"It takes the painful experience of a visiting New Zealander (cf. Wednesday's Scotsman) to highlight the fact that Scotland's long distance trains don't provide reasonable space to carry bikes.
Let me inform [the] fellow touring cyclist that in a lifetime of cycle touring across six continents I've never come across such impoverished travel facilities for bikes as demonstrated in Scotland by First Scotrail trains. We cyclists are now a species of barely tolerated pests, rather than - as in Denmark - sources of revenue.
Contrast this with the picture in the late 1980s on the Kyle line when my son and I, with our bikes, took the Kyle train from Garve to Achnasheen. This was in the era of real trains, and the two guards' vans at the rear were absolutely stuffed with bikes and rucksacks.
By reason of the poor quality trains now operated, First Scotrail kills off the cycle travel market at a stroke. What price green transport credentials now? The root of the problem lies in the poor quality of train design, with rolling stock in Scotland being built down to a price rather than up to a standard."
- so writes a correspondent from Aberdeen, May 20th.
I thought that it was more about maximising profit. Every bike not carried can mean a couple more seats, and more tickets being bought. Two guards vans could probably equate to a whole carriage of seats. Presumably (thinks Scotrail, I presume) the seat allocation will sell itself anyway, so who cares about carrying cyclists? Or, incredibly, might cycle tourists in fact be a better guarantee of ticket sales?
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