to think pre-booked train tickets/seats are a bloody nightmare!

[hidingunderthecovaarrrggghh]

Just been away for the weekend, and to get to destination and back had to get four different trains. On each journey the whole pre-booked tickets/seats thing was a debacle.

On the first 3 trains people had obviously moved some of the tickets that they put in the back of the headrests. No problem for me, as am happy to sit wherever, but it was like bloody musical chairs. People walking up and down the carriages trying to find their seats (whilst whacking seated passengers round the heads with big rucksacks etc), asking others to move, thinking they were in the right seats and then having to move again, getting wound up with people in the wrong seats, demanding their prebooked seat even though there were perfectly good ones nearby etc etc.

The final train I was on was packed and had those 'fancy' electronic messages above the seats saying the journey they were reserved for. In the space of a three hour journey in the so-called quiet carriage, approximately 20 people had to move cos they were in the wrong seats, there was one big altercation, one elderly lady got upset cos she had no idea where her seat was, and one couple who had missed their previous train so had no pre-booked seats, had to move seats approx 8 - 10 times during the three hours.

All in all the train journey was far from relaxing and certainly not quiet. I will be driving next time!

I was once woken up & made to move for being in someone else's seat when I swear there were two other people in the whole carriage. Had the last laugh when the ticket person threw them out of standard plus altogether for having the wrong tickets. I smirked.

I had to ask people to move out of my pre-booked seat (well, one of them) when I was pregnant and had had a really long awayday for work and a 3 hours journey home ahead of me.

It was a woman and her teenage daughter and they were really lippy and rude to me even though I politely said "I'm really sorry but I've booked this seat and need to sit down".

The train was fairly packed and I wasn't prepared to stand for them when I had booked a seat for precisely the reasons mentioned above.

The most ridiculous thing is that about an hour after they'd moved and the train was more empty the conductor directed them to some empty seats as they'd been standing then asked to see their tickets and they had NO TICKETS to travel AT ALL.

So not only had they complained that a pregnant woman wanted her seat back but they actually had no right to be on the train at all.

No idea how they got on it, come to think of it as the station had ticket barriers

The trouble is if you book certain discount pre-booked seat tickets and you are not in the seat you booked, you can sometimes get fined for not being in the correct seat (on my line anyway). It seems petty but if you dont travel on the exact train and the exact seat you are booked for, then you have to pay "full" fare which is essentially like receiving a fine.

The rationale being, probably, that if you are booked a seat but just sit somewhere else because its easier, someone else might not want to sit in the pre-booked seat for fear of getting kicked off or doing the wrong thing therefore you are essentially taking up 2 seats - the one you have, and the one you booked.

tbh, I've stopped booking seats since the system is so unreliable. Half the time when they use the electronic signs the whole thing crashes and then NO ONE has reserved seats.

The only thing that is more annoying is people in the quiet coach with mobiles, but that's a whole 'nother rant...

PS - hiding, can't believe people were rude to you when you were pg AND had booked the seat. What did they say to you??

-noses-

Even more annoying is having pre-booked seats and not being physically able to get on the specified train because it is so crowded. This has happened to me twice now, on the first off-peak evening train out of Paddington to Bristol on a Friday evening. There was such a scrum at the carriage doors that there was absolutely no way on with two children and suitcases, so we had to wait for the next one. Luckily we weren't on the cheapest tickets, so could actually use a different train - I wonder what the chances of a refund from First Great Western would be if we couldn't?

Was that last post to me peasant?

If so - it was basically lots of pissing and moaning about how they had loads of carrier bags with them and had only just sat down, and now they were going to have to move and just generally being really unpleasant acting as though I had singled them out purely to make their lives difficult.

I regularly did the London- Dublin train, that was immense fun on my own with 3 under 5s. We have spent much time in corridors on packed out trains because people Will Not give our seats to us. And last time, I was opposite Mr. Tut the Childhating Poser and his son, Tightpants McMisogynist. Me, 3 kids, 2 seats, half a table. Yeah, that went well. I was forced to indiscreetly feed the toddler in order to give the gits something to look at/ tut about They both feigned sleep. Win.

Oh, and also recall being told by Stroppy Guard that I had to put the buggy (a Major, not that it matters, but technically a wheelchair) in a special luggage carriage. I went OK, you hold the baby and the absconding screaming 4 year old then. He let us stay in the corridor, with our stuff. Generous.

I seem to have loosed a lot of repressed train-based trauma on this thread. Sorry.

First Great Western is the pits. I travelled down from Paddington to Devon a few weeks ago and found there was a mad scrum for seats in my carriage (Carriage A so the furthest away at Paddington) and that the seats were as cramped as possible and there wasn't enough luggage space apart from overhead - try putting even a small weekend suitcase up there.
There were people standing all along the carriage for the first hour and a half. Not so many changes of seats as it would have been impossible for anyone to move along the carriage.
Oh, and the buffet car closed half way along the route for obscure technical reasons - considering that no one could get out to go to the buffet car, they couldn't have done much business.

The only people who should be allowed pre-booked seats are:

The disabled, the elderly, pregant women and parents and children.

Everybody else can sod off. I hate the whole thing, it sends people power mad.

I ask people to move if they are sitting in my pre-booked seat, and if there aren't any obviously free seats available for me to sit in instead.

Last time I travelled it cost me a completely stupid amount of money because I didn't book far enough in advance, and the train company messed up sending me the tickets, so by the time I travelled I was really cross.

StuckinTheMiddle - I agree. The system is stupid. It would be easier if it was just first-come-first served. And if people didn't assume that their bags need a seat too.

Last time I travelled by train (and this isn't a pre-booked seats rant, but I'm jumping on this thread anyway) I left half my return ticket in the ticket machine. I thought the 2 tickets had printed but it was 1 ticket and my receipt and the train was already at the platform so I had to rush. Bumped the buggy down the stairs, got onto the train and then realised I'd only got half the ticket. The guard told me to talk to someone at the barrier when I got to my destination. They told me to talk to the ticket office when I came back. They told me I had to buy a new single ticket - at 10 shiny new pence less than the return I'd purchased in the morning.

BAH!