Bikes on Trains - a bumper yarn from North Wales

In the days of yore it was as simple as pie to put your bike on a train and go virtually anywhere. Many a holiday break started with the excitement of pushing your bike into a cavernous guards van, and without a care in the world being whisked off to such exotic locations as Pontypridd, Popplewick or Portsmouth.

But oh dear, how things have changed despite government claims to be adopting integrated transport policies in order to encourage more cycling, and to make it easier to take our bikes on buses and trains!

The Pridgeon family, Brian, Ann, and Adam from Radcliffe, near Manchester, had heard of the coastal cycle path in North Wales and decided to drive to Prestatyn, park the car, and then take the train to Colwyn Bay, taking advantage of the westerly wind to cycle back to their starting point. This is their account of the day:

On Sunday 31st August 2003 we decided to cycle along part of national route 5, from Colwyn Bay to Prestatyn; and as advised in the official guide to the cycle network, we parked the car at Prestatyn station and took the train to Colwyn Bay.

We bought 3 adult tickets and were told the bikes would be OK so long as there was room on the train. We also asked whereabouts on the train should the bikes be stowed and we were told to look along the side of the carriage for a bicycle sticker.

Eventually the train arrived, approximately 20 minutes late, and guess what… no sticker, just three people with bikes running up and down the platform looking for one. The guard asked, “Are you getting on, only we’re running late”. He then pointed in the direction of a carriage.

When we entered the carriage we found that the storage point for bicycles, which will only hold 2 bikes, already contained one, and so Adam put his bike there. Ann’s bike had to go in the aisle of the carriage up against the luggage rack, and I had to hold my bike up on its rear wheel sharing the carriage entrance with a lady, her baby in a push chair and a toddler.

When the train pulled into Rhyl everything had to move around to allow passengers and pushchairs off and on. Then, when we got moving again, the refreshments trolley came down the carriage, so the handle bars on Ann’s bike had to be quickly twisted round to allow the trolley through, and then I had to manoeuvre my bike around again to allow access to the other carriage.

We arrived at Colwyn Bay and went down to the prom. We hadn’t got 200 yards along the front when I had a puncture. It was here whilst I sat repairing the tyre that Roy Spilsbury stopped to offer help and information on the cycle paths of North Wales.

With the puncture repaired we once more set off and we really enjoyed the ride: nice and easy going, very little traffic to worry about, plenty of cafés, and the wind was with us.

On arrival back at the station in Prestatyn we stowed the bikes on the car and strolled across the road to Karl’s fish and chip café where we rounded the day off very nicely.

This at first looks like a bad news posting, but the really nice part is that it shows a can-do attitude of the rail staff in getting 5 bikes on the train (you could have fitted into the nice wide corridor 2 wheelchair spaces in an adjacent coach, with one space well arranged for taking a bike), and the conductor was not abusive, just hurrying the cyclists along . The train was, I understand, a class 175, and properly arranged the 175 bike space should manage around 4 bikes with appropriate top & tail parking. But on these trains the Bike Space sign is ridiculously small - the size of the door opening push button. Bikes go in Coach A on these trains which run in 2 or 3 coach sets.

Cyclists travelling on the North Wales line should continue to see loco hauled trains (Great Western coaches plus EWS locos) because the Class 175 trains require repairs due to electrical faults. The X94 coach service is flagged up for bike carrying in the near future, as are bus services from Wrexham, Prestatyn & Chester.