London Banter - View Single Post

[email protected] · April 16th 11, 11:36 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:01:51 -0500,
wrote:
I'm evacuated from a train with my bicycle. Wires down near
Welwyn GC station. The only complication was getting the bike
down the ladder, for which I received assistance from staff or
fellow passengers.

Must admit to being pleasantly surprised someone didn't mutter
"H&S" and make you leave it.

I don't think I gave them the chance.

The experience also demonstrated how ludicrous is the blanket ban on bikes
being carried on rail replacement services. As most of them are provided
by coaches rather than buses there is actually plenty of space underneath
to accommodate bikes on much the same scale as on trains. My daughter has
been unable to bring her bike home from uni this weekend because there is
a blockade between Waterbeach and Ely again this weekend. All the rail
replacement buses this year have been actually coaches as far as I have
seen.

In the Welwyn wires down incident I was lucky that one of the rail
replacement buses they summoned up was a coach which was happy to take my
bike to get us to Potter's Bar. Most of the rail replacements were in fact
buses. In the circs the railway accepted they had to carry my bike. Dunno
what happened to the other guy with a bike, though.

--
Colin Rosenstiel