The Friends of the Far North Line
Cairdean Na Loine Tuath
the campaign group for rail north of
Inverness - lobbying for improved services for the local user, tourist and freight
operator
Imagine you decide to cycle to your station, leave your bike there and collect it upon your return. You've looked up your train using the timetable on the ScotRail website and noticed the station facilities listed there which tell you that there are 10 sheltered cycle storage spaces at each station. You've also noticed that both stations are fully staffed so buying your ticket won't be a problem.
You arrive in the morning with your bike and discover that the ticket office is shut until after both morning trains have left. There is a helpful notice telling you that. Anyway, you'll still be able to purchase your ticket on the train, so now you need to lock up your bike. This is when you discover that the 10 storage spaces are inside the station building. If you'd known that the station is not fully staffed as the timetable says, but part-time, you'd have looked up the opening times which are found in a totally different section of the website. There you would have discovered that if you want to leave your bike behind you have to be using one of the two afternoon trains, and making sure you're returning on a train no later than the 10:41 ex-Inverness on a later day, but not a Sunday, as the station building is locked all day.
By this time you're probably wondering if anyone ever uses the cycle storage.
Anyone caught out like this may have to either abandon their journey or hope that they can take their bike on the train, even though they haven't booked it in either direction. This may well cause capacity problems on the train when other cyclists have already booked spaces. Even if a prospective traveller knows the ticket office opening times, they may still be caught out on arrival at their station when they find a notice informing them that the ticket office is closed due to operational issues. They won't be able to retrieve their bike until the next time the ticket office is open.
When approached about this whole question, ScotRail's response was:
A cycle facility programme of work is due to start which will see the cycle racks replaced with a new style, and these can be relocated outwith the booking office area to a more suitable location.
