by Larry Lagarde
Last summer, a young and energetic cyclist named Justin Lafontaine launched the Bike Train, a service that included the transportation of unboxed, fully assembled bicycles between Toronto and Niagara Falls on Canada's national passenger rail carrier (ViaRail). A pilot project that ran for just 4 weekends, the service was so popular that ViaRail plans to expand it to new destinations and over a longer season.
Bike Train DetailsEssentially, the Bike Train piggybacked a baggage car containing racks for up to 56 bikes onto regularly scheduled ViaRail trains. For the low fee of $59 including taxes and bike rack reservation, cyclists received a round-trip ticket for the 2 hour journey between Toronto & Niagara. Over the 4 weekends that the pilot program took place, 300 cyclists participated. Many came from beyond Toronto to participate.
An Amtrak Bike Train
Although Amtrak currently offers checked baggage service that includes carrying bicycles, cyclists in the USA could also benefit from a Bike Train service. Amtrak serves over 900 communities but checked baggage service is not available everywhere. If Amtrak offered a Bike Train to destinations like Hattiesburg, MS or Anniston, AL, cyclists could take their bikes by train to popular, paved long distance bike trails such as the Longleaf Trace, Chief Ladiga and Silver Comet, boosting rail ridership while spurring tourism.
Given Amtrak's stated goal of increasing regional trains in corridors throughout the USA, an innovative program such as Bike Train service to select cycling destinations would be a smart move. Besides elevating the profile of passenger-train service among cyclists & rail to trail advocates, Amtrak would boost bicycle eco tourism initiatives, Amtrak ticket sales and regional partnerships with local governmental & tourism agencies all at the same time.
2 comments:
The gentle hills in Central Florida are beloved of bicyclists, and two trains each morning out of Miami would be good ones to take, for instance, to the big Sebring rides or just a holiday in the college town of DeLand. Oh, yeah, you can get to Orlando, too, and the riding there is pretty good and getting better.
posted this on BikeBiz who picked up this thread too...
The Bike Train is a GREAT idea... I sent this information to Justin over at biketrain.ca
I organized several rides from the Bay Are of California including a yearly train ride/bike ride to a farm harvest festival. We would catch the train in Emeryville and take it the 60 miles to Davis, CA. Then we would do a group ride of 40 miles out to the farm for the Full Belly Hoes Down Celebration, camp out, ride back the next day to Davis and catch the train home.
For two years we had luck working with Amtrak to put a special car onto the Capitol Corridor train. That car was set up for both Cargo and Bikes. I think they might have even called it a bike car at one point. We had plenty of room for 35 bikes fully loaded with touring gear.
ALSO, I live in Eugene, Oregon now and the train station downtown is a great access point for cyclists for the Cascades (To Seattle) or the Coast Starlight (LA-Seattle). The Cascades would be a great BikeTrain potential. Eugene is a great bike city, Portland is a big city with growing bike activity (see bikeportland.org). A good trip from Eugene is to Chemult to get into the mountains or to Portland for a big city ride. A good trip from Portland is up to Seattle or Olympia.
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