A new lobbying campaign?

I see that the European Parliament has approved the Third Railway
Package on 25 September and it was ratified by the Council on October
25. http://preview.tinyurl.com/yolvn5

The link says:

"The regulation on the rights and obligations of rail passengers was
originally intended to apply only to passengers on international
journeys but MEPs successfully fought to include passengers on domestic
journeys.

Under the deal reached between the two institutions, when the law enters
into force in 2009 all rail passengers will enjoy a set of basic rights
(e.g. regarding rail companies' liability for passengers and their
luggage, and the right to transport of people with reduced mobility).

Member States may exempt long-distance domestic rail services from the
provisions of the regulation on non-basic rights (e.g. the right to take
a bicycle on the train), for an initial period of five years, which may
subsequently be extended for two further periods of up to five years.
Urban, suburban and regional services can be granted an indefinite
exemption from those same provisions."

What this means as I understand it (and I have not yet been able to find
a copy of the finally agreed text) is that from 2009 all international
rail services, e.g. Eurostar, will have no choice about carrying
bicycles and the domestic services will have to carry them unless the
Government gives them an exemption. So what we would seem to need now
is an organised cycling lobby to persuade Government not to grant
exemptions on the basis that it would be counter to their cycling and
sustainable transport policies to allow exemptions.



--
Tony

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has
taken place"
George Bernard Shaw

In article , junk@raven-
family.invalid says...

Member States may exempt long-distance domestic rail services from the
provisions of the regulation on non-basic rights (e.g. the right to take
a bicycle on the train), for an initial period of five years, which may
subsequently be extended for two further periods of up to five years.
Urban, suburban and regional services can be granted an indefinite
exemption from those same provisions."


Scrub that. I have just got the final text from the European Parliament
and they have watered down the non-basic right from being an absolute
one to take a bike on a train to one of being able to take the bike on a
train if the train company wants to allow you. It also gives the train
company three excuses - they are too cumbersome, it would affect the
service or there is no room - as reasons they can give for refusing you.
Quite why the European Parliament thought they might need to allow
exemptions from the right in those circumstances is beyond me.

"Bicycles
Railway undertakings shall enable passengers to bring bicycles on to the
train, where appropriate for a fee, if they are easy to handle, if this
does not adversely affect the specific rail service, and if the rolling-
stock so permits."

:-(

--
Tony

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has
taken place"
George Bernard Shaw

On Nov 14, 10:21 am, Tony Raven wrote:
"Bicycles
Railway undertakings shall enable passengers to bring bicycles on to the
train, where appropriate for a fee, if they are easy to handle, if this
does not adversely affect the specific rail service, and if the rolling-
stock so permits."


Does that mean that the European Parliament has spent X days (at a
cost of Y pounds/Euros) to say "nothing changes"?

Or have I missed something very obvious?

PhilD

--

On 14 Nov, 10:21, Tony Raven wrote:
In article , junk@raven-
family.invalid says...

Member States may exempt long-distance domestic rail services from the
provisions of the regulation on non-basic rights (e.g. the right to take
a bicycle on the train), for an initial period of five years, which may
subsequently be extended for two further periods of up to five years.
Urban, suburban and regional services can be granted an indefinite
exemption from those same provisions."

Scrub that. I have just got the final text from the European Parliament
and they have watered down the non-basic right from being an absolute
one to take a bike on a train to one of being able to take the bike on a
train if the train company wants to allow you. It also gives the train
company three excuses - they are too cumbersome, it would affect the
service or there is no room - as reasons they can give for refusing you.
Quite why the European Parliament thought they might need to allow
exemptions from the right in those circumstances is beyond me.

"Bicycles
Railway undertakings shall enable passengers to bring bicycles on to the
train, where appropriate for a fee, if they are easy to handle, if this
does not adversely affect the specific rail service, and if the rolling-
stock so permits."

:-(

--
Tony

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has
taken place"
George Bernard Shaw
Not ideal for bike users but I would suggest that the lack of bike
carrying facilities was the least of the rail services problems. Take
a look at this:


Thats my legs in the train from Wigan to Liverpool.
http://www.jbuckle.homeip.net/images/seats.jpg

At 6'1 I know I'm on the taller side but I'm not out of the ordinary.
I have to sit twisted, like that, for 45 minutes. Or stand. Or sit on
my bike.

On 14 Nov, 10:38, PhilD wrote:
On Nov 14, 10:21 am, Tony Raven wrote:

"Bicycles
Railway undertakings shall enable passengers to bring bicycles on to the
train, where appropriate for a fee, if they are easy to handle, if this
does not adversely affect the specific rail service, and if the rolling-
stock so permits."

Does that mean that the European Parliament has spent X days (at a
cost of Y pounds/Euros) to say "nothing changes"?

Or have I missed something very obvious?

PhilD

--


Thought that was the point of it, jobs for the boys. False reduction
in employment stats...

"I just do nt get our politicians/rule makers endless campaign against
cyclists.
Over the water its so simple.
Train comes into the station-you go to the carraige with a bike sign on the
door lift your bike thro the extra wide door- lock it- and sit down.
The down side in Germany at least is a lot of people must miss trains.
Saw my daughter off to Leeds from Edinburgh last week- in Germany the train
would have left at 11am plus 20 seconds perhaps- in Edinburgh the guard held
the train while up to 60 punters arrived up to 10 minutes late.
Sometimes good ole British individuality works for you[perhaps his football
team won the night before].
Tam

Does that mean that the European Parliament has spent X days (at a
cost of Y pounds/Euros) to say "nothing changes"?

Or have I missed something very obvious?

PhilD

--

tam said the following on 14/11/2007 10:54:

Over the water its so simple.
Train comes into the station-you go to the carraige with a bike sign on the
door lift your bike thro the extra wide door- lock it- and sit down.

It used to be like that in the UK as well - except you wheeled your bike
to the guard's van and they didn't need silly bike stickers to tell
people where to put bikes. You just had to make sure that your train
wasn't an HST because that's when the restrictions started coming in,
but that was OK because the timetables told you what sort of train it was.

Then it all got privatised...

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

Tony Raven wrote:
In article , junk@raven-
family.invalid says...


Member States may exempt long-distance domestic rail services from the
provisions of the regulation on non-basic rights (e.g. the right to take
a bicycle on the train), for an initial period of five years, which may
subsequently be extended for two further periods of up to five years.
Urban, suburban and regional services can be granted an indefinite
exemption from those same provisions."

Scrub that. I have just got the final text from the European Parliament
and they have watered down the non-basic right from being an absolute
one to take a bike on a train to one of being able to take the bike on a
train if the train company wants to allow you. It also gives the train
company three excuses - they are too cumbersome, it would affect the
service or there is no room - as reasons they can give for refusing you.
Quite why the European Parliament thought they might need to allow
exemptions from the right in those circumstances is beyond me.

You don't really mean it's beyond you that a railway company might
want to prohibit the carriage of certain sort(s) of luggage when
there's no room for it, do you?

"Bicycles
Railway undertakings shall enable passengers to bring bicycles on to the
train, where appropriate for a fee, if they are easy to handle, if this
does not adversely affect the specific rail service, and if the rolling-
stock so permits."

If bikes are easy to handle (I assume this means for the railway
company, since it need to be independently appraised, not just by the
person with the bike), there's no problem with that proviso.

But surely the bits about adverse effect on service and (effectively)
space on the train are reasonable enough? The Eurostar, if I remember
correctly, does not permit the carrying of unlimited amounts of stowed
luggage by any passengers (just one item?). And there are limitations
on size before quite significant extra charges are involved. It's more
like being on an aeroplane, except that the baggage doesn't go into a
hold.

On 14 Nov, 10:44, CoyoteBoy wrote:
Not ideal for bike users but I would suggest that the lack of bike
carrying facilities was the least of the rail services problems. Take
a look at this:

Thats my legs in the train from Wigan to Liverpool.http://www.jbuckle.homeip.net/images/seats.jpg

You got a seat! You lucky lucky b

CoyoteBoy said the following on 14/11/2007 10:44:

At 6'1 I know I'm on the taller side but I'm not out of the ordinary.
I have to sit twisted, like that, for 45 minutes. Or stand. Or sit on
my bike.

You're not alone there! I'm "only" 6ft, and there isn't much public
transport I can actually sit in comfortably, except the older HSTs. My
knees are usually stuck out in the aisle where they get in other
people's way, but they have to go somewhere and under my chin is not a
good place to have my knees :-(

It seems to me that as the average height gets taller, the average
public transport seat gets less room.

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/