Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

One of my aims is to stay independent of cars. In Western Australia, this is very impracticable. My desire to attend “The Yarloop Field Day and BBQ” with the Greens South West Candidate, Giz Watson MLC, is a case in point. The field day was at 11 am, Sunday, 7 October 2012. Wanting to attend, a plan entered my mind: ride from Ravenswood - where I live - to Pinjarra Rail - a distance of 8.8 kilometres and it would take 29 minutes according to Google maps, board the train, get off at Yarloop Rail and ride to the field day - which is 3 km in 11 minutes. I think this is a reasonable plan. However, TransWA scheduling and regulations makes it impractical....

You can read more of Michael's experience at The Fat Unfit Cyclist.

A timely reminder that we who reside in the city really get it easy sometimes.

Andrew

Aushiker wrote:

However, TransWA scheduling and regulations makes it impractical....

You can read more of Michael's experience at The Fat Unfit Cyclist.

I used to reverse commute to the Bunbury area and thus had reason to read the fine print on the tickets for this service (and out of interest, the remaining services). At the time, I recall taking my toolbox with me was a breach of the terms & conditions on most of the services. Nasty things, tools.

As noted there's only ONE car set, twice daily. Want to do a day's shopping in Perth? Be at the trainstation at 6am. There's no way to do a business trip to Bunbury.

The final ironies:

The train no longer actually makes it to Bunbury. In the process of cleaning up the City centre (which is much nicer) the last few kilometers of track has been torn up and the ride terminates in the eastern 'burbs.

If you catch the evening train down, there's no bus connecting to the City. Too late at night.

And the taxi fair for that last few kilometers is fully half the price of the train ticket.

So what should be one of the great tourist attractions for Bunbury "Vintage train to the heart city" is made impossible

The question that occurs to me is:

How do you fare with TransWA if you have a folding bike That goes into a carry bag so they can't see what it is?

I know the problem from here is that the TransWA buses will carry a bike but its at the drivers discretion I think which could be a problem. We of course don't have the train.

John