Didcot Parkway bike racks

No surprise to me at all that you didn’t have proper information. Here is my previous experience from using FGW (now GWR) cycle parking.

• They put a sign at Oxford station advertising that cycle racks would be removed, but positioned so that it was only visible when *leaving* the station, not when entering — which may be okay for regular commuters, but was useless for people making a one-off journey.
• They cut the locks of any bikes parked there over the weekend in question, taking the bikes into a store room.
• They then put an advert in the Oxford Mail telling people to retrieve their bike from the station office (which anyone who was actually missing a bike would do naturally, so all that it achieved was to draw the attention of people who weren’t).
• They then gave out the bikes to anybody who gave a more or less accurate description, without requiring any ID or keeping any records.

The result of all that is that I went away on the train for a weekend, only to lose not only the lock but the bicycle itself. (Oh, and nobody claimed to know anything about it when I returned on the Sunday evening, requiring another trip back during office hours.) And then they refused to compensate me, only finally backing down when I sent them a photocopy of a completed court claim form with an ultimatum.

This is who you are dealing with.

Back in 2002 after several annoying incidents I concluded that the UK rail system cares little about catering for cycling customers after being thrown off a train during a 650 mile trip to see family in Northern Scotland and becoming stranded due to double booking. That’s when I decided to get a car and have been happily polluting the environment at my own convenience ever since. Sad to see nothing’s changed except now and again I look out of interest and see the prices seem to be much more extortionate making the decision to take the car even easier.