Bike on train from Carlisle to Inverness

galaxyboy

Does anyone know if it is possible to get a bike on the train from Carlisle - Inverness?

andymiller

Yes.

The best thing to do though is to go to the National Rail enquiries website. Look up the trains you're interested in. Then click through for further information. This will then give you a link to information about the relevant train operating company's cycle policy and other useful information like the phone numbers for reserving bike spaces.

nwallace

It should be possible

Scotrail do trains to Carlisle and with it being Via Kilmarnock to Central I think it's not covered by the need to pre-book and should be 6 spaces (clattery old 156's) or you coudl sjut try the Transpennine Express (To Edinburgh) and Virgin Policies (Glasgow Central).

You definitely need to book bike space on Inverness services, some have 2 spaces (170) and some have 4 (158 + 170).

There is also the "Highland Cheiftain" which goes direct to Inverness from London using an HST set, but being an East Coast service isn't exactly on your route.


Dons Anorak and leaves.

chasctc

Buy tickets via www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com - the only website that offers online bike reservations (all companies). You may find it cheaper (and easier) to book the journey in stages (don't ask me why!). Bookings can be made up to 12 weeks in advance.

andymiller

chasctc wrote:

Buy tickets via www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com - the only website that offers online bike reservations (all companies).

[EDIT: see my correction below.]

I'm very sceptical about the National Express site. I thought it sounded too good to be true - and it looks like it is.

First, it doesn't seem to do what it claims. I've just been trying to do some test bookings for the services between London and Bristol Parkway and London and Ipswich/Norwich. These services have guards vans and ample bike space. Despite booking welll in advance (for late May and early June) and at weekends I was consistently told that there were no seats available to reserve and no bike spaces available to reserve. I could understand that there might be no cycle spaces available (though in my experience you'd need to be very unlucky for this to be the case), but no seats???

Second. It doesn't seem to show the cheaper Advance Fares - only what used to be called Savers. Although that might be because no cheaper fares were available for the services I checked.

nwallace

The online booking systems are all based on the same engine. It's not uncommon for the reservations part to be down, you usually only discover this when you get your tickets and there is no seat booking with them despite having gone through that part. One of the tricks to test if it is working is to try and book a space on the sleepers as they must be reserved they only show up if there is a) space on them and b) the reservations system is working.

I booked bike tickets on the phone but only received 1 set, simple human error (it was a 4 part booking, including 1 passenger using a YPR) but in future I think I will be booking bike tickets at a ticket office.

Looking at the NXEC site, I've got it giving me Advanced fares between London and Waverly at the start of may.

andymiller

:oops:

Tried again and this time I did manage to book a seat and bike space from London to Bristol - haven't tried London-East Anglia.

So yes it's worth trying but don't necessarily take 'no' for an answer.

And it did show the Advance Singles as well.

galaxyboy

Thanks for all the replies. I had only looked on trainline and could not find any details. I'll try phoning nearer the time.

richard36

I've booked a seat on the Dumfries to Inverness train. I need to make 3 changes I think and my bike has been booked onto each train. I could have booked via the National Rail Equiries website but phoned the number instead as I wanted to be sure my bike was booked on.

I also booked 12 weeks in advance and got the ticket for £29!!

Richard

galaxyboy

You done well there :shock: , all the web sites for 12 weeks time are giving me £76 single fare, £86 return.

chasctc

1) Try booking in stages (eg Carlisle-Edinburgh; Edinburgh-Inverness). It can be cheaper - dont ask!

2) Using nationalexpresseastcoast.com for booking - never had a problem. The phone can be risky and longwinded for anything complicated. On three instances I've travelled with an "apology" (rather than complete set of bike reservations). I once had to wave the apology to board a fully booked Kyle-Inverness even though I had a ticket and seat reservation.

galaxyboy

Your right I can now get Carlisle - Glasgow for £8, Glasgow - Inverness £41, but I'm going to keep trying.
Thanks.

nwallace

So er how many tickets are sitting on your kitchen table?

Dundee -> Perth -> Inverness Singles was:
1 Receipt
1 Train Ticket each
2 Seat Reservations each
4 Bike tickets each (2 for bike, 2 for person, which is why I missed the missing tickets thought it was 1 set each)

Bodhbh

nwallace wrote:

The online booking systems are all based on the same engine. It's not uncommon for the reservations part to be down, you usually only discover this when you get your tickets and there is no seat booking with them despite having gone through that part.

Yeah it's worth sanity checking/takign with a pinch of salt. Had some funny results trying to book a sleeper birth on Scotrail the other week - all advance tickets gone, or so it said. Tried booking tickets via the Nationalexpress site and it gave out the error the national database was down and no advance tickets were available atm. Well at least the NE site gave the msg, it'd be possible to assume everything was just booked up going by Scotrail (it was for Springbank hols, so not an unreasonable assumption if you don't regularly book em).