle to get past them.

Roger