Recent experience with LNER, Doncaster to Peterborough (part of Goole > Ipswich)
- bought ticket from unmanned station (Goole), nothing on the machine about booking a bike at all. Goole>Doncaseter was just rock up; the bod on the train said 3 bikes is fine, but don't count on it as some colleagues are more strict about the only 2 bikes per train policy
- got to Doncaster and asked where to stand.
"do you have a reservation?"
"no cos unmanned station, not possible using the machine"
"you can get it on the app"
"what app is that? / how am I supposed to know this given I've never done this journey before / etc"
In the end they made our advanced tickets work on the next train, and made us the bike reservations by escorting me to the Doncaster ticket office (and were very nice about it).
It did mean a sprint at Peterborough to avoid waiting 2 hours for the onward connection thobut Which itself was only an option 'cos I know my way around Pbo station and we were in just the right carriage on the lner train to even try (ie opposite the stairs) and the Ipswich train didn't care weren't in the bike carriage.
If we'd known we might have had time to make the reservations at Doncaster. But it would have been fewer than mumble minutes prior to the train arriving by then, so maybe not. Or have equipped ourselves with a suitable phone, loaded the lner app etc.
And none of that would have given me the strength/inclination to hoist my bicyle into the dangly space*. Let alone get it down again. Tall person with me got all that fun. The 2 sets of drop bars didn't get on ...
* last time I was confronted by this I didn't bother. No-one asked me to, though there was a small amount of (polite) muttering at one point.
