Dealing with the "luggage problem" - options

[Bletchleyite]

Creating this thread as an adjunct to https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/luggage-sizes.274769 for speculative discussion of options.

Yup. If we start enforcing these dimensions rigorously I'll have to take the train even less. I already go to a substantial effort to use it when driving is more objectively sensible.

Eventually we're going to end up in a situation where the longer distance services are being run for an incredibly niche set of circumstances and that point the pressure from taxpayers to shut them down will become irresistable, and we'll be left with commuter services only.

Any other industry would observe large amounts of luggage and see an opportunity of some kind!

This could actually be a benefit of introducing a fee (rather than a restriction) on additional luggage, as National Express for instance have. If it's chargeable then it's a profit centre, not a cost centre, and if it's profitable TOCs (or GBR) are encouraged to properly provide for it.

However I would say the Accompanied Animals and Articles rate (Anytime child fare if I recall?) is way too high - Nat Ex for example charge a flat tenner per item if booked in advance.

I believe Lumo do have a courier service actually?

Would you trust Evri or similar with your luggage? And hotels and campsites are unlikely to accept it. There may be scope for it to actually work if they could institute a genuinely reliable booking-office-to-booking-office service, though. Making it booking-office-to-booking-office would make it cheaper to run, so the quailty could be better without hitting the price too hard. Not useful I suppose if genuinely headed to the middle of nowhere, though, but a very significant proportion of journeys are local-station-to-big-city.

It's perhaps something the Excess Baggage Company could do, as they already have the security mechanisms in place e.g. X-ray machines?

(Talking of the EBC, why do they all close at 2300? Last train would be a better closing time even if that meant opening a bit later - it makes them useless for putting your bag in while going to a gig or similar after work!)

 

[Egg Centric]

Would you trust Evri or similar with your luggage? And hotels and campsites are unlikely to accept it.

Not sure about campsites as I hate camping with a passion, but I think most hotels would.

Evri (or even worse!) not necessarily a problem as the comparator is luggage being offloaded on flights which probably happens to me roughly 5% of the time - I think anyone using this would pack similarly to how they pack when flying (if they've got any sense) - with anything essential / valuable in hand luggage along with a couple of days provisions. For a domestic train, apart from real niche cases like someone going to knoydart overland or carrying a suitcase full of rolexes that + insurance should be fine

 

[Bletchleyite]

Evri (or even worse!) not necessarily a problem as the comparator is luggage being offloaded on flights which probably happens to me roughly 5% of the time

Interesting as that's happened to me far less often than that - twice ever if I recall - and one of those was a bicycle so a bit exceptional.

If it happened to me anything like 5% of the time I'd be a carry-on-only convert!

Evri on the other hand have probably below a 50% success rate of a smooth delivery for me. I'm conscious it's a bit dependent on the local courier, and mine's hopeless!

 

[Peter Sarf]

Creating this thread as an adjunct to https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/luggage-sizes.274769 for speculative discussion of options.



This could actually be a benefit of introducing a fee (rather than a restriction) on additional luggage, as National Express for instance have. If it's chargeable then it's a profit centre, not a cost centre, and if it's profitable TOCs (or GBR) are encouraged to properly provide for it.

However I would say the Accompanied Animals and Articles rate (Anytime child fare if I recall?) is way too high - Nat Ex for example charge a flat tenner per item if booked in advance.



Would you trust Evri or similar with your luggage? And hotels and campsites are unlikely to accept it. There may be scope for it to actually work if they could institute a genuinely reliable booking-office-to-booking-office service, though. Making it booking-office-to-booking-office would make it cheaper to run, so the quailty could be better without hitting the price too hard. Not useful I suppose if genuinely headed to the middle of nowhere, though, but a very significant proportion of journeys are local-station-to-big-city.

It's perhaps something the Excess Baggage Company could do, as they already have the security mechanisms in place e.g. X-ray machines?

(Talking of the EBC, why do they all close at 2300? Last train would be a better closing time even if that meant opening a bit later - it makes them useless for putting your bag in while going to a gig or similar after work!)

My bold.
I wonder if a luggage service booking-office-to-booking-office would result in too much space required for keeping luggage until its collected. Possibly better/cheaper to get it out of the way and dumped at the final destination. Probably not too bad for depositing luggage at a booking-office though.

Then again I can see this requiring manpower at booking offices that GBR would rather turn into unmanned havens for technophiles !.

 

[lachlan]

The obvious but perhaps unpopular long term answer to the problem would be to fit trains with sufficient levels of luggage and bike storage.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The obvious but perhaps unpopular long term answer to the problem would be to fit trains with sufficient levels of luggage and bike storage.

One thing that can be done (as Lumo do) is putting marked bags over selected unpopular seats (e.g. ones with no window) indicating that they are temporarily to be used as luggage storage. This might be a good plan during "students moving back" time.

 

[Egg Centric]

Interesting as that's happened to me far less often than that - twice ever if I recall - and one of those was a bicycle so a bit exceptional.

If it happened to me anything like 5% of the time I'd be a carry-on-only convert!

Evri on the other hand have probably below a 50% success rate of a smooth delivery for me. I'm conscious it's a bit dependent on the local courier, and mine's hopeless!

It may have to do with different travel patterns? I will fly more than the average person but much less than many forum members, however when I do fly it's usually multi leg, usually to africa, at least one leg of which will (obviously) be long haul. These days most leisure frequent flyers (those doing it for business are a different animal) are point to point low cost within europe - it's the multi leg bit that causes most of the problems I think. Not always though. Have had it happen twice on flights to the Isle of Man at a guess for weight reasons.

Oddly Evri here are fine. My brother's first job though was as a Yodel (as was) courier and given how they operated back then I'm not surprised they're rubbish in most places!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Indeed the expandable option on most luggage tends to be in the 30Cm direction. Just measured the two wheely bags that I have. One is 65Cm x 43Cm and the other a little smaller. However both are 28Cm deep at empty (lying flat and crushed !). so they are easily over 30Cm by the time I have rammed everything in or the contents have slopped down to the one end in transit.

It does strike me that the 30 is very much the issue with those dimensions. Make it 40 and you'll encompass almost everything that is still genuinely luggage rather than specialist stuff like golf bags. Though I would permit golf bags and the likes at a fee, perhaps on the condition of booking a bicycle space to put it in (similarly things like surfboards that don't exceed the dimensions of a bicycle).

(Duplicated from non speculative thread for further discussion)

 

[Peter Sarf]

It does strike me that the 30 is very much the issue with those dimensions. Make it 40 and you'll encompass almost everything that is still genuinely luggage rather than specialist stuff like golf bags. Though I would permit golf bags and the likes at a fee, perhaps on the condition of booking a bicycle space to put it in (similarly things like surfboards that don't exceed the dimensions of a bicycle).

(Duplicated from non speculative thread for further discussion)

You are reminding me of Skis. That is something more extreme in size that Eurostar have to deal with ?.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You are reminding me of Skis. That is something more extreme in size that Eurostar have to deal with ?.

Swiss trains have specific racks for skis, as one might expect. Though they're less of an issue than one might think - they might be long but they're very small in the other dimensions and not very heavy, and easily go in the overheads or lean in a corner. They might not be officially allowed, but I've seen them on UK trains several times, and they weren't in the way.

 

[A0]

The obvious but perhaps unpopular long term answer to the problem would be to fit trains with sufficient levels of luggage and bike storage.

But what is "sufficient" ? The reality is it is a miniority of passengers who travel with luggage (beyond a small bag). The space taken up by luggage in terms of racking or luggage vans reduces seating capacity.

The correct way forward is probably the Easyjet / Ryan air approach whereby you can bring a bag of 'x' size on board for free (usually which can fit either under the seat in front or in the overhead locker) and if you want to travel with something bigger it's chargeable.

And bikes should definitely be chargeable unless they are of the folding type which fit within a certain footprint.

 

[lachlan]

But what is "sufficient" ? The reality is it is a miniority of passengers who travel with luggage (beyond a small bag). The space taken up by luggage in terms of racking or luggage vans reduces seating capacity.

The correct way forward is probably the Easyjet / Ryan air approach whereby you can bring a bag of 'x' size on board for free (usually which can fit either under the seat in front or in the overhead locker) and if you want to travel with something bigger it's chargeable.

And bikes should definitely be chargeable unless they are of the folding type which fit within a certain footprint.

if it's a minority of passengers then I would argue there isn't a problem. It will vary from service to service but on long distance trains and airport services most people are going to have bags and there should be ample luggage space.

As much as they are hated on here, Voyagers have nice big racks so it is possible.

As for charging for bikes, sustainable multimodal journeys should be encouraged. The bike spaces on new trains are not fit for purpose anyway (requiring one to lift their bike and not fitting some adapted bicycles is an accesibility failure) and should be expanded. For Lumo it's an artificial limitation as they have chosen to run short trains - a waste of capacity on a mainline.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As for charging for bikes, sustainable multimodal journeys should be encouraged. The bike spaces on new trains are not fit for purpose anyway (requiring one to lift their bike and not fitting some adapted bicycles is an accesibility failure) and should be expanded. For Lumo it's an artificial limitation as they have chosen to run short trains - a waste of capacity on a mainline.

Please don't let's drag this thread down the bike argument, it's been done to death.

Away from bikes I could see sense in moving to charging for luggage - provided it's not silly money it encourages smaller luggage but still allows those who need big bags (e.g. those going camping) to take them at a suitable fee representing the space taken up (about 8 large bags = about 2 seats, FWIW). As I said above that also makes it a profit centre and encourages provision. I think it's a big missed-trick from Lumo - rather than banning big bags, just make them more profitable per unit floor space than passengers are.

 

[JLH4AC]

A modernised version of the Accompanied Animals and Articles rate would likely be the way to go, for example passengers exceeding the allowance either due to size or amount of items would be changed 50% of the adult standard fare capped at £15 for advance tickets and £20 for flexible tickets, or it could just be a fixed fee for given ticket type (An fixed fee is likely better for ensuring that there is enough dedicated storage for oversized luggage on connecting regional services.) Items will still be restricted if they can't be reasonably accommodated on the train or are dangerous to be carried on passenger trains.

It would also be helpful if new/refitted trains had more dedicated storage for bikes, prams, mobility scooters, and oversized/valuable luggage (Access to the dedicated luggage storage would ideally be controlled by the guard or other member of the train crew to prevent theft.). There should be a GBR operated courier service (It would take over from the LNER luggage courier service but the operations should be bought in-house.) for people who don't want to worry about their luggage while travelling by train or have too much luggage to handle by themselves, it would be even better if that courier service used expanded dedicated storage to carry parcels and mail for non-passengers as an additional revenue source for GBR.

 

[Peter Sarf]

A modernised version of the Accompanied Animals and Articles rate would likely be the way to go, for example passengers exceeding the allowance either due to size or amount of items would be changed 50% of the adult standard fare capped at £15 for advance tickets and £20 for flexible tickets, or it could just be a fixed fee for given ticket type (An fixed fee is likely better for ensuring that there is enough dedicated storage for oversized luggage on connecting regional services.) Items will still be restricted if they can't be reasonably accommodated on the train or are dangerous to be carried on passenger trains.

It would also be helpful if new/refitted trains had more dedicated storage for bikes, prams, mobility scooters, and oversized/valuable luggage (Access to the dedicated luggage storage would ideally be controlled by the guard or other member of the train crew to prevent theft.). There should be a GBR operated courier service (It would take over from the LNER luggage courier service but the operations should be bought in-house.) for people who don't want to worry about their luggage while travelling by train or have too much luggage to handle by themselves, it would be even better if that courier service used expanded dedicated storage to carry parcels and mail for non-passengers as an additional revenue source for GBR.

I am just wondering. Given the plethora of parcels companies I feel the likely-hood of the railways again having a dedicated parcels/luggage service has now gone.

But I do think the railways should charge for larger luggage. It is a "you get what you pay for" thing. I would err on the generous side but anything that reduces seating capacity has to have a price really. It has to be something easily understood (dimensions wise) and easy to administer.

 

[Jim the Jim]

You could have something like height*width*length must not exceed N, but that will presumably not happen because expecting passengers to be capable of primary school mathematics would be considered a step too far.

It would make enforcement a little bit trickier but surely the thing with luggage restrictions is they don't need to be rigorously enforced, you just need to be able to have grounds to take action against people taking the mickey. And conscientious passengers will follow the rules anyway.

The fact is that for every train where there might not be space for everyone's luggage there are another hundred running half-empty, and a blanket rule is ridiculous. Again, socially minded passengers with very large amounts of luggage will do their best to travel at quiet times.

 

[Pigeon]

The obvious but perhaps unpopular long term answer to the problem would be to fit trains with sufficient levels of luggage and bike storage.

...aka Guard's Vans. Unpopular with whom? Certainly not with anyone needing to travel in an encumbered condition. It might perhaps be unpopular with the accountants who whinge like mad at any suggestion of operating a train unless it is rammed to capacity with a passenger occupying every possible place a seat might possibly be installed, but they all need to be shot anyway so that doesn't count. It's not only the obvious answer, it's the only answer: if there isn't enough space to put luggage then nothing on earth will stop luggage capacity being a problem.

That same kind of misdirected thinking is apparent in most of the other "answers" posted on this thread, which do not address the problem at all, but are merely suggestions for different forms of an excuse for using luggage as a crowbar to lever more money out of people. A piece of luggage does not magically cease to occupy any space if someone pays for it, so it not only remains just as much of a problem physically but also becomes an additional problem to whoever has to pay for it. There is a strongly apparent misapprehension that if it ceases to be a matter of concern to a small number of weird people who don't care what occupies any given space on a train as long as it has paid for it (and would charge the air in an empty seat if they could), then it's no longer a concern to anyone else either (such as people actually on the train), but this is not in fact the case.

 

[Egg Centric]

You could have something like height*width*length must not exceed N, but that will presumably not happen because expecting passengers to be capable of primary school mathematics would be considered a step too far.

Only primary school mathematics if it's a cuboid, otherwise this scheme would have the passengers finding a minimum bounding box and I don't even know what half the words on that article mean now, if I ever did

It would make enforcement a little bit trickier but surely the thing with luggage restrictions is they don't need to be rigorously enforced

This however is the big point for me - I've never ever had any restrictions enforced before. I'm highly confident I've never caused anyone a problem with luggage either (although I did once with a puppy). So why are we going to start now? From what @Tazi Hupefi was saying it's basically a reaction to the Lumo incident at Spital Junction. Yet another one of these things where "learning from mistakes" is forgetting about "learning from getting things right for decades".

but they all need to be shot anyway so that doesn't count

But who will pay for the bullets?

 

[A0]

if it's a minority of passengers then I would argue there isn't a problem. It will vary from service to service but on long distance trains and airport services most people are going to have bags and there should be ample luggage space.

As much as they are hated on here, Voyagers have nice big racks so it is possible.

As for charging for bikes, sustainable multimodal journeys should be encouraged. The bike spaces on new trains are not fit for purpose anyway (requiring one to lift their bike and not fitting some adapted bicycles is an accesibility failure) and should be expanded. For Lumo it's an artificial limitation as they have chosen to run short trains - a waste of capacity on a mainline.

Of course it's a minority of passengers - the busiest trains are still the weekday commuter ones and hardly anyone is carrying more than a "cabin" bag to use the airline's terms.

Lumo aren't a problem - there are other Anglo-Scottish services. If you want to do that journey with luggage then use LNER or Avanti.

On bikes, why should somebody take up 2 or 3 times the space at the expense of other passenger's comfort without charge? We charge more for 1st class which offers a more spacious environment, same should go for luggage. Many of the "long distance" and airport services aren't dedicated for that use e.g. the London - Manchester or London - Birmingham Avanti services are used as commuter or regional services by many people for parts of the route e.g. Milton Keynes - London, Rugby - London or Birmingham, Stoke - Manchester.

 

[JLH4AC]

I am just wondering. Given the plethora of parcels companies I feel the likely-hood of the railways again having a dedicated parcels/luggage service has now gone.

Station to station transportation of parcels onboard passenger trains operated by a single operator using existing staff would likely still have notable cost savings over transportation of parcels transport parcels by dedicated vans/lorries especially if labour starts being serious about their commitment to increasing modal shift of freight to rail. A railway-centric courier service market itself as a green alternative to road/air based couriers. Evri, Amazon Flex and other similar courier companies are likely to become less competitive when the Employment Rights Bill passes into law. I am not sure that there are more parcel companies today than during the 1970s to 1990s, there were a lot of courier companies during that period including four competing parcel companies owned by the government and there have been many mergers and bankruptcies since the 2000s.

...aka Guard's Vans. Unpopular with whom? Certainly not with anyone needing to travel in an encumbered condition. It might perhaps be unpopular with the accountants who whinge like mad at any suggestion of operating a train unless it is rammed to capacity with a passenger occupying every possible place a seat might possibly be installed, but they all need to be shot anyway so that doesn't count. It's not only the obvious answer, it's the only answer: if there isn't enough space to put luggage then nothing on earth will stop luggage capacity being a problem.

That same kind of misdirected thinking is apparent in most of the other "answers" posted on this thread, which do not address the problem at all, but are merely suggestions for different forms of an excuse for using luggage as a crowbar to lever more money out of people. A piece of luggage does not magically cease to occupy any space if someone pays for it, so it not only remains just as much of a problem physically but also becomes an additional problem to whoever has to pay for it. There is a strongly apparent misapprehension that if it ceases to be a matter of concern to a small number of weird people who don't care what occupies any given space on a train as long as it has paid for it (and would charge the air in an empty seat if they could), then it's no longer a concern to anyone else either (such as people actually on the train), but this is not in fact the case.

Even if large luggage compartments become widespread again as they should their use will still be rationed either through restrictions or fees as there is only so much space that can be given over to luggage without the lack of passenger capacity risking causing overcrowding or trains being excessively long for a given route, there are also more issues with excess luggage than just the space it takes up (Passengers boarding/disbarking with excess luggage can be an inconvenience and nuisance to other passengers and cause undue delays.).

If the system I and most people in tread seem to support works as intended people the railway will only make money from luggage fees in the uncommon cases where people decide to carry their sports equipment or pets onto the train. Such a system is intended to make people consider not taking so many bags and keeping the bags they are taking reasonably sized so that everyone can have a reasonable chance of storing their luggage on a train when are busy with certain passengers such as holiday travellers and moving students, and to prevent a small group of passengers causing undue delay, inconvenience, nuisance, or burden with their excess luggage.

 

[Snow1964]

if it's a minority of passengers then I would argue there isn't a problem. It will vary from service to service but on long distance trains and airport services most people are going to have bags and there should be ample luggage space.

As much as they are hated on here, Voyagers have nice big racks so it is possible.

Depends a lot of the service, I have seen some fairly luggage laden voyagers (and GWR DMUs) to Southampton on busy cruise changeover days. Considerably more luggage than the racks can handle.

We even had a thread on problems on busy cruise days earlier in year. Thread was started on a multiple ship changeover day totalling over 15,000 beds because of the Southampton station chaos.

From October-March there are fewer ship changeovers, but many are longer 2-5 week voyages which tend to mean lot of luggage.

 

[Harpo]

To impose a luggage charge, all passengers need to be met routinely by staff or go through a suitable automatic barrier on their entry to the rail network. That doesn't even happen for tickets!

The DfT obsession with numbers of seats has driven out a great many natural storage areas. Many coaches that retained tables had excellent luggage areas between seat backs, let alone older vehicles that had fairly decent luggage racks that weren't just a very wide overhead letterbox.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This however is the big point for me - I've never ever had any restrictions enforced before. I'm highly confident I've never caused anyone a problem with luggage either (although I did once with a puppy). So why are we going to start now? From what @Tazi Hupefi was saying it's basically a reaction to the Lumo incident at Spital Junction. Yet another one of these things where "learning from mistakes" is forgetting about "learning from getting things right for decades".

Like with airlines the railway also seems to prefer to fix things (ish) by shouting at people and restricting their journey rather than actually fixing them. Euston typifies this, but if Tazi does work for a TOC (as I think they do based on insider type information that often pops up in posts from that user) that also shows what internal attitudes passengers are working against - their messages always seem to carry a bit of a "the passenger is a nuisance, let's restrict them more and charge them more" sort of undertone, or at least if not from them directly an indication that said TOC seems to think that way.

It has occurred to me that the overheads on 80x, while large, are also relatively flat, not as wide as the CAFs and don't have any sort of lip at the side so stuff falling off (particularly hard trolley cases of the kind the TOCs like!) isn't unlikely. Retrofitting an extruded hard plastic lip would seem to be relatively cheap and reduce the risk of stuff falling off onto peoples' heads. It might not look good, but it would improve safety. Why has something like this not been looked at?

 

[Harpo]

It has occurred to me that the overheads on 80x, while large, are also relatively flat, not as wide as the CAFs and don't have any sort of lip at the side so stuff falling off (particularly hard trolley cases of the kind the TOCs like!) isn't unlikely. Retrofitting an extruded hard plastic lip would seem to be relatively cheap and reduce the risk of stuff falling off onto peoples' heads. It might not look good, but it would improve safety. Why has something like this not been looked at?

RAIB's repot into Lumo's overspeed incident at Peterborough dealt with it in its recommendations -

" The intent of this recommendation is to minimise the risks from falling luggage on Lumo train services.

Lumo should assess the risks of high volumes of large and likely heavy luggage stowed in overhead luggage racks which can fall on passengers if trains suffer significant lateral accelerations. This assessment should specifically examine the design of overhead luggage racks, the amount of alternative luggage storage space provided and passenger luggage policies. Lumo should implement any control measures identified as appropriate (paragraph 204). "

 

[Bletchleyite]

RAIB's repot into Lumo's overspeed incident at Peterborough dealt with it in its recommendations -

" The intent of this recommendation is to minimise the risks from falling luggage on Lumo train services.

Lumo should assess the risks of high volumes of large and likely heavy luggage stowed in overhead luggage racks which can fall on passengers if trains suffer significant lateral accelerations. This assessment should specifically examine the design of overhead luggage racks, the amount of alternative luggage storage space provided and passenger luggage policies. Lumo should implement any control measures identified as appropriate (paragraph 204). "

It appeared they did item 2 and 3 (2 being done by putting bags over the door pocket seats indicating them as being for luggage), but not item 1? Strange, as it would seem that modifying the racks by adding a lip to make falling items less likely would not be that complex. Was it perhaps too awkward due to Hitachi's notoriously tight contracts?

 

[Peter Sarf]

Station to station transportation of parcels onboard passenger trains operated by a single operator using existing staff would likely still have notable cost savings over transportation of parcels transport parcels by dedicated vans/lorries especially if labour starts being serious about their commitment to increasing modal shift of freight to rail. A railway-centric courier service market itself as a green alternative to road/air based couriers. Evri, Amazon Flex and other similar courier companies are likely to become less competitive when the Employment Rights Bill passes into law. I am not sure that there are more parcel companies today than during the 1970s to 1990s, there were a lot of courier companies during that period including four competing parcel companies owned by the government and there have been many mergers and bankruptcies since the 2000s.

Even if large luggage compartments become widespread again as they should their use will still be rationed either through restrictions or fees as there is only so much space that can be given over to luggage without the lack of passenger capacity risking causing overcrowding or trains being excessively long for a given route, there are also more issues with excess luggage than just the space it takes up (Passengers boarding/disbarking with excess luggage can be an inconvenience and nuisance to other passengers and cause undue delays.).

If the system I and most people in tread seem to support works as intended people the railway will only make money from luggage fees in the uncommon cases where people decide to carry their sports equipment or pets onto the train. Such a system is intended to make people consider not taking so many bags and keeping the bags they are taking reasonably sized so that everyone can have a reasonable chance of storing their luggage on a train when are busy with certain passengers such as holiday travellers and moving students, and to prevent a small group of passengers causing undue delay, inconvenience, nuisance, or burden with their excess luggage.

Simply put there is a price to pay for large amounts of luggage.
Either
The TOC takes a hit on seating capacity so the fares for everyone are a bit higher.
OR
The TOC charges for large amounts of luggage so the customer bringing lots of luggage pays for the priveledge.

I suspect however no TOC can put their finger on how much capacity for extra luggage is required and also how much to charge. So they will go for the easy route - restrictions with no route for those with "too much" luggage.

It is a product of our finely tuned and efficient profit driven railway. Also known as overcrowded with no chance of investment in extra capacity. Well not much anyway as HS2's woes testify.

Gone are the days of trains with oodles of space on them. Nowadays every inch counts - progress !.

Like with airlines the railway also seems to prefer to fix things (ish) by shouting at people and restricting their journey rather than actually fixing them. Euston typifies this, but if Tazi does work for a TOC (as I think they do based on insider type information that often pops up in posts from that user) that also shows what internal attitudes passengers are working against - their messages always seem to carry a bit of a "the passenger is a nuisance, let's restrict them more and charge them more" sort of undertone, or at least if not from them directly an indication that said TOC seems to think that way.

It has occurred to me that the overheads on 80x, while large, are also relatively flat, not as wide as the CAFs and don't have any sort of lip at the side so stuff falling off (particularly hard trolley cases of the kind the TOCs like!) isn't unlikely. Retrofitting an extruded hard plastic lip would seem to be relatively cheap and reduce the risk of stuff falling off onto peoples' heads. It might not look good, but it would improve safety. Why has something like this not been looked at?

I am afraid there is a trend towards defining the most common customer (formerly known as a passenger !) and throwing out any that do not fit that definition as too difficult to deal with. For instance I do not think first class would be invented today - it only exists now because it always has existed.

A lip is necessary but does reduce the maximum height (as in the bags thickness) available to feed a bag in. That will not matter if, as I suspect/hope, the overhead rack is not so high deeper in due to the curvature of the roof.

 

[hux385]

A lot of the people who bring large cases or bring too many cases are tourists, but this does make some room for creativity. For example, a lot of people may need to check out of a hotel for 11am but not have their train until 2pm. In a lot of situations, they would already pay money to have their bag stored at the station while they head round the city for the day.

It would be great if they could also create a system of sending people's bags to their destination in advance. This would mean a passenger could drop their bag off in the morning, spend the day going about their business, catch their train, and then pick up their bag from the final destination's luggage office. It's already not cheap to store bags at a station, and I reckon tourists in particular would happily pay a bit extra to relieve them of the hassle of dealing with their bags.

There's some Royal Mail trains soon to be going spare which would be ideal for this!

 

[lachlan]

Of course it's a minority of passengers - the busiest trains are still the weekday commuter ones and hardly anyone is carrying more than a "cabin" bag to use the airline's terms.

Lumo aren't a problem - there are other Anglo-Scottish services. If you want to do that journey with luggage then use LNER or Avanti.

On bikes, why should somebody take up 2 or 3 times the space at the expense of other passenger's comfort without charge? We charge more for 1st class which offers a more spacious environment, same should go for luggage. Many of the "long distance" and airport services aren't dedicated for that use e.g. the London - Manchester or London - Birmingham Avanti services are used as commuter or regional services by many people for parts of the route e.g. Milton Keynes - London, Rugby - London or Birmingham, Stoke - Manchester.

It depends if the railway is seen as an essential service that should cater to as many people as possible, or one that should be operated for convenience at the expense of passengers.

As I said before - we should be making provisions for bikes as it enables sustainable journeys and holidays that may otherwise have to be done by car.

If it's an issue with train capacity, lengthen them. Running 5 car trains down busy mainlines is a waste of capacity.

 

[Snow1964]

It used to be quite common for those going on holiday in UK to send their luggage in advance by train.

The Railway museum compiled a blog article on this, and it includes some posters (cost was 2 shillings, now known as 10p in 1930s), and using the Bank of England inflation calculator is about £5.70 now.

A short history of railway luggage - National Railway Museum blog

Travel history writer Martyn delves into the history of luggage on the railways

blog.railwaymuseum.org.uk

Of course many stations still have parcels and left luggage rooms (often now sitting idle as store rooms).

 

[A0]

It depends if the railway is seen as an essential service that should cater to as many people as possible, or one that should be operated for convenience at the expense of passengers.

Limiting luggage so that more passengers can travel in comfort wouls seem to me to be catering for as many as possible, rather than the few who travel with alot of luggage, no ?

As I said before - we should be making provisions for bikes as it enables sustainable journeys and holidays that may otherwise have to be done by car.

Have you any evidence that there is the demand for people to travel with bikes? Most people already have plans for their onward journey without a bike. But as ever, there is an anti car undercurrent to your posts - how about letting people choose?

If it's an issue with train capacity, lengthen them. Running 5 car trains down busy mainlines is a waste of capacity.

Between London and Manchester and London & Birmingham (Euston - New St) how do you propose lengthening already 8/9/11 car trains ? The infrastructure won't support it in terms of platform lengths, signalling etc. Neither of those flows are "5 car trains".