To have expected this woman to move seats

[appletarts]

I was on the train back from London, with a first class ticket. In the carriage there was one space available for a buggy with a seat facing it, also described as disabled access. I arrived just as a woman was putting her things on the seat, I said excuse me do you think I could put my buggy here? She goes yes but sits down in the seat opposite it. Uh... I said do you think I could have that seat so I can look after my child during the journey and she starts moaning saying she's booked in advance and wants to sit in her booked seat. I asked her does she have a specific need which means she needs this seat, she says no. I said well I'm sure you don't want to meet the needs of my child for three hours do you? How about you let me have that seat so I can look after my DD and if someone comes on a disputes you being in that free seat we'll deal with it then. She then moans more saying she's booked and why is she being made out to be in the wrong, lots of eye rolling and tutting on her part. I say she can sit in 99% of the seats available and I need this 1%, I need this one seat. Eventually she moves but behaves as if she's been evicted and sits with a cats arse face for most of journey sighing everytime my dd dared utter a gurgle. Seriously? Is this unreasonable of me?

Yup some people were definitely dragged up.

Like who pinky?

Is your child superglued to its chair? The woman had a booked seat. Couldn't you simply take the child with you and sit elsewhere? I'm sure your baby would sleep on you

YANBU. If your DD is anything like my son was at that sort of age, I am assuming 2/3 if she is in a buggy. If she was let loose to sit on your lap then she would have been running up and down being a right pain, especially on a three hour journey. Perhaps in future you should book the seat though, in case you get someone who really won't move.

I think she means me miss pixie. Which is a bit weird, but hey some people are I suppose.

I think there is lots of ambiguity and confusion about the policies and layouts of all the different trains. I see what you mean about East Coast Trains, they do generally advise in print to fold buggies. Which is weird because half the journey I regularly do with my buggy is on East Coast, and their train staff I've generally found most sympathetic and the layout easiest. I also take the point about the assistance button, but this doesn't seem standard over all trains too.

It's this kind of confusion that makes rail travel with kids so stressful and these situations happen. The journey to my mum's involves two changes, three different train companies and it's difficult as they all have different layouts and policies. On one part of the journey there's not even a wheelchair space, just a large lugguage carriage where a wheelchair user can sit with the suitcases. I think it's as easy therefore for a person to assume that the wheelchair space and companion seat are available to buggy users if unoccupied and feel righteously angry if someone is sitting in them, as that is certainly the case and advice given sometimes. And therefore be pissed off and be considered rude. and it's also easy for a person who is sitting in the wheelchair space to assume that the buggy user should just fold her buggy and go away. Especially if she's been erroneously or otherwise allowed to book tickets. and then be a bit rude in return, tutting and the like.

So I think both parties on the train were unreasonable and reasonable at the same time through their own assumptions, but the main problem was the inconsistency and unfairness in the rail companies attitude towards people travelling with children in buggies.

If there was just some consistency and a decent policy to allow buggy users to book a space then situations like this would not happen. I am arguing with the OP not because i think she was blameless, I do think she was mouthy. But rather because I can empathise with her position, and her feeling of righteous indignation, although possibly misplace depending on the status of the seat, which we aren't going to know for sure. I also empathise with her stress levels about taking a young child on a train journey. As I've said before, just because you find taking one child on a three hour journey easy, then you shouldn't assume everyone does. You might just be blessed with a less stressful child and a more organised brain.

Hooochy She wasn't "asking for kindness". She was rudely demanding the space as if it were her right. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar; perhaps if she hadn't been such an entitled arse, the woman would have moved without shooting the OP evils.

If it was me I would have happily moved if the OP had come up to me and said something along the lines of 'Sorry to bother you but I was asked to put my buggy here, would you mind if I had this seat so I could sit next to my toddler.'

If the OP had started going on about me having to look after her child or what needs I had then I would tell her to bugger off.

Nowhere in the original post did the OP say please and I bet she didn't even thank the lady who did move.

With all the talk of having child-free flights perhaps child-free trains would be good too. I would use it. Not to get away from children however but to avoid people like Appletarts.

"She was a tutter and an eye roller, the worst sort who glares at mums when kids have tantrums."
I'm intrigued by this statement made by the OP. Did OP's child have a tantrum on the train? Or is OP ascribing reasons for the woman she was rude to tutting and eye rolling other than OP's rude behaviour towards her? Did she actually tut and eye-roll at all?

"Because when I got on it was an empty train, leaving London, it was filling up and was full by the time the train departed."
It's likely that, unlike you, this woman expected the train to fill up; a good enough reason to not give up her pre-booked seat, surely?

OP, is there a reason that you had not booked your seat for this journey?

OP, is there a reason that you had not booked your seat for this journey?

OP has never answered this question.

I suspect that, from the way she interacts here, she expected that because she bought a First Class ticket, she was entitled to a carriage to herself. How dare anyone else sit in her carriage?

Appletarts - you sound like a self-entitled twit.

If having a certain seat was SO important you then why the hell didn't you BOOK a seat??

I feel sorry for the poor woman having to encounter such a rude witch like yourself.

Yabvu.

If you knew you'd need a leg-room/buggy seat, you should have booked one, not thrown your weight around and played the 'I've got a baby' card once on the train.

Having said that, I'd willingly have moved, or more likely not sat in that seat in the first place. That doesn't mean you should expect everyone to behave the way you want them to, though.

more likely not sat in that seat in the first place

Thing is, the passenger the OP is so rude about was sitting in her allocated booked seat. So why would she have not sat in it? Particularly as she was there when the OP entered the carriage.

Mostly when you book a ticket with seat, you get a randomly allocated seat, with the broad parameters of Quiet Coach or not; window or aisle; table or airline. But not much more specific than that. And even then, you don't always get what you want.

So the OP's entitled rude attitude that the other passenger was sitting in a seat that the OP needed (ha!) was really out of order.

If OP had booked a seat, it would have been simplicity itself to swap. The lady with the booked seat had every right not to want to give it up and perhaps have to stand for the rest of the journey. Simple lesson there, OP? Or do you perhaps not book seats on planes either and just expect people to swop there too?

aaagh i don't know why i bothered with this thread. yous all cant get past the percieved rudeness of the OP and your outrage can you?

does anyone even read my posts at all?

doesn't feel like it, it seems as if you all just can't resist the lure of a mouthy OP and a near unanimous yabu in order to indulge in some rudeness yourselves

for the last time

• the seat that the OP was wanting is the seat that comes with the wheelchair space. Which on most trains and services is not bookable by non wheelchair users. it is strange that someone wold be sitting there or would have been allowed to book it without a wheelchair

• it is also the seat that on most trains and services you are directed to as a buggy user not wishing to fold, if it is not used by a wheelchair user. other trains and services insist buggies are folded, althoughare inconsistant in enforcing this

• there is some ambiguity about this due to a nonconsistent policy towards buggy users by train companies. this could cause confusion

• if the OP was mouthy then maybe she assumed that the woman was sitting in the only seat on the train available to a non folded buggy user

• the other woman maybe assumed otherwise, that the woman should fold her buggy.

anyway, i'm off, can't be bothered with this anymore. thanks for those that listened a little. I'll leave the rest of you to your selective reading and personal insults. toodles

Hoochy, the focus has been on the rudeness of the OP because it was that which caused the reaction she came on to complain about - after all, she did end up getting the seat.

hooochy I read your posts, I just disagree with you. HTH.

We are focusing on apple's rudeness because it's likely the woman would have moved without question if she had been spoken to like a human being, not a mere inconvenience to the OP who hadn't even bothered to book a seat if she wanted that space so badly!

she wouldn't have booked a seat because you cannot book the wheelchair space. i didn't book a seat the first few times i travelled on a train with a baby as i was told you couldn't book the space. I was so stressed about the idea of folding my buggy that I didn't book a seat.

really, are none of you atall bothered about the fact that it is not possible to book a space for a buggy on a train? doesn't that make you mad for other parents who don't drive but need to travel with small children and lugguage? don't you think public transport should be accessible to all?

and yes, you can fold a buggy, and i'm glad that some of you find that really easy. but personally i find it really difficult. Nowadays when I travel I have four year old in back of double buggy, toddler in back pack, suitcase in back of double buggy, travel cot on handle and travel bag round shoulders. It's awful. How I wish I could reserve a bloody seat and not be in anyone's way. And to be honest if there was no wheelchair on board and if someone was sat in the only bloody seat on the train i could sit in that meant i didn't have to try and put everything away and could use my buggy, and when i asked them to move they refused despite there being a coach of empty seats, i might be abit rude to them too.

thanks zzzzzzzz :-). right i really should do my bloody tax return.

someone delete me if you see me in here again. my procrastination knows no bounds xx

No, it doesn't make me angry that there aren't bookable designated buggy spaces; I don't have the emotional energy for that. If it makes you so angry, you can campaign like disability rights activists did.

Hoochy
You are making problems that dont exist.
I had exactly 2 year gap. I did not drive. I regularly visited my mother the other side of london. I also used to go to dorset to visit my MIL so travelled with a double buggy and luggage. I also travelled into london every two weeks with a push chair and my mum used take the pushchair back on the train. I never once has to foldup a buggy and long journeys i always booked seats for the dcs at a table on long journeys.

hoochy I have read all your posts, but it seems to me that you are basing your defence of the OP's behaviour on your assertion that the woman could not have booked the seat because it is only bookable by wheelchair users. But you also say (Sun 19-Jan-14 09:53:27) "I think there is lots of ambiguity and confusion about the policies and layouts of all the different trains. ... The journey to my mum's involves two changes, three different train companies and it's difficult as they all have different layouts and policies." So are we so sure that this woman was sitting in a seat that was not bookable? We don't know which train company she was travelling with, which carriage type etc. The only details supplied are that it was a first class carriage and the journey started in London. You obviously have a great deal of experience with train companies, booking tickets for clients; but is the seat as described in the OP definitely unbookable? For every company? Also, even if it is normally unbookable, the OP described the carriage as "full by the time the train departed." Would it have been the last seat left available when the woman bought her ticket, and was therefore 'bookable' on that basis? I'm not saying it was so; I don't travel by train that much and always on the same line/company, so I have only ever seen one layout, and I haven't paid any attention to even that .

I guess what I'm trying to say is - if you accept that this woman had indeed booked that seat; how does appletart's behaviour look to you then? And how do you think it looked to that woman?

I know you are loooking at the bigger picture (provision of buggy space on trains), but the OP was not about that; it was about the OP not understanding why the woman was less than delighted to have a stranger demand her seat and her medical status. And that's what the rest of us were responding to.

If she'd booked it, she'd booked it. If it wasn't bookable, she got her bum on it before the OP did.

Either way, it's her seat - unless & until a wheelchair user's companion boots her from it, I suppose -& OP could have avoided having a hissy fit by the simple expedient of booking a seat, any seat, herself.

Then she'd be able to offer the lady in the coveted seat a genuine swap, which she might or might not have agreed to.

There's no entitlement to have an unfolded buggy on a train, & maybe there should be, & yes, it's a PITA to have to fold it, but that's besides the point.

OP had no business hoofing any other customer out of any seat & she was thoroughly rude about it. I bet t'other lady has been kicking herself ever since for allowing herself to be hoofed!

bruffin - once again as i've said to others, glad you find it easy, that must be nice for you. i don't. maybe i'm just not as good a mother as you.

good post whereyouleftit, thanks

if the woman had actually booked the seat then i think the OP's behaviour was driven by an assumption that she couldn't, hadn't or shouldn't, as she thought it was the only seat on the train she could use. i can understand that, and surely you can too as you've detailed how confusing all the information is about travelling on trains with buggies.

i can see that if the woman had booked the seat the she'd be full of righteous indignation too and she was probably a bit rude too

and ravenak, if you think that it's besides the point, then i'm dissapointed at your lack of empathy, compassion and inability to follow a tangent.

Hoochy - it is nothing to do with being a better parent. You are going on about problems that don't exist. Why does anyone have to sit next to a buggy, need a specific buggy space etc. I have never been on a train where you have to fold a buggy. I would never leave a baby in a buggy anyway for that long anyway, so put the buggy in a spare space, there is a lot more room now than there was when dcs were small and take the baby and sit a different seat.
Its not about finding things easy, its about not creating non existant problems in the first place.