Rack Stack

Bike racks in Edinburgh Waverley station. I took the train today and picked up my trusty steed from these new-ish racks. They're really good, replacing the old railings and never getting full. They're by Josta, a German company who specialise in bike racks. Also made in Germany are the new trains for Scotrail manufactured by Seimens.

New trains are good, right? Well, on the North Berwick line their introduction means the removal of the dedicated bike space at the end of the train that's usually full at peak times and keeps dirty bikes and bikers away from neat and tidy commuters - I'm on the dirty end of that scale! Instead of space for 8 bikes, we'll have racks for 2 bikes squeezed in with pop-up seats. Given that these are touted as "Eco friendly" trains, I wrote to the Scottish Transport Minister to ask his response. 2 months later he replied along the lines of "this will be better for most passengers" - in other words, "too bad". The CTC have another letter sent to Scotrail and their response published, which is much the same. Scotrail have said bikes can go in the vestibules, but in reality that's probably not going to happen at peak times. It's bad news for cyclists who'll just not be able to use the train any more.

Oh, and the introduction of these trains didn't go well : with ScotRail refusing to accept any more until the problems are sorted out.

All a bit of a mess really. Personally, I keep a bike permanently in Waverley on the Josta racks so I'll be able to avoid taking my bike on the new trains when they eventually arrive - which sounds fine but is actually dead inconvenient. I won't go into detail about panniers, shoe cleats and lights but you can imagine my good bike doesn't have the same bits and pieces as my Waverley bike, besides which I don't want to leave my good bike at a rural station every day.

Best enjoy the old trains whilst they last!