London Banter - View Single Post

[email protected] · April 17th 11, 10:02 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
() wrote:

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.

Do the rail replacement coaches actually use that space for any
storage? My rather limited experience of using NR replacement
coaches is that the driver normally sits in the drivers seat and
watches people struggle on with luggage, unless they are the
exception. (I try and avoid travelling when there's a replacement
service unless I really have to).

They were certainly using the space at Ely today. There was a blockade
between there and Cambridge with lots of coaches, separately provided by
FCC, NXEA and Cross Country.

--
Colin Rosenstiel