Are cycle reservations broken at the moment?

[DynamicSpirit]

I've been trying to book at ticket and cycle reservation to travel from Euston to Windermere this Saturday, returning later next week.

As it's somewhat short notice, I wasn't too surprised that the first couple of trains I tried showed unable to reserve a bike because the train was already full. But I've kept trying more and more trains with the same result. The usual booking engines are very opaque here - they won't tell you whether it's your outward or return journey that's causing the problem, so to try and figure out which trains were free, I started trying to book one way only. Still the same thing. This started to make me a bit suspicious, so I started randomly seeing if I could book my bicycle onto Avanti trains on that route some time in the future. No matter which train I pick, I get the result that the the train is full. This includes trying to book my bike onto random midweek trains in September or October. I've tried gwr.com and tpexpress.com.

So it's looking to me like something is down with the system, preventing any cycle reservations, but the booking engines are either hiding or don't have access to that info. Would anyone know anything more?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I seem to recall an issue coming up with "reservable" (for the sale of Advances) Northern trains where the bike spaces aren't in fact reservable. Does it work if you try to do only the Avanti leg? If so you may need to book without a bike then contact Avanti to get that booked separately (or perhaps do the bike reservation first to ensure you get it if using Advances!)

 

[LowLevel]

I think there is some sort of an issue. I had a passenger on my train yesterday who had booked through Trainline and asked me why she had so many coupons.

I had a look at it for her and it turned out that it had booked her both reservable cycle spaces on all 4 reservable trains she had booked on for both legs of her journey.

She said she certainly hadn't asked for a cycle reservation and definitely not 2 of them as she didn't even own a cycle.

I wonder if there's some sort of an issue whereby it is automatically booking cycle reservations in error and therefore booking out the train?

I've just looked at the train I'm working later in my journey and the cycle spaces are both reserved in a very odd fashion in legs for most of the journey - this would be almost unheard of on that service.

Not only that it has reserved 4 cycles instead of 2 on a train that is only booked to have 2 reservable spaces.

 

[janb]

Looking on a ticket office system, 7.30, 8.30, 11.30, 15.30, 16.30, 17.30, 18.30 this Saturday show availability.

 

[nwales58]

Not only that it has reserved 4 cycles instead of 2 on a train that is only booked to have 2 reservable spaces.

That will be a useful feature on the Cambrian line in summer ... or not as the cycle spaces are usually already filled with large luggage and large pushchairs which seem to be broken and incapable of folding up.

Could we have compulsory reservations for and a limit on non-folded pushchairs on the Cambrian coast and north coast trains which call at Rhyl in summer please?

 

[Shimbleshanks]

I had a bit of trouble booking a journey on Red Spotted Hanky from Middlesbrough to King's Cross via Darlington with a bike the other day. (Red Spotted Hanky is one of the booking engines that allows you to make bike reservations at the same time as booking your ticket.) Every time I tried, it came up with the warning: "There are insufficient or no bicycle spaces available to reserve for your chosen ticket on the outward service. You can change your service or ticket selection or proceed without the bicycle reservation."
I tried changing my times, but the same message kept recurring, even on late evening services.

It was only when I changed my reservation from Darlington to London that, magically, I was able to secure a bike reservation on the train of my choice. The message seems to come up because it isn't possible to make bike reservations on the Northern Service from Middlesbrough to Darlington (it's basically turn up and go) but Red Spotted Hanky interprets that as no bike reservations available - for the entire journey.

Has the OP tried booking a ticket from Euston to Oxenholme only? It could be a similar problem with the Oxenholme-Windermere leg.

 

[Benjwri]

There seems to be a fairly major issue booking bikes, the sites that used to let you do it as a standalone reservation have definitely had this turned off.

If you still need to book the ticket, Trainline will let you book a bike reservation with it from when I just checked. If you’ve got a ticket you’ll probably need to DM Avanti’s X or visit a ticket office.

 

[modernrail]

They are broken at the moment and in all other moments.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It was only when I changed my reservation from Darlington to London that, magically, I was able to secure a bike reservation on the train of my choice. The message seems to come up because it isn't possible to make bike reservations on the Northern Service from Middlesbrough to Darlington (it's basically turn up and go) but Red Spotted Hanky interprets that as no bike reservations available - for the entire journey.

Has the OP tried booking a ticket from Euston to Oxenholme only? It could be a similar problem with the Oxenholme-Windermere leg.

And this is the winning answer. I just tried booking Euston to Oxenholme and magically the bike spaces became available - on the same trains that the system had just told me were full when I tried Euston to Windermere. So it seems that if part of your journey is on trains that don't need bike reservations, the booking engine just fails the entire journey. I assume this is a fairly recent bug in the system, since it wasn't showing up that problem a week ago when I was checking the options.

The trouble is that booking separately to Oxenholme and then buying separate tickets Oxenholme to Windermere adds substantially to the fare so I don't see that as a reasonable option. Guess tomorrow (Friday) I'll have to either make the effort to go find a staffed station that can book them, or see if any TOCs offer bookings by non-premium phone lines.

Or if that fails, just cycle the Oxenholme to Windermere bit

 

[Bletchleyite]

Thought it would be that. I have heard before, as mentioned above, of an issue whereby if a train is reservable for the purpose of Advances but doesn't have any bike reservations set up this may fail, as the booking engines assume that if the train is reservable then bikes are too, or somesuch.

 

[hkstudent]

It's really an issue that the bike booking system for long time, cannot single out the non-reserve needed portion for bike booking, making most intercity + local advance journey cannot book a bike.

That makes me wonder, why can't a centralised online bike booking system can be made, and just get a e-booking, which saves the hassle of calling up sometime, especially when doing split tickets (don't know why trainline can do bike booking with split tickets, but our forum site can't). Also, it's also ridiculous for Avanti staff only accept orange bike booking coupon, not other legit bike booking from other railway operator site's e booking.

 

[Bletchleyite]

From the thread about Trainsplit and Travelcards:

That's really a function for the TIS rather than the journey planner - something the retailer can do without us. Again, it's more complex than you might think, because there's nothing in the data to tell us if a particular train allows walk-up bikes or not.

That would explain why Trainline is having to make an assumption regarding cycle reservations, namely that if the train is reservable they are required - because there's no proper data.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

That would explain why Trainline is having to make an assumption regarding cycle reservations, namely that if the train is reservable they are required - because there's no proper data.

What would have changed though? I've booked Euston to Windermere tickets online while also making cycle reservations loads of times in the past - that's one of my semi-regular journeys, and never encountered this problem before. So it looks to me like something must have recently changed to make it a problem now.

 

[lkpridgeon]

Or if that fails, just cycle the Oxenholme to Windermere bit

I'd recommend just doing that! It was a fun ride when I did it last month.

You can still book the Euston to Oxenholme reservations via. GWR or TPE websites without a ticket (you'll need an account), you can't print a coupon though so may need to talk with staff on the day.

Northern don't have bike reservations, first come first serve and easily looks like the image attached on that bit of line. Which is actually good in my option.

 

[Benjwri]

You can still book the Euston to Oxenholme reservations via. GWR or TPE websites without a ticket (you'll need an account), you can't print a coupon though so may need to talk with staff on the day.

GWR have disabled this functionality, or at least had a month ago. The process just errors out without giving a reason, but GWR support told me it was intentional.

 

[lkpridgeon]

GWR have disabled this functionality, or at least had a month ago. The process just errors out without giving a reason, but GWR support told me it was intentional.

I've managed to do it via both in the last month, TPE is more reliable though (their site not their service)

 

[Benjwri]

I've managed to do it via both in the last month, TPE is more reliable though (their site not their service)

Interesting. Maybe it’s been re enabled.