Northern Rail fail

Mrs Cycle Harrogate is doing a day a week at the university in York. She likes a bit of learning and she was looking forward to starting.

She had a quick look at where the venue was in York. A bit too far to walk, but only 10 minutes on a bike and York is set up for bikes, she was excited. Then the wheels came off. She would need to get her bike to York on the train. Trouble is you can't just take a bike on the train. Northern Rail will take a massive two bikes but you can't book. So no guarantee you can get your bike on the iron horse. So your journey plans may or may not work. That's pants then, might as well say "We don't do bikes". Then she thought about hiring a Boris bike type thing at the other end, but the scheme in York isn't working yet. Then she looked at a bus at the other end and with the train ticket it was well over a tenner and was going to take another 25 mins on top of the train journey and life is too short, you know?

In the end she gave in and took her car with just one person, bad but perfectly understandable. That's how the roads end up full of nearly empty cars. Because we can't design an integrated public transport system that will let people make sustainable transport decisions. Even when they want to.

I raised this with Northern Rail on twitter and they said they were bound by their franchise and nothing could be done, it was the government's fault. I think they were wrong, I think what they meant was. We have a minimum service guarantee and as we are meeting it to do any more would impact on our profits. Suffice to say in the short term taking a bike to York on a train will be no easier.

 Now dear reader there is talk afoot about electrifying York to Leeds by Andrew Jones MP. That would be great, there would be an enhanced service, more trains. As part of that process if it happens, can we get some bikes on the trains and some WiFi? That would be nice. Rather than the current old skool rolling stock we have. Some of which  I worked on the design of, back in a time when I was still wet behind the ears last century. When people used drawing boards, cars had chokes and two Britain's winning the Tour De France was an impossible dream for fools.

And now in our dreamland we have won the hardest sporting event in the world, twice! Once with a rider who can't really climb all that well, that's amazing. I still get goose bumps thinking about Wiggo leading Cav out on the Champs Elysee. Yet we can't make daily exercise for everybody easy, in a country with a huge obesity and early death from inactive lifestyles problem. That's really pretty poor when you think about it.