Pedals

Campaigning to get East Midlands Railways to increase the cycle capacity on their newly commissioned trains.  Currently there will only be space for two bikes hung vertically on hooks per 5 car train.

Handsome new EMR trains are now coming into service, but how many cycles will they carry?

Having discovered the pleasure of taking our bikes by train in search of less familiar routes further afield, but aware of cycle space limitations meaning we could never reliably plan to go with our friends, Pedals was excited to discover that East Midlands Railway (EMR) are introducing new trains from next year, initially for ‘Intercity’ (i.e. the London St. Pancras run) but later for the ‘Regional Fleet’.

In September 2024 Pedals wrote to EMR asking what their plans were for improved cycle capacity over the existing 222 Meridian Intercity train, which has a parsimonious 2 spaces per 5 carriage unit. To our dismay, the reply came that the new class 810 Hitachi AT300 Intercity Express 5 carriage train, due to begin introduction in 2025, still only has TWO spaces for cycles, but worse: now using hooks for vertical storage of bikes.

The early publicity for the new trains contains the following statement:

“We have worked closely with Hitachi to ensure our trains offer customers the features and comfort they expect from a modern train”

Except for those customers with bikes apparently! The reported cost of the new fleet is £400 million. A lot to be spending on something with such an obvious short-coming.

• The climate crisis: to foster cycle-rail integration to reduce car use, the cycle capacity of the new trains is the same as the old ones;
• The health crisis: encouraging Active Travel, including by groups;
• not least: Cyclists who will struggle to use the vertical hook storage, these hooks have been widely criticised in cycling circles for many years.

They should change this detail now as they would a technical error found during testing that affected operation. Delaying correction will increase the cost (potentially to the tax payer after the planned re-nationalisation), ignoring the broader societal costs of the health crisis and climate change, which in themselves are compelling.

Once the new trains are in service with this short-termist limitation, the life-span could be decades. The current class 222 Meridian Intercity trains came into service in 2004!

The UK Climate Change Committee advises a target of a 34% reduction in car journeys by 2050.  As cycles and trains work well together sustainably, bike capacity on trains should be planned to be consistently rising.

EMR has this opportunity to encourage cycling by way of improved services: to plan capacity anticipating peoples’ habits changing, not only maintaining the existing obstacle of the two cycle limit but actually making it harder due to the storage hooks.

Article by Dave.