Bike On The Train

There’s an entire thread on that here: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057747877/royal-canal-on-a-road-bike/p1

In summary, it’s smooth surface as far as Maynooth.

Then a mixture of compacted gravel and dirt/grass from Maynooth to Clonsilla, doable on a road bike if it isn’t soaking wet.

Clonsilla to Castleknock is the Deep Sinking, tree roots and mud, not suitable for a road bike.

From Castleknock to Spencer Dock it’s tarmac again.

Just curious (as someone who hasn't been on an intercity train this century) are there bike spaces/disabled spaces on each carriage or do you have to find a specific carriage?

The last time I travelled by train with the bike, it went into what they called the Guard's van or mail van or something like that.

I would hope that they'd inform the cyclists that they were going to do that rather than simply throwing them onto some random platform along the way.

What a fupping baxter. Did you make a complaint, tweet irish rail, etc.. for all the difference it would make

Unfortunately adding bike carriages isn't a simple matter as the Cork train has the bike/luggage room in the engine carriage whereas all the other InterCity trains have the engines integrated under the floor of regular carriages. Refitting some of those regular carriages by removing a bank of four seats and installing more bike racks is probably the solution but IE will need to be convinced it makes economic sense. Alternatively, they need to be told to do it by the Government/Minister for Transport.

The Cork Mark 4 train:

Yeah I complained and was just fobbed off with

"Thank you for your e mail.

The 09.38 train from Maynooth yesterday was the Inter-City train to Sligo. Bicycles can only be carried on this service when they have been booked in advance. Staff have been advised that this rule must be strictly observed in the interest of customer safety as the bikes must be secured in the relevant bike racks."

I responded with

"Do Irish rail have any plans to address the lack of bike capacity? Running a near empty train on a Sunday morning and removing half the passengers because they had bikes seems counter intuitive to me? Also what's the issue with dismantled bikes in a luggage rack? They take up less space that some large suitcases! 

I'm not trying to be difficult but it seems to me that with some effort more bikes could be accommodated on off peak trains."

and got this final reply

"For safety reasons bikes must be secured in the bike storage area of Inter-City services. On commuter trains bikes are permitted at off peak travel. Please see section on our website for full details. There is no doubt that extra capacity is required since the opening of the Greenway, however as you can appreciate in order to provide extra bike capacity it would involve substantial investment from the NTA.  Under the national development plan, we are currently progressing a major order of 600 new carriages, which will increase bike spaces on certain routes where needed."

As far as Irish rail are concerned they'll wait for the new carriages which AFAIK are identical to the existing ones and are just intermediate cars so will have the same layout as existing so might add 2 more spots to the train!!

the last bit of your reply, about the new carriages is particularly galling. probably for the public transport forum but it would be good to get some confirmation on that..

That's what I feared and it's very disappointing. I raised the issue on the Royal Canal Greenway Facebook page which is run by Waterways Ireland and asked that they request Iarnrod Eireann to add additional spaces for bikes on their trains. As before on other issues, there was no reply from WI. There was a time when that site was run by local enthusiasts and it was much more proactive in pushing for improvements.

Thanks to the expertise of Mercian Pro, we managed to neatly get 4 bikes into the 2 bike space on the Rosslare train this morning. We encountered a very pleasant Irish Rail employee who was convinced it couldn't be done. He was amazed and even took his own picture for future reference. (He also warned us about cranky 'jobsworths' who are sometimes on the route).

Not mine so I'm not sure which model it is but it's a Cannondale Gravel alright. I'll have to take a closer look next time. It was on it's maiden voyage. We didn't go off road today.

It's highly unlikely that the train driver would have refused to take the bike. They generally don't have any interaction with passengers.

...that awful version by Gazza?

Where are you off too? Are you getting the ferry to France?

That is a terrible slur on a man who has been known to cycle to West Donegal (via Belfast) for a family get-together and back to Dublin the following day. It was only loyalty to his clubmates that made him take the train to Gorey on Tuesday. 😉

Got the train yesterday from Greystones to Enniscorthy and cycled home 109km along the coast. While the weather was abysmal and I had one extreme close pass by a taxi just as I came into Courtown (wing mirror inches from my elbow and no oncoming traffic what so ever), the whole experience of taking the bike on the train was brilliant. I'd highly recommend it to anyone!

Posted this over on the Royal Canal thread but it's probably more relevant here:

A couple of us tried to board the almost empty Sligo train this morning with our bikes. We intended heading to Mullingar and cycling back along the Greenway. We were repulsed by two attendants who were determined not to let us on unless we could produce booking confirmation. Neither of us could so off the train went without us.

We had no trouble getting on the Maynooth commuter train shortly afterwards and had a great spin from there to lunch at Nanny Quinn's (Thomastown) and back to Maynooth afterwards.

It's the first time in many trips to Mullingar and Longford that I was asked for proof of booking and I'm not sure if it is even noted on the ticket when you do book a bike space. It looks as if it is a new and regrettable policy to restrict the number of bikes.

It's entirely jobsworths I was put off an empty train during covid as I didn't have a bike booking, I complained to IR and they said it was at the train staffs discretion to carry bikes.

Some staff just have issues with cyclists. The day I was put off several others were put off too despite the bikes being stowed out of the way. He took issue with 3 bikes in 2 bike spaces and bikes with the wheels removed in luggage spaces despite being secured he also wouldn't entertain bikes in the wheelchair space even with assurances that if the space was required we'd leave the train. When we tried to reason he pulled out his phone and said he was calling the gardai if we didn't leave the train immediately. I walked the whole train looking for space for the bikes and as it was during covid there was a max of 10 other passengers on the train along with 10 cyclists trying to board. The train left for Sligo with just 10 on board after we were left behind!