To ask why people sit in reserved seats?

Pretend you can't find your seat and enlist the guard to help you. He'll do the shifting for you.

"When we had very young children we were crowded onto our three reserved seats – two on our laps – and we had a very aggressive woman say we were in their seats – we showed proof they were ours. She got a guard – who spent ages explaining to her that her train was previous one and had been cancelled and no they didn’t transfer seat reservation over because other people had booked on the next train– she didn’t believe him and spent rest of journey staring daggers at us and muttering. "

This is why we need to support the guards' strike. We need guards in trains.

I've enjoyed reading the assertive challenges and love, love the idea of my inner middle class matron

OP it's really hard to be assertive especially in public and even more so when you have no idea how the other person will react. I get that. I would rather shit in my hands and clap than challenge a stranger. But occasionally when it matters to me I have to do it. And I probably have a slightly shaky voice, hand tremors, my neck face and chest will go scarlet. And after my knees will shake and I'll feel a bit sick but I know this is just adrenaline and will pass. Coz sometimes idiots need calling out. And since becoming mum to DD I feel a responsibility to model this for her now too.

So yes, Inner Middle Clasd Matron pants on and remember anyone in earshot will be doing a little air punch for you!

The system encourages people to reserve seats and then not use them. Hence lots of reserved seats, only some taken.

If I haven't got a reservation which is often as I'm not sure when I'll leave a meeting, then I'd always take a non-reserved seat first or one where the destination hasn't been reached yet. If the train starts to move, it's packed and there's a few reserved seats left, I'd sit in one and so do most people- because by then most of the people who have reserved and are genuinely showing up will have done so.

The system encourages reservations without showing and so given the trains are packed, people sit there.

I haven't found people get huffy but then I don't care telling them this is my seat, or if someone does it to me. The vast majority of the people on the train understand we operate in a bizarre system and so are happy to move when asked, I honestly haven't seen one person refuse but I don't travel on commuter trains.

I hate the huffy ness as well - but I do get why people sit in them when trains are really busy especially if they got on much earlier.

Sometimes people sit elsewhere or get a different train - sometimes not their fault with connection - though I do try and avoid them.

Sometimes the reservation system is not working - problem on one line we were on last year a lot and didn't announce it till after pulling out the station - that caused a lot of arguments.

starts saying they need 'proof' see I understand that as well - as I've seen so many and also had people claiming we are in their seats - impossible because we or others had actually reserved the seats – and it turns out they are in the wrong carriage.

When we had very young children we were crowded onto our three reserved seats – two on our laps – and we had a very aggressive woman say we were in their seats – we showed proof they were ours. She got a guard – who spent ages explaining to her that her train was previous one and had been cancelled and no they didn’t transfer seat reservation over because other people had booked on the next train– she didn’t believe him and spent rest of journey staring daggers at us and muttering.

The ones that I worry about are the people who refuse to move – I haven’t had that happen yet to us but I’m increasingly seeing it occur and often guards don’t want to get involved.

It does make train travel more stressful for me.

I always have reserved seats, about 50% of the time I don't use them because I end up taking a different train.

You've got to develop a thicker hide and ask people to move, they are only in the wrong if they refuse.

The people in our reserved seats got a nasty shock when we turned up, I was a parent helper on my ds school trip, there was 60 year 2’s plus adults. So they all had to get up and move to another carriage, hopefully it would make them think twice before doing it again. I’m sure a few more fled the carriage once the kids started singing Christmas carols.

I love a good confrontation! Rarely get them these days. Shame!

I always ask them to move except last week when someone's toddler was in my seat and a) I would have felt mean b) he was bashing the seat back so I didn't fancy sitting next to him on his mum's knee!

I will always sit in an empty seat reserved or not.

I will also always immediately vacate a reserved seat should the person come and find their seat.

The issue arises from people booking seats and then not using them. I’m not going to let a perfectly good seat sit empty!

OP, channel the collective assertiveness of MN next time!

A nice curt "You're in my reserved seat." might cut short huff/puff if you come across as confudent.

Know that you're in the right, you don't look like a knob (they do) and you might feel like everyone else is watching, but in reality they don't give a shit!

I need to practice my assertiveness more often, too. It's an ongoing process.

Because very often it does not say where the seat is reserved from and to. I've often got on a train at Birmingham for example and sat in a reserved seat - nobody ever arrives to claim it - its quite possible the seat was reserved from Edinburgh to Leeds but without some kind of indication I've no idea. If someone asks for it, I'll move or stand. I am not going to stand for a whole journey if I don't need to.

Also because sometimes its safer to sit in a reserved seat than risk getting crushed by standing and it makes more space for anyone who is standing

For example last week I travelled from Birmingham to London. I sat in a reserved seat because every single seat on the train seemed to be showing as reserved but most were empty. No one turned up. No one hung about looking agitated, no one asked me to move

If its your seat, ask if not take your chances and sit where you can

Daily rail commuter here. 9/10 of the time the reserved seats on my route don’t seem to be claimed by the ticket holders. Will happily vacate them should they turn up, like any reasonable person, but I’m not going to sardine into the aisle/doors while there are free seats in the carriage. If that’s what OP expects, YABU. If you are unhappy with repeatedly having to argue with seat-hogging arsehats, YANBU.

Guard said if the ticket holder for this other seat comes you will be moved again.
Well done that guard, love Virgin Trains.

Sounds good. What an entitled, lying twat. These people need to be challenged, not pandered to by people standing in the aisle rather than telling them to shift.

Are you female? I’m wondering if your seat hogger wouldn’t have needed guard intervention had you been a 6 2”, 15 stone bloke with anger management issues...

Yes, that's right: they are trying to intimidate you into letting them have your seat.
Maybe you can do it by that pantomime thing people do... wander up train, seat booking in hand. See the seat. Find someone sitting there. Frown. Check your ticket again. Check the seat number again. Frown again. Look behind you. Nope this is definitely the seat I reserved. Ask, them "I think this seat is reserved." They will look with surprise at the bit of paper. Maybe they will get up and apologise.

Maybe they will sit there. If so, ask them again "Has there been a mistake? Do you have your booking? Maybe we should find the guard. Sorry to be a nuisance but we will need this sorted out." Start looking around for the guard.
If they still don't move, then find the guard and let them sort it out for you.
If they leave any rubbish behind when they leave, ask them if its theirs.
Sit down. Look at your phone. Ignore them.

I do the same higgy best teacher's voice on, boom loudly, wave ticket around, step back to give them room to leave. It lalmost always works.

I met my match with a well dressed young gentleman who boomed back "How are you going to make me?"

I thought for a moment or two and boomed "I cannot believe you won't move from a seat you haven't booked" then leaned in and whispered "I'll stand here leaning, with my tits and arse brushing your face for the next 2 hours" - he went bright red and moved. As an ex teacher I don't mind dropping the decorum and being utterly coarse!

I hate this too. But that said, sometimes I've turned up for my reserved seat to find that it's on a table of 3 other people, whereas there's an empty table, unreserved, next to it - so I'll take that seat. Leaves my reserved seat 'taken' and could potentially stop anyone else sitting there. (Or not, based on posts here!)

We had similar at the cinema recently - when you book online you have to choose your seats. We turned up early, and the only two other people there were sitting in our seats. They weren't pleased when we told them they were in our seats, and looked around at the empty cinema - but the point was we had no idea if the cinema was going to end up full eventually! So if we'd taken other seats instead of our own we could have been taking someone else's seats.

I become my inner "middle class matron" and ask clearly and loudly for them to move. They always do. I'm oblivious to any huffy nonsense.

Happened to me yesterday. On long Journey London-Glasgow my reserved seat was occupied by a man working on his laptop. I said your sitting in my reserved seat very politely. He said sit in mine thats it, pointing to the seat across the table which was facing backwords to travel.
I said oh thanks but no please move to your reserved seat as I booked this seat that was facing forwards.
He said he prefers travelling this way, I said well easy enough to book a seat facing that way, he said they were all booked. Oh dear thats a shame, move please. He refused and ignored me so I went and fetched a guard to speak to him, guard checked both tickets his wasnt even booked for any seat, but he moved across I put out my laptop taking up half the space of the table he had the other half for his. Put in my ear phones and ignored his huffing and puffing just smiled to him each time. His face was a picture :-) Guard said if the ticket holder for this other seat comes you will be moved again.
Well done that guard, love Virgin Trains.

I thought sitting in an empty seat was the done thing if there were no seats available. You'd then quickly move if someone said that the seat was theirs. I'm not very assertive myself but wouldn't think twice about asking someone to move, even if they were asleep. If they were getting arsey about it I would just go and find a staff member and ask for them to sort it and they could do the conflict management for me. I don't blame people taking reserved seats on long journeys but they should be ready to move when the reserver comes along.

There are rude people everywhere but you should be able to sit in your seat if you have reserved it.

I would only ever sit in a reserved seat if it were past the station it was reserved from. I agree it's wrong to make people ask for their seat back as some are not assertive enough for this and shouldn't have to do it.

In OPs case the sitter probably is thinking the reservee didn't get on the train but she did, she just doesn't feel like creating the awkwardness of waking the woman, requesting her seat, and standing waiting while the many items are gathered up. To others on this thread who take seats before the requisite station, you could be doing this to others.

It's not being rule-driven, it's just basic courtesy

It’s basic courtesy not to be a huffy bastard when told you’re in someone’s reserved seat, yes. In which case, have your seat reservation ticket at the ready. They’re the ones who would end up looking bad, not you.

But why would you stand if there is a "free for now" seat?!

I would sit in a reserved seat but be ready to leap up when requested. And I'll probably look suitably sheepish and say sorry.

The people you're describing OP are probably twats in many areas of life so I agree it's not the seat that's the problem it's your assertiveness. People can be dicks and that's life, we all need to stamp our feet occasionally to point their behaviour out

The only times I have had a ticket stating seats x and y are reserved for me is when I prebook a long distance journey. However there is nothing on the seat saying it's reserved so the people sitting in my reserved seats have no way of knowing they have been reserved.