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news
Video: New train in Japan has space for 99 cyclists AND their bikes
Let's face it, travelling by train with your bike in the UK can be a chore - not to mention an exercise in logistics - at the best of times.
If it's not peak-time restrictions, there's the issue of limits to the number of bikes allowed on particular services to contend with.
Then there's the worry that delays or cancellations mean that the train you want to catch is too packed too get your bike on in the first place.
Luckily, when that happened to us, we were right next to the bike racks at King's Cross so were able to leave it and catch the train ... though that did mean an unplanned return trip the following day to retrieve it.
So it's understandable that railway-using cyclists here may cast a jealous eye towards Japan, where this month has seen the unveiling of a train that has space for 99 cyclists and their bikes.
And as the video above shows, it really is quite impressive.
The six-car Boso Bicycle Base train, which has been converted from carriages from a commuter service, will start running next month, reports the Japan Times.
Operated by East Japan Railway Co., it will run at weekends between Ryogoku station in Tokyo and a number of towns on the Boso Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture, a popular spot for cyclists based in the Japanese capital.
A spokesman for the railway company said: “We hope many people will enjoy bicycle trips around the peninsula.”
As with certain services in the UK, however, reservations are compulsory and must be made five days in advance.
Also, the company's cycle-friendly policies don't extend to its other services, where only folding bikes, or ones that have been disassembled and put in a bag, are allowed,
Return fares will reportedly start at ¥6,500, equivalent to around £43.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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29 comments
The detail is probably lost in translation but I don’t how 99 bikes could fit in sections by the doors. It didn’t look like they had enough racks.
One thing is for sure, and that is she isn’t cycling anywhere in that white pant suit, unless she has bicycle clips.
They are six car trains so assuming 2 sets of doors per car and 6 bike stands at each door that would amount to 72 total. Maybe the extra 27 spaces are elsewhere in the car with a few assumptions around folding bikes thrown in for good measure? At 1:11 into the clip it does look like there are other types of bike stands in the cars too (not clear enough to be 100% sure though).
JapaneseTrain.jpg
You’ve empirically proved my point then! Thanks.
All smugness aside there must be other spaces for bikes as the number of racks shown doesn’t compute.
was the pro peloton riding in that train? that's some serious high-end stable right there.
The problem with those vertical bike stands is that they don't work for anything unusual. You'd never get a tandem or recumbent into one of those.
Wow that’s some range topping carbon. Usually I’d expect to see a different kind of silly for a promo video. Ditto—Hope nobody shows up with fenders.
Nb. The seat space also looks pretty decent compared to the UK
This isn't a commuter service. It's a single special train for events. So, for example, instead of the Greater Anglia approach of banning bikes on the Sunday morning of the Dunwich Dynamo, this would allow a sportive organizer in the Chiba region to book this train for participants. Or a corporation could hire it for a team-building bike ride. When it's not doing that, they'll run it at weekends, but there's only one, and it is likely to be popular, hence the requirement to book five days in advance.
It looks like the racks on that train don't work at all if your bike has a front fender.
Washington State ferries recently installed new bike racks with the same problem. After this was pointed out, they said essentially "we didn't know anyone was silly enough to use fenders on their bike" and promised to change the bike racks to accomodate bikes with fenders.
Good point n_g
I for one shall certainly not be catching that train.
As long as Virgin still have those stupid "no passing on the inside" stickers on their vans and they're unable to explain why they have them, I consider Virgin to be as anti-cycling as they come. They won't be getting any of my money any day soon.
The no passing on the inside ones are just plain simple common sense and probably help save lives from inexperienced cyclists filtering up on the inside.
Virgin have the ridiculous and pointlessly aggresive 'CYCLISTS STAY BACK'
Yep, they're the bastards! They can't justify why they have them either, which seems odd... So fuck 'em.
I don't think that stickers on vans have saved any lives. I quite often pass on the inside because a) that's where the bike lane is , or b) in stationary or near stationary traffic I'd rather be knocked onto the pavement by an opened door or random manoeuvre than into oncoming traffic. Stickers on vans should read "cyclists please don't pass this vehicle at junctions because the driver may not use indicators or check mirrors before turning"
still waiting for the nobbers at Virgin to sort their website out a year after they removed the bike booking system. I travel on the East coast but off peak and always had a space available, it's just that it's such a fucking drag to book now (go into a Virgin ticket office or the 20+ minute phone call) and other issues are endless/ridiculous.
If I had to attempt this at commuter hours it'd probably be a non starter but if you could bear packing the bike up in a foldaway bag or have an S&S job and taking as luggage it might work. A lot of fannying around though and you'd really have to think if it was worth the aggro and still saves you time/money.
A third option would be to book your tickets using the website of a train company that does offer bike reservations. Great Western and Transpennine are the two that come to mind.
If only, GWR suffer exactly the same problem as virgin did before they removed the bike reservation altogether, they show no outbound bike spaces on any of the trains, at any time on any date on the east coast line. Certainly not from Stevenage and I know that I'm the only one that ever gets on there at the times I travel and there's only ever been a max of 3 bikes in god knows how many years coming from KX, usually there is no-one else booked, for the system to show no spaces as it's just done on GWR on any of the trains replicates exactly the virgin system from last year.
coming back is fine, this is exactly what happened before, there was a space, lots of spaces in fact but the system across even other companies were not showing available spaces.
totally fubar'd
I did that before I got my train from Paddington to Bristol last month.
Brand new electrified trains, NO DEDICATED BIKE STORAGE.
None whatsoever. After arriving early to ensure I had time to load my bike, me and another poor bloke spent ten minutes being shunted from one end of the train to the other by bemused staff who insisted there was storage "at the middle", "at the end", "try carriage B"... nope.
Of course, by the time we'd realised that we were supposed to just drag our bikes on and block the walkways, it was rammed. People were not impressed at a bike being hoisted over their heads to plug the last remaining gap between two carriages.
Shout out to the station manager at Bath who is a top bloke and always makes sure cyclists get on, regardless of how busy the train is. We had a nice gripe about the state of these new trains.
Don't start me about the bike nazis at KGX...
ahh, the good old days when there was a couple of BR porters to load your bike up for you....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPkT0paGEnQ
The lady in the video should have a Fuji
She turns up to the station on a Brompton (0:22) so has no need of the racks.
Lazy journalism, fake news etc etc.
The Caltrain between San Jose and San Francisco is a commuter train which carries 80 bikes per train. Free. Without needing to book. It is pretty amazing.
http://www.caltrain.com/riderinfo/Bicycles/Bicycle_General_Info.html
I wonder what proportion of their users take bikes?
Which is fine if you're going on say a week long jolly around the lakes on a touring bike.
Not if you're an average commuter, not only wasting hours of your life sat on a train but also having spend hours a week trying to book a bike on a train or some Nazi Jobsworth trying to stop you even taking a brompton on a train.
On the plus side I do like to think I've at least given a few quid to the UK bike industry
The really annoyig thing in the UK is when there is limited space for bikes and no way of making a reservation so you can't really buy any of the cheaper tickets because you could turn up and find the train full and your ticket useless even if you were able to wait for the next service (if one exists).
Thinking about it again, it's all a massive shower of shit.
Could have made it 100.
Reservations 5 days in advance? Why on earth is that required - what could they possibly be doing that will take 5 days to prepare a space to temporarily hold a bike?
Also, so they insist on cyclists wearing helmets?
Compared to the UK that's incredibly forward thinking.
To take up a recent design job I had to commute via First Great Western with a short ride either end after paying the astronomical Season Ticket I then discovered I couldn't take one of my bikes, I couldn't book in advance, essentially every single night of my working week I would have to request one of the 4 spaces available daily! Faced with the option of having two donor bikes at each end of my commute I ended up buying a Brompton which FGW will allow on any train booked or not.
The big problem with First Great Western is that they require booking on their high-speed trains at least an hour beforehand. That's not so good if you're planning on getting a normal/local train service and it gets cancelled and the next train is a HST.