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I have not traveled on a train with a bike before but do plan to. After reading the above comments i think the tactic i will use will be to lock the bike to something in the bike storage and keep quiet until my station, where i will unlock it sharpish and ride off down the platform.

Why can't everyone just get on?

- Rupert Evans, Manchester UK

I have started commuting from Coventry to Birmingham and have been battling every day to get my bike on the train - never due to a lack of space! I can't predict what time I finish work so can't reserve a space, and there are no facilities to do this online anyway. It is a disgrace just because cyclists are a minority group they think they can bully us.

I have written to Timothy Huxtable and Andrew Williams from the department of Transport. Both are sympathetic and said they would talk to virgin. It may help if you have had a problem, to send them an email too!

- Lisa Teoh, Birmingham

I lived in UK for all of my life and a month ago moved to California. The UK still has an anti-cyclist mentality, with cyclists forced to share pavements with pedestrians (slow) or squeezed into lanes often filled with parked vehicles, or forced onto meandering go-nowhere routes. The train services have extremely small cycling facilities in the carriages, and the bureaucratic administration of these facilities compounds the issue.

Here in California, the local train service CALTRAIN has a whole bike carriage with room for approx 20 bikes, and the whole culture here is pro-bike, whilst still being heavily car-dependent. Admittedly this is most recently due to the high fuel costs but I've consistently experienced a "cool" response from the locals.

First we had walking, then horse and cart, then canals and trains, then bicycles then cars. So the trains and bikes naturally are partners and should find an amicable co-existence. Bring back proper large bike carriages!

- Nigel Healy, San Mateo, California

I've had a similar but not so bad experience with Virgin, their bike booking system and staff. As you say its virtually impossible to get a reservation on the day, even at a Virgin station although you can now make on-line bookings with a ticket if you use the national express booking site.

I put my bike into a totally empty bike area on a Virgin train at Oxenholme in the Lake District. Ten minutes later a guard came steaming through the carriage shouting "Whose bike is that" and berated me at length for putting it on the train without a reservation. I stayed calm but it got to the point that other passengers were starting to chime in on my side rather more aggressively. To the guards chagrin I was getting of at the next stop so he couldn't throw me off and he eventually stormed off. I am quite sure otherwise he would have attempted to leave me on Preston station platform with my bike for having the temerity to use a totally unused bike storage area without a reservation which the Virgin ticket office was unable to sell me for reasons they did explain but that are too arcane and complex to go into here.

Virgin have some very good staff but some of them are convinced their railway would run much better if they didn't have those damn nuisance passengers wanting to use them

- Tony, Cambridge, UK

Thanks so much for taking the trouble to write about this incident, Andrew. I'm a 65 year old University lecturer (specialising in government) who was taken off a packed seatless Virgin X-train (when they still had the franchise) and 'handed-over' to the Transport Police at New Street (my home station) because I'd refused on principal to pay the Club Class Supplement for the one seat I found on a train from Doncaster on which my long reserved standard seat was unavailable. The police were perplexed. They asked the Virgin Train manager why he was reporting me to them. I remained as always entirely civil and later wrote to Virgin asking to be sued so that I could explain my experience of Virgin service to a stipendiary. I heard no more despite having given my address. As a cyclist, but now with a folder, I experience only at second hand, the miserable difficulties described though - oddly - I am in love with train travel which is why I put up with these bizarre and humiliating incidents (in actual and virtual reality - trying to find out about and reserve seats on TOC websites) and don't just take to driving a car everywhere, which could well be cheaper considering my substantial annual mileage. I dream things will get better - or perhaps I'm a transport masochist. I try never to be impolite to front-line staff who, in my experience (tho' perhaps not yours), are as much victims of thos remotely created mess as passengers. Kindest regards. My optimistic hopes for better travel.

- Simon Baddeley, Birmingham, UK

I hope that the taxi is being paid for by Virgin and that an apology is forthcoming. As one who uses bikes and trains and is in the old Virgin Cross Country area I have been subject to similar, but not as unpleasant attacks. I hoped that Cross Country Trains would be a better carrier but they are worse! Only 2 bikes per train now not the 4 of Virgin. Very hard for a family of 3.

- Bob Macqueen, Leamington Spa UK

Perhaps Mr. Gilligan would like to let us all know whether or not the CCTV captured all this? Many such accusations are made and investigations undertaken using CCTV evidence and it is very rare that the staff member is at fault, it is usually some belligerent passenger using bully tactics in an attempt to get their way. I doubt this incident occurred in any way similar to that described.

- Frank Gerrard, Kingston on Thames, UK

I am sorry for that incident on Virgin Trains, Andrew...

- Dennis, Syracuse, New York [United States]

Did this odious guard not realise he was taking on the man who slew Red Ken and nearly got Campbell? What is the reaction from Virgin Trains to this appalling incident, however provoked? Gilligan is a hero of our times! Will we hear more?

- N De Burgh, London

I hardly think Mr Byers is in any position to comment after the mess HE made.

- N John, Hastings, England

Rail travel over the last decade has descended to a level where being mugged offers better value for money. Almost always, despite what common sense says should be the case, it is cheaper by car for those people who have to travel at short notice. If there are two or more people travelling, then certainly forget the train. Are Britain's railways ever going to provide a decent service right when the people of Britain need it the most when faced with extortionate rises in fuel costs?

- Jennifer Kirk, Bolton, UK

Taking a non-folding touring bike on a train is a real pita. So many different rules and regs and times - mainly to discourage bikers from using trains in the first place. Trying to reserve a cross-country route operated by more than one trainco is a nightmare. And if one service is late resulting in a lost connection it is easy to get stranded. So much for joined up public transport. And frequently cyclists have to put up with such stroppy jobsworth staff ...

- S Byers, Brighton, UK

Birmingham is only 120 miles away from London, Andrew. You could have ridden your bike home in a day, or split it into two days for a really leisurely ride. Cost of one day ride = zilch. Cost of overnight stay en route = much cheaper than a train or taxi fare.

- Oz Springs, London

Bikes should be banned from trains after all they have wheels and should be used. Bikes block seats and exits and are a safety hazard so get on on your bxxxy bike and ride it.

- Chris, UK

Do reservations not apply to you? Are you somehow outside the scope of the company's rules?
Did you take the managers name and complain to the company before you took the opportunity to vent your frustration through the media?
I extremely doubt that he swore at you without any provocation from you - these people are picked and trained for good customer relation skills so I must assume that you pushed him into his verbal tirade.

- Kevin Dempsey, Kennoway, Fife

OK, you knew the rules and are using your position as a journalist to slag of Virgin because of your own laziness.

- Peter, Bucks

Rubbish.. I don't believe your story. Why didn't you involve the police? You needed a reservation and didn't have one. It's a good policy and 'You' didn't allow enough time for your journey. Get there earlier next time and reserve.. I have to.
By the way. The staff are subject to abuse and difficult people daily. I don't believe the staff would act in such a way. I suspect you are holding back the real events.. Did you get angry at all?

- Andrew, Birmingham

I am afraid that an almost carbon copy incident occurred to me almost 30 years ago when it was, er, state owned, nationalised etc. It may indeed have been the same employee transferred under the transfer of undertakings laws introduced not long after, as the language was almost exactly the same. The big problem is not whether something is state owned or privately - it is whether those who are providing the "service" sense that you as the client have few (if any) alternatives. Once they have you, they will behave like tinpot dictators - it is, I'm afraid, the essence of monopoly provision. Remember the film Genevieve, Andrew? About a vintage car race and made just at the end of the rationing era. Arriving in Brighton, covered in oil and dirt, the American wife of one of the racers asked where the bathroom was. She was told that hot water was provided between some ridiculous times for about half an hour. When she expressed exasperation, she was told primly by a hotel manageress played by Joyce Grenfell: "no one has ever complained before" and made to feel small...the characters in those films were indeed saying in a "naice" way "there's no hot water

- Damian Hockney, London, UK

Of course you know that nobody had reserved the bike spaces at Birmingham International or Coventry do you Andrew? Perhaps there was no available space after all.

- Peter, Warwickshire

You seem to know the rules about bikes on trains, "Strictly speaking, you need a reservation to use them" and "Now I've been kicked off half empty trains before for the crime of bringing a bike", so why are you surprised when the guard who is in charge, tells you you are not allowed to travel if you don't have a reserved space. Once bitten twice shy! The geezers doing her or his job. And, you left it until the very last train to risk getting on against the rules, and you wonder that you found yourself stranded.
I agree about the old days though, with much derided British Rail you had a separate carriage van for bikes and big stuff. BTW what was the name and number of the cab firm that wasn't much more than the train so I can use em when I go to West Mids please?

Finally, I trust your diligent reporting of these events is more accurate than your past journalistic forays.

Chuckle.

- Jack, London, England

I used to get the train from Reading to Staines, run by South West trains, and they had a very casual policy of not bringing bikes on trains before 10am or something like that, it was very casual. However there would be the occasional morning when they would send gangs of guards onto the trains when it stopped at Bracknell and insist all the people with bikes got off the trains. Usually I just refused to shift and told them I had a valid ticket and needed to get to work. A bit of belligerence and assistance from fellow passengers saying they didn't mind my bike being there usually did the trick and I was left alone. It wasn't a particularly pleasant experience though and being a tiny woman being intimidated by a gang of burly ticket inspectors wasn't the best way to start the day. And really it is not very joined up, integrated transport type of thinking.

- L K, Reading

By comparison, the staff on the suburban trains are great - we watched a female ticket collector help an old lady who was struggling with an awkward parcel on to the train and in to a seat - lovely, caring young lady. In two years on infrequent travel, on each journey the staff have been friendly, helpful and courteous.

- Kiwi Expat, London, UK

Does that mean you don't want private train companies, and would like full nationalisation of the railways Andrew?

- Barry L Smith, London

I'm glad that Virgin Staff have very high standards of accuracy.

- Carl, London

'they are run, at all levels, by incompetent authoritarians'

You haven't lost your talent for a sweeping smear then Andy.

- Adam, London

And we are going to give a State Funeral to Thatcher?

- Chris Davies, Stalybridge UK

Naturally, Mr. Gilligan remained calm and composed throughout the exchange, didn't get on his high horse and go on a tirade along the lines of "Do you know who I am?"

Maybe this had nothing to do with the bicycle; maybe the train guard was familiar with Mr. Gilligan's writing and seized upon the opportunity to inconvenience him?

- Mark Le, Vauxhall

Dear Andrew,
You are absolutely spot on. They are rude, lazy and incompetent. Especially in Birmingham where I have to visit every month. The staff (majority not all) are also very rude.
I hope you remember the name of the employee. You should make an example of him. Last week a poor man ran down the stairs and made a mad dash into the train. A virgin attendant yelled at the top of his voice and began shouting and swearing like a madman. I couldn't believe what I was seeing/hearing.
The guy who was rude to you wasn't a tall, lanky guy was he?

- Arnie, London

Its a metaphor for the kind of country we've become.

- Julian Fountain, London, UK

At last a Gilligan article I agree with! The railways in this country are broken and will never fulfil their potential! I guess we've got the Tories to thank for that and they look like getting voted back in!

- Paulo Uccello, London UK

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