Greater Anglia trains from London Liverpool Street to Cambridge North and stations in between
Cycle reservation is now required on trains leaving Liverpool Street to Cambridge North and stations in between. [edti: see discussion below] In practice this makes organising Saturday and Sunday rides very difficult from stations such as Harlow Town, Stansted Mountfitchet, and Audley End. While you can reserve a cycle going out, getting back is more difficult as you have to reserve a place for the exact train you are going to use and you have to do it before the return train leaves its origin station, as @Richard has pointed out here. We have rides planned from Harlow Town, Audley End and had in mind rides from Stansted Mountfitchet. And no bikes allowed on Stansted Airport trains.
Anyone got a work around to this?
Anyone got a work around to this?
Comments
https://www.greateranglia.co.uk/travel-information/your-journey/cycling/bikes-on-trains
Don't bother calling GA, the offshore call centre staff are not to be trusted. @Richard will confirm, then you've got someone accessible to blame if it goes wrong.
I presume that this is based on this, from the NRE website and/or app:
Aside from not matching the GA cycle policy that it links to, it's not even consistent with itself -- it says that reservation is required, and then three lines later says that they are not available!
Both this pop-up and the GA policy page say that reservations are only available (and required) on Intercity services. The only IC services on GA are London-Norwich.
However, during all this messing around one of the station staff at Liverpool Street told one of our group that later this year - maybe quite soon - that no cycles will be allowed on any of the London Cambridge Trains! Cycles are already not allowed on any Stansted airport trains even though they are stopping trains (ie, not express to Stansted). Anyone else heard about this?
If there is a GA Cambridge ban there will be a lot of complaints as this is very popular with students and commuters in both directions. But it may be a rolling stock issue.
There used to be someone, who's name I've forgotten, at CTC HQ who was a specialist on trains for cyclists. If he hasn't been culled under CUK, it would be worth contacting him. @Richard might remember him, and may have further insight.
I think the chap @nickb is referring to is Dave Holladay. I haven't seen anything from him recently, so no idea if he's still active with CUK.
Scroll down to contact Dave Holladay
No suggestion that this is anything other than a one-off in special circumstances, but I wonder if this is the source of the rumours mentioned above? Staff hearing that all bikes are going to be banned at the end of August and jumping to the wrong conclusion?
The Manningtree trains that terminate at Ipswich are not Intercity, different rolling stock, and shouldn't be affected by the change.