SPACE RACE

Trains and bikes should be happy bedfellows. Instead, they’re in the divorce courts. Rob Ainsley knows why...

Bikes on trains is a complex issue, varying by company. Hooray Northern Railways: no booking needed, nobody turned away. The ‘maximum two bikes’ rule is interpreted with common sense by on-board staff. If no passengers are inconvenienced, you can usually squeeze another one on. Sometimes York to Hull looks like a bike thief’s backyard. But boo TransPennine Express. It has banned bikes unless booked 24 hours in advance, following similar action by GWR. Open return? Forget it.

Such companies insist they’re not ‘anti-cyclist’. Yeah, like York City Council wouldn’t be anti-motorist if you couldn’t arrive there by car unless you’d booked the day before. (Actually, thinking about it, that’s not a bad idea.) Some train companies are okay if you turn up on spec with a bike – Cross Country, Grand Central, say, though with limited space.

The trend is anti-bike. Virgin Trains East Coast slyly removed its online bike-booking facility in 2017, insisting it would be reinstated, before finally admitting that it wouldn’t be. Its successor, LNER (London North Eastern Railway), is lumbered with the new Azuma fleet, which is due to carry passengers later this year. After months of claiming there’d be the same provision for bikes, the respective companies now concede there are fewer, less convenient, spaces. (Hooks, that is: try that with an e-bike.) London to Edinburgh and between will be much less achievable with bikes.

It’s the old story. Outsourced cut ’n’ paste apologies. Weasel words (‘we consulted with cycle groups...’, omitting the ‘...and ignored them’). Shrugs that it’s too late now. It’s been designed, as if it’s a force of nature, like weather, or those naughty designers and not short-sighted middle managers.

I blame Thomas the Tank Engine. In Series 4, Episode 26, Tom the postman has his van replaced by a bike due to cuts. The opposite of what Royal Mail actually did. They finished with bikes in 2014, angering many a cycling postie. Percy accidentally crushes the bike, but Tom gets a new van in recompense.

This message – bikes are inferior; trains should eliminate them – poisons impressionable young minds, like those who determine bike policy on trains.

The agreeably nerdy urban planning website citymetric.com shows virtually everywhere in the UK is within 30km of a railway station. A few places lie beyond: Yorkshire’s Colsterdale, for instance. Awkward if you’re cycling there to shoot grouse. Otherwise, 99% of Britain is in bike-train range. At worst you might need an e-bike, but often you don’t need a car. Less pollution, less stress, ‘you’ time on the train… and there are no drinks trolleys on the queue they call the M25.

Society needs public transport to function. Like schools and the police, you can’t abandon it if it doesn’t make money directly. It’s about oiling everyday commerce, not managerial palms. Many people need room on a train: cyclists, parents with buggies, mobility aids… the list goes on. Who knows what space the rail traveller of 2040 will need?

But we’re designing out all potential possibilities by thinking minimum bikes and minimum wheelchairs we can get away with, when it should be maximum multi-purpose area. Not cramped bars, brackets, cupboards or hooks that don’t fit most bikes, but wide open areas. Space: the final frontier.

Not surprisingly, German trains manage well enough with grand multi-use sections. They even accommodate skis, though there might not be much demand in the Home Counties. It’s enough to tempt you abroad, except taking your bike on Eurostar is as restrictive, expensive and cumbersome as flying.

Good luck finding staff to help load/unload. Another trend is for driver-operated trains and unstaffed stations. From McDonald’s to high street banks, big business is turning your local branches into giant vending machines. Maybe that’s good, though – nobody to turf your sixbike group off the train.

As long as bike space is limited and needs prior planning, it’s no wonder most of us do day rides by car. We should start a movement so train companies can’t ignore us. Mass trespasses, like the Kinder Scout walkers of the 1930s, but on trains with our bicycles and buggies. What would the Fat Controller make of it all?

Like schools, you can’t abandon public transport it if it doesn’t make money