Dunwich Dynamo TRAINS

[Philip Benstead]

Do you know about this?

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/166937.aspx



Dunwich Dynamo
9 July 2017

The Dunwich Dynamo is an annual through-the-night bicycle ride from London Fields park in Hackney to Dunwich.
Twitter: #DunwichDynamo

Venue
The ride of 120 miles starts at London Fields and finishes in Dunwich

What's happening with the trains?

Greater Anglia

NO bikes will be allowed on trains between Lowestoft and Ipswich, and Lowestoft and Norwich. A special timetable will be in operation for Intercity services leaving Ipswich between 09.00 and 15.00, on which 50 bikes will be permitted to travel on trains to London. Therefore these trains will depart Norwich 15 minutes later and will arrive into London 27 minutes later than normal. All other routes will only allow the normal number of 4 bikes per train.

Plan Your Journey to this event

You can plan your journey to this event by using the National Rail Enquiries real-time Journey Planner

[Kim]

Gosh, that was^[1] positively sensible of them.


_{[1] ETA: This refers to last year's ride.}

[telstarbox]

Same as for the last two years iirc.

[freeflow]

You don't have a hope if you are planning to get the train back from Dunwich. Every year there are dozens(hundreds) of cyclists who turn up at the local stations only to find that the restrictions on the number of bikes is applied rigourously.

[iZaP]

I came here expecting to find actual organisation of peloton "trains" for the ride or ride back!

[Kim]

I've just realised the page linked to and quoted in the OP is from last year!

[grams]

2018 info:
https://www.greateranglia.co.uk/about-us/news-desk/news-articles/‘dunwich-dynamo’-cyclists-must-book-ahead-reserve-cycle-space

Folding bikes are explicitly banned now, which they weren't in previous years. London Brompton Club kicking off.

[Redlight]

It worked perfectly well last year and, at least when I got to Ipswich, the station and train staff were going out of their way to be helpful and were letting people get on the first train available even if they had booked for later trains. 

[frankenthorn]

Folding bikes are explicitly banned now, which they weren't in previous years. London Brompton Club kicking off.

Are they going to be asking everyone who gets on with a bag large enough to contain a Brompton to open it for inspection I wonder?

[Chris S]

It's obviously beyond them to stick an extra carriage on, fitted with bike racks, and making a charge for bikes on the day. It could be done in the 1950s, but not now it would seem.

[telstarbox]

To play devil's advocate, they don't know how many will turn up (what if it rains heavily?) and there is a parallel coach service.

[Chris S]

I thought they were supposed to be providing a service to the public. 

[Redlight]

I imagine that putting an extra carriage on for bikes would mean taking off one for passengers - and that's always a busy service, between Norwich and London. However, they were allowing a lot more bikes than usual on board when I used the service last year, so it seems to me that they are doing their best to achieve a fair balance between the majority of their passengers and the minority (us) who want to travel with bikes.