Train etiquette

Uhuh, you continue to think that's true.
Enjoy your day. 🤢

Coast bound trains on hot weekend days are absolute hunger games territory.

It’s not your fault but the train companies aren’t generally able to put on extra carriages in hot weather when everyone simultaneously decides to go to the beach. It’s just how it is.

When I were young growing up in Folkestone, there were three stations and it would have been possible to get on at the Junction before the Central one. But get it out of use and send everyone to the one in the interests of ,presumably, efficiency and what happens? Chaos.
I have often had the thought that the people who design train times should be reqruited from model railway enthusiasts. They often have had RL experience and certainly a respect for what trains are for,

I commuted into London from Croydon in the late 70s. The mayhem getting on a train at East Croydon was so awful, I took to getting the slower train that started at West Croydon. It was worth an extra 10 minutes on the train to avoid the mayhem.

Why not just move on OP rather than complaining?

You invented a weird etiquette about early arrivals. People then behaved poorly. You have a DH who doesn’t sound the most helpful. These things happen.

I have generally asked the station person on the platform which carriages will be best to aim to get on. The lady at Coventry has always been very helpful in her guidance, which usually includes where to stand to be in the right place for the door.

I'd be willing to bet they had the buggy up, wanted to get on with the buggy up and were making a dramatic faff about having to fold it so people jumped on past them while they were folding the buggy dramatically. Then they huffed and puffed about the fact that they'd had to fold the buggy - and people were just annoyed with them for that. But yep, a seaside train heading back on a summer weekend afternoon - was always going to be shite.

Trains are shite. If at all possible - get the slow train in future - much more civilised and worth the hit to journey times. I used to do that when I commuted by train each day as the 30 minutes extra was worth my sanity.

While actual pushing is out of order, even more so when you’re holding a baby, regulars on that service know that not everyone gets on. As you said, people got left behind so everyone’s concentrating on themselves getting on. The pushing might not have been those directly behind or next to you as they could see you had the baby, it’s more likely those pushing at the back and creating the domino effect. I don’t think there’s any answer on these local services. The trouble is that some ‘local services’ have journey times over an hour now and having to stand and jostle all that time for me (old and creaky) and you (baby and buggy) is not pleasant.

That's horrible, OP. When mine were that young, I always found people to be extremely helpful and nice. I'd have helped you and offered my seat.

This seems to be one of those bunfight threads where people double down. However, a couple of things that occur to me:

If you actually really believe that people “literally pushed you out of the way to get on” - i.e. deliberately physically pushed you - then you should report it as assault. It would be taken seriously by the BTP and is fortunately not a common occurrence, particularly for several people in a group all to be pushing you. It’s different of course it was just the usual jostling that takes place boarding a busy train, combined with people trying to get past you because you hadn’t folded the buggy and were taking a long time. I assume you didn’t expect people to just wait patiently behind you while the carriage filled up from the other door?

Secondly, how lovely that people gave you a seat. Hopefully that made up for the difficulty in boarding.

You can tick the button all you like but when your purchase comes through you will not have a seat reserved. Multiple people on this thread who travel regularly on HS1 (myself included) have confirmed that you cannot book seats.

Eh?
People commute to work in all sorts of locations.
Even if they weren't working, they're no less entitled to find a seat than OP.

I don’t think it’s ever been a thing to queue for a train. People just stand on the platform. That being said, I would let someone with a child on first (as well as older people and pregnant women). I don’t think people would have been annoyed at you. People with buggies use the train all the time. Maybe you’re just feeling a bit sensitive because you were stressed?

If it’s Southeastern you can’t. Trainline isn’t a reliable source on this

https://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/travel-information/on-board-the-train/finding-a-seat

I don’t think any individuals are to blame. It was obviously an oversubscribed service which isn’t the fault of anyone trying to get the train. People were pushing because they also wanted to get on and knew not everyone would. To be honest my experience of very full trains and platforms is that the etiquette is everyone for themselves otherwise you never get on.

Sorry you had a rubbish experience though, it must’ve been stressful.

Do you always comment on every post a person makes just because they randomly disagreed with you on one small thing? 🫣🫣

For you it clearly is.

there were no stops from where OP got on, it was the fast train from London.

people do not generally commute from London to a Kent seaside town to work, either, if you really want your argue the point, possibly someone may have been going INTO work but hardly enough ‘workers’ would have been doing that late on a Saturday afternoon to make any meaningful difference to train volume.

You weren’t initially trying to get on with the buggy up, were you?

Sounds like typical trains to me, its everyone for themselves to get a seat

Does this count as the fast train? Seatbreservations are possible if so.

Are you deliberately being obtuse?
Work at seaside.
Get train home from work.
Or
Live at seaside.
Get train to (later) shift at work.
How hard is this to understand?

I travel daily by train Kent to London and during rush hour I do find it a bit silly that parents attempt to get on with multiple children, buggies, scooters and then allowing their kids to stand on seats, eat smelly snacks and play on their iPads with the volume up. That’s rush hour though, I don’t understand why someone not commuting for work would put themselves or their kids through it. I do however, ALWAYS offer a seat if it means families sitting together. I’ve found having been pregnant 3 times when commuting that it’s only ever women that offer their seats. I always offer to help with buggies on and off the train too because hey I’ve been there.

Weekends people should expect there to be families. I had an amazing collapsible buggy for my kids that squished up small enough to go in the overhead luggage think it was called a Quinny Buzz, that was 14 years ago though surely there’s something similar these days?

This has to be a joke? This was happening when I was a regular train traveller back in the days of British Rail, when trains had far fewer carriages on them and were late/cancelled far more frequently.