AIBU to think if safety was such a big deal she should've reserved own seats?

[Ohthegrandolddukeofyorkjellies]

This happened years ago before I became a mum.

I was travelling back from London one Sunday lunchtime - a 3 hour journey to where I was living at the time. I had work to do and so I reserved a seat in the quiet area with a table.

That Sunday I got on the train to find it absolutely jam-packed. No free seats anywhere. I went and found my reserved seat only to find it filled by a child and also at the table the boy's mother and 2 other children. There was a ticket above the seat showing the reservation.

I didn't want to be rude so I said Excuse me, has there been some confusion etc but the woman got very cross and said that the train was very busy and she wasn't prepared to be separated from her children.

I didn't really know what to say so I didn't say anything but just stood there like a lemon for three hours figuring I would, of course, have felt awful if anything had happened to her children and maybe I was missing something.

I was thinking about that recently - when I've travelled by train with my own child I've reserved a seat to make sure we didn't have to stand or be separated.

So - what do you think?

Thanks

I was on a train the other day, there was a family of four sat opposite me on the table seats. There were loaaddds of empty spaces it was practically an empty carriage and there were no reservation tickets on the seats. So this elderly couple got on and said they had reserved the seats this family were in and asked two of them to move. The lady politely pointed out there were lots of other seats available and could they stay there as they didn't want to be separated from their children and were only on for one more stop. Elderly couple refused so they all had to get up and move. I had to laugh though a few stops down the line this big loud family got on and two of the kids sat opposite this couple and spent most of the journey shouting playing and inadvertently kicking them! Bet they wish they had sat in a two person seat then :)

As someone who recently reserved train tickets for a 3 hour journey, you can't choose the seats (like an airline)... so when I reserved seats, they weren't together - oh great, children not with me, next to strangers, etc.

Called them, but alas they can't help - they said either go to unreserved seating and nab one together or ask someone to swap - which relies on them taking pity on you.

I said it wasn't very safe, not only from stranger danger point of view, but in an accident, who is supervising my children, evacuating them etc? Let alone berating them for kicking seats, generally being loud etc.

Maybe she tried to book seats together but couldn't?

We reserved 6 seats 'together' - they weren't so we found 'unreserved' seats that were together & arranged for other (individual) people to sit in 'our' seats

But it was annoying

We have never not had seats together. Perhaps East Midland trains offer a better service.

This sort of thing would play on my mind for 15 yrs, too, lol.
I kind of see it as a bonus if I get separated from some of DC on a long journey, though.

I don't think it is "playing on the OP's mind", I think she is just wondering if there is a consensus on seat etiquette.

I always reserve airline-style seats (where you are looking at the back of someone else's chair), never a table, because I don't want 3 people to come and sit by me and start talking.

On a train recently a mother-and-child were sat in the seat that I had reserved and the one next to it, I found another seat to sit in but if there had been no seats I would have claimed it because I want to sit down.

I went on a train from Bristol to Edinburgh with my four kids. We had reserved seats but the electronic reservation system was broken so no-one could see which seats they were supposed to be in. We sat in some, which as far as we were concerned had not been reserved. About an hour and a half into the journey the system got up and running again, but by then my youngest two had gone to sleep. A lady got on and said we were in her seat. I wouldn't have minded so much, but there were loads of empty seats available that she could have sat in. She spent her entire journey with my kids feet in her lap! [evil grin].

I also got annoyed when I hadn't reserved a seat (you had to pay for the privelidge at the time) as I was getting on at the first station on the line (Cardiff to Portsmouth). I arrived early, found a nice seat and sat down. Train filled up, got to Newport and found that the inspector hadn't put the reserved card on the seat I had chosen. I had to stand all the way to Portsomouth. I didn't have a problem with the person who had reserved the seat and wanted it, fair enough but was well annoyed with the inspector!!

I've told people before now that they'll have to move because my tickets are only valid for those seats.

If I'm travelling long distance with dc I'll always reserve. However I'm a bit at the number of time I've been put in the quiet carriage with 2-3 yound children.

When I recently booked train tickets, one site wouldn't let me choose seats, so I went to another one so I could choose. Something else I have done is reserve two seats several times until I got the combination I wanted, then cancel all those I didn't want and buy the two I wanted.

oooh i love a good seat moaning story. The other day i got the train and all seats were taken apart from one, which had a ladies suitcase and bags on it - others were standing and she didn't look like she was about to offer to move the stuff. I am pregnant and didn't want to stand for 2 hours so i asked if she could move her bags for me to sit. She said 'there's no where else to put them' (The seats were opposite the empty luggage rack) so i pointed to the rack. She said she didn't want to put them there and and looked at me as if i should accept this. I said i still wanted to sit down please. At which point she made a big deal about squashing her case in her foot well and putting her bags on her lap and looked at me as if i was going to say 'oh don't worry about it'. But i didn't, i happily said thank you sat down. She looked horrified and sat really uncomfortably huffing and puffing at me for the whole journey.

Love it! Spuddybean!! You could have always have offered to put her cases on the platform for her!

She should have let you have your seat - she was obviously wrong. If she wanted all her children seated and together, she could have kept them in the other 3 seats round the table and stood herself or made the 3 of them sit across 2 seats - which they would have been skinny enough to do being that they were of a young age. Just because you have children does not mean that you can trample over something another person has booked. It sounds like she had no shame over keeping all 4 seats so she behaved badly IMO.

I found someone sitting in my reserved seat. She politely offered to give it to me, but as she was with a friend, and I was alone I said I'd see if there was another seat for me so that they could stay together. The guard overheard and upgraded me to First Class!

Well done, Aberdeen!

On the being annoyed years later front, where I grew up there were no train reservations but there were signs on all the trains and buses that school children had to give up seats if adults were standing. Fair enough.

I still feel cross though when I think about the elderly gentleman who made me get up for him as "he was an adult standing" when we were the only two people in the carriage. I was in his favourite seat apparently. I also had a severely sprained ankle and could barely walk, but hey, rules are rules, ey?

I once boarded a train at St Pancras, clutching seat reservation, only to find a chap in my seat. I asked him move and he did, disappearing out of the carriage without a word........when I looked a bit closer it was the wrong seat
. And by then the poor chap had gone.