Aibu to not buy 2 year old dd a train ticket for a long journey?

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I'm hoping to travel up to Scotland in the new year to visit my parents. The train journey will take about 8 hours in total. I will be travelling with my 2 year old and 5 year old by myself. Money is tight so I was please to discover I didn't have to buy my 2 year old a ticket. However I have since learnt that she doesn't automatically get a seat, she can only sit on one if it's not reserved. I have no idea if the train will be busy (crewe to edinborough, edinborough to Aberdeen) on a Thursday and returning Tuesday in early jan. it will cost about £30 more to buy my 2 year old a ticket, which is a lot to us. Aibu to hope that the train will be quiet and dd will get a seat or should I just accept that this trip is going to cost more than I thought?

And I don't see what difference it makes that it was a Virgin train. Or was your son immaculately conceived and so doesn't need a ticket in order to occupy a seat?

Hehe wallison.

We will have to, isoldeone I think it's incredibly entitled to expect your child to take up a seat you haven't reserved when somone else has a reservation. And you may not have been rude to the woman but your passive aggressive response to being asked to move demonstrated your sense of entitlement by the sound of it.

I always book a table seat and I can sympathise with the lady who insisted on claiming isoldeone's DC's seat. I think I would have done the same but would have done it nicely. I like the extra space over the row seats and it's much easier to work or read a paper if you have a proper table. She may have thought thought the baby would not wake up. I would not have let a DC fall asleep in a seat that was reserved. The reservation ticket in the seat back would have shown from where the seat was going to be occupied so you could have easily avoided the problem by one of the adults sitting in that seat.

I quite often travel on the east coast mainline from London to Leeds without a seat reservation as its unpredictable when I'll be finished at work. At kings cross they don't let you onto the platform until the train is prepared for departure and the coaches with unreserved seats are always right at the front of the train. There are always loads of people dithering with cases and walking in a big knot. I always go on the outside of the platform and power walk/run right to the end of the train and always end up with a reasonable seat that way. Perhaps someone can advise you of the specific strategy that will work for the train and stations you are using. However on east coast trains at the beginning and end of the working day there are always loads of seats which are tentatively reserved by people who have an open ticket and end up in a different train so reserved doesn't mean anyone will actually sit there. I've noticed this is a lot less true out of peak commuting hrs and at weekends when nearly all reserved seats are occupied. I therefore have a theory it would be easier to get a seat if you travelled in commuting hours but not sure if I would dare test it out!

I too travel local stop trains ie London midland and have done since ds was 6 weeks old and do the same wallison You get the added joy of being by the toilets when you have a pram. Disabled rail users too get the joy of these seats too ( who on boarding I always move for of course) wheelchair trumps pram no question!!! )

Wilson under 5s are free on all trains afaik on the understanding that they do not occupy a seat if the train is busy, otherwise there would be an option to reserve a seat for a toddler when buying for an adult.

It's so much more comfortable to have a seat for them, but if there isn't one you have to suck it up.

I travel alone with my 3 (and previously when I only had two) and I alwya buy them all a seat, right from when they were babies. The journey I do is only 3 hours and I find having a seat each makes it so much easier, for an 8 hour journey I'd definitely be getting everyone a seat.

*always

After 4 hrs I was relieved to let ds fall asleep cahoots! As I said before I don't think there was a reservation paper ticket that day only the digital display so I'm thinking I was caught unawares after a long long journey so yeh my face probably gave away my disgruntlement less so entitlement because the lady was entitled to the seat not the1 year old you can't book a seat for. However earlier posters mention people being kind and taking the other free seats . This is what I would do and not think mum and baby having a sense of entitlement , getting free seat yada yada ...

You can book a seat for a one year-old though. You just have to pay for it.

Anyway, as an answer to the OP's question for a journey of that distance I would just pay the extra thirty quid and get a seat and be done with it. Yes, you could squash the three of you onto two seats but it wouldn't be comfortable, especially when you've got bags with drinks/snacks/stuff to keep them occupied to find space for as well. And as others have said, if the three of you are legitimately taking up three seats around a table, you'll probably get the table to yourself because not many single travellers would want to sit at a table with two young kids, so even if the other seat gets reserved it might not get used.

I have always bought my under fives a seat. It's just hellish and worrisome otherwise.

I took that gamble though wallison - 3 people sat legimately around the table and someone did want that 4th reservation. So yes I would pay for the ticket next time because someone was mean enough to move ds ( an earlier poster said no one would do this ) but on booking I was advised more or less it would be fine if there were other free seats.

Sometimes I used to find there was an expectation from other passengers that my young DC could sit on my lap, even when I'd paid for and booked their seats. It's dog eat dog these days. I always turf people out of our reserved seats, and I reckon the occupants act astonished at the very concept of reserving a seat about 75% of the time.

But isoldeone the lady had paid for and reserved a seat. Why shouldn't she sit there.

Sorry, isoldeone, but 'someone was mean enough to move DS'. From a seat that she had reserved and paid for? Are you for real?

Brecon - I was once on a platform waiting to get on a train and saw two men get into the seats I had reserved for me and my son - they took the tickets out of the seat backs and threw them on the floor. The train was packed so I went up to them and said that we had reserved the seats and could they please let us sit down. They said that the seats weren't reserved and then I said that I had watched them take the tickets out while I was standing on the platform. They moved.

Wallison Yes. You have to take a no shit attitude. Do they not realise you have a matching seat reservation in your bag? I'm lucky enough to have the kind of fucked-off expression they don't want to hover over them for the next six hours if they're in my seat.

I don't mind if it's just people trying to find whatever seat they can and chancing it that you'll end up somewhere else, or sitting there because the seat was only booked from such-and-such a place and they got on before then or whatever, but they blatantly knew we were getting on at that particular station and even had the gall to try and out-front me.

Yes Celtic but on Scotrail all DCs travel free on an off-peak return, it's called 'Kids go free' and I have to say there's no way my gigantic DS7 is going to fit on my knee now, let alone in a few years. If they give me a free ticket for him I'm going to assume that equals a free seat tbh. And having just returned from London, all DCs travel free, again they can't all be expected to go on knees.

If you do want to chance it you can go to the assistance desk and ask them which platform the train is leaving from and get on whilst is finishing being cleaned. I did this at euston the other month with baby so I could get settled before crush. You could then sit in non reserved (I had bought a cheapo first class ticket and wanted to scout the most pram friendly spot).

Trains to Scotland are so busy at commuting times and all weekend - avoid.

Don't they sell more tickets than there are seats anyway? So anyone with an unreserved ticket should accept that they might not get a seat anyway.

If you're taking a pushchair he might be able to sit in that. If there is nobody travelling in a wheelchair there's a wheelchair/buggy space in one carriage on virgin trains.

I frequently ask people to move if they are in seats i have reserved, i just get the reservation ticket out of my bag if the one that should have been there has been removed.
If you want a guarenteed seat you reserve it. Travelling long distance I nearly always reserve seats because otherwise there will be few unreserved seats left. If I haven't reserved a seta I check the reservation slips on the seats and can usually find some where the person who reserved the seats has not turned up for some reason so then take those.
If a mother and baby chose not to reserve seats that isn't a reason to give them mine.