to think it's inconsiderate to travel in the quiet coach with small children

[someonestolemynick]

That, really.

I make a point of sitting in the quiet coach, where available in order to be able to work, read or just be alone with my own thoughts.

Today I'm joined by a young family with a baby. Of course, the baby starts crying whenever we go through a tunnel. Arrrgh! I know children make noice, hence KEEP.THEM.OUT.OF.THE.QUIET.ZONE.

AIBU?

[ToAvoidConversation]

YANBU it's nota child friendly are. Quiet coach doesn't just mean no mobiles it means QUIET. So unless you are speaking occasionally in hushed tones stay out! It winds me up when the quiet coach or first class is like a crèche because I go out of my way to book those seats.

However, it's not the parents fault if they have been ditched there by a faulty booking system.

[ToAvoidConversation]

*its not a child friendly area

[WoodBurnerBabe]

I would love the option not to be dumped there! 4 hour with 3 under 6 on a train when you can't move is not fun. Mine are pretty well behaved, but they aren't silent. And moving seats with all the luggage and kids is a tremendous undertaking once you've got settled in. Plus I usually travel at peak time, so there are not 4 seats together spare.

[bakingaddict]

I often travel on Virgin trains to visit family up North and usually get assigned the quiet coach through no fault of my own. Sometimes I travel alone with the kids to visit my family. There is not a cat's chance in hell that I will give up my reserved seats in the quiet coach and trawl through the whole train with kids and luggage in tow just to appease other people. My kids are well behaved and i'm considerate to other passengers but the people who suggest I do exactly this just because the train company chose to sit me there are out of their minds.

[BreconBeBuggered]

I've travelled regularly on 6-hour train journeys with DC for the last 13 years, on different routes and with various companies. I'd say we were plonked in the Quiet Coach at least 50% of the time. I need assistance to get on trains with luggage as it is, and there's sod-all chance of me struggling through the train and invalidating my cheapskate tickets in the process to soothe a catsbum passenger, were I ever to come across one. Actually I've only ever heard people tutting at mobiles and loud tinny music in these carriages, never ordinary conversation.

[Chloerose75]

YANBU at all.

Children and babies are generally noisier than adult mobile phone noise, so if phones are banned then surely it doesn't make sense for kids to still be rampaging in the quiet coach. The clue is in the name!

Also a bit at so many people claiming to be allocated quiet coach against their will. It is very easy to change carriage when booking tickets and I do think it makes sense for people to go in a normal carriage if they know their children will make noise. If there really are no other seats then ok but if you have the choice I think its inconsiderate to go in quiet coach.

[exexpat]

When I book tickets (usually through the First Great Western website) the booking confirmation tells me what the seat and carriage numbers are, but doesn't tell me whether or not it is a quiet coach. I don't discover that until we turn up to claim our seats.

[manicinsomniac]

I haven't noticed a quiet coach on a train for about 15 years! (since I stopped travelling with my gran I guess - she always wanted to be in it.)

I thought at some point they must have fallen into disuse sue to everybody having portable technology now rather than just an annoying few.

I must just be chronically unobservant though - hope I haven't sat in the quiet coach with my children too often, chatting away into my mobile phone - eek!

I think YAB a bit U. I can see it's annoying if you don't get what you booked but that's life isn't it - you can't predict who's going to share bits of it with you.

[youvegottabekiddingme]

I travelled on the quiet coach in the summer after mistakenly booking the seats there. I was so worried as my children were 5,7 and 9. But they barely made a sound, trying to stay as quiet as possible. ALL the adults on the quiet coach made loads of noise. Eating, talking with each other and on the phone and getting up and down taking things out of their bags etc. etc. I was sitting like this while every now and then whispering to my kids to remember to stay quiet. My kids were even

[youvegottabekiddingme]

And I'm not kidding. ...ALL the adults were noisy. ..other than me

[PiratePanda]

Quiet coach on East Coast also means conversations quiet and kept to a minimum, not just no mobiles/electronic noise. I would have thought it was a no brainer that the quiet carriage should not be used by families with young children unless no other option. It's a courtesy though, not a legal requirement, so there's not a huge amount you can do if someone refuses to play ball.

FWIW I would never sit in the quiet carriage with DCs, not even if they were our reserved seats (in an unbusy train you can, in fact, sit elsewhere without violating T&Cs especially if you're doing it to be courteous.) It's not fair on the customers who are there to work, and no, it's not the same as the first class issue.

[vexedfoxy]

Quiet coach does not mean 'you just can't use your mobile' It surely means just that 'be quiet? ie no children, no load conversations with you travelling companions, drunkeness etc etc. I rarely commute on public transport (normally cycle) but generally find the standard of behaviour of the British commuter is a disgrace. This is a wider issue on public transport behaviour. For example a train pulls in a station load of people want to get off, morons on the platform stand noses pressed against the door so you can't get off they can't get on...then they tut at you!

[tethersend]

"It is very easy to change carriage when booking tickets "

Chloe, if you could show me how to do this on the midland mainline website, that would be great. You can't

[UptheChimney]

Definitely YANBU. I book seats in the Quiet coach specifically because I do long distance travel for work, and need to -- well, work!

It's easy enough to ask the train manager to find you seats in another carriage. But I disappointingly find that people can be very selfish and "I don't care" about it if you ask them to keep the noise down. And a lot of people who sit in the Quiet Coach haven't actually booked seats in it. It's the first carriage they enter, and they're illiterate, apparently.

On the US east coast commuter line corridor between Boston and Washington DC, they ask for a "Library level of quiet" in the Quiet Coach. It is bliss -- mostly because it is respected by the passengers Unlike in the UK, where people can be quite rude.

[DrankSangriaInThePark]

I could almost (but have to admit, not quite, and I am the most intolerant to noise and other people's children fucker on the planet, trust me) understand the humphing, if said family and baby were in the quiet coach at 7am on a Monday morning going into Lahndon Tahn and quiet coach was full of the suited and booted on their way to Very Important Things.

But it was clearly Sunday afternoon.

And, thinking about myself, when dd was little, if given the choice where to travel with her (which we are guessing this family didn't have anyway) I'd have gone for the quiet coach to avoid the great unwashed on their way home from football/stag/hen parties etc.

How much noise was this baby making anyway? And how long did it go on for?

[UptheChimney]

And on reading this thread, I'm seeing why travel in the Quiet Coach can be unpleasant, with posters talking about people having "catsbum faces" for gosh! daring to ask for quiet in the Quiet Coach. How very dare we!

[MammaTJ]

I'd only sit in the quiet coach if my kids were quiet and low key.

Where do I order some if those?

[DrankSangriaInThePark]

OP- might I suggest you don't ever go on an airy-plane. Because babies tend to cry on those, hurts their ears a bit y'see. And short of shutting them in the toilet, or opening the door and making them sit on the wing, there's not a lot can be done.

So the baby cried when you went through a tunnel. How many tunnels did you go through? Were there ever such a lot? Is it a very tunnelly place? Did it stop crying immediately upon exiting the tunnel, or did it continue?

[DrankSangriaInThePark]

Even my little teeny tiny one carriage 2 stops train lets you reserve seats on it, if your journey is part of a longer one btw. So they might well have had reserved seats.

[wigglylines]

YABU (but by no fault if your own, the online booking system is at fault).

I have young children, I do not want to sit in the quiet carriage, I travel by train a lot. I book our tickets online.

When you book tickets, you can choose the quiet carriage, but there is no way of specifying if you don't want the quiet carriage.

And if your children are under 5, the system has no way of knowing as you won't have a ticket for them.

Believe me, I don't want to travel in the quiet carriage with the intollerant people any more than you want me there, but if the system puts me there what can I do about it?

Perhaps we should petition the train companies to add "not the quiet carriage" as booking option?

[Foosyerdoos]

I had to spend 3 hours on a train across from a bloke picking his nose recently. I want a no mining for bogies carriage.

[freelancegirl]

This exact situation happened to me two days ago - reserved seat happened to be in the Quiet Zone and I didn't notice until I sat down. And no, with a 20 month old on a 2 hour train journey I did not request it, so wouldn't know to change it in advance even if there was a way of changing it - which I don't think there is.

I dumped all my bags, folded up the pram, sat down and he started to cry. It was only then I noticed the QZ sign. And yes I got filthy looks. Fortunately the toddler was crying because he was tired so I opened up the buggy again and rocked him to sleep in the corridor and he passed out and stayed asleep (buggy in the wheelchair space, agggh!) for the whole journey.

But for a moment it made me feel awful, especially when I got a few dirty looks. I would ask those of you who are moaning about crying little ones in the QZ to think for a moment about how hard it can be travelling on your own with small children, getting to the station in the first place (two tube changes for me with bags, buggy, long walk to station with a lift) and then having to face a long train journey and do it all again at the other side AND having been unwittingly put into the QZ. Please spare a thought for us and also bear in mind there are a lot more important things going on in life to worry about than to make some poor person struggling with travel with a baby or small child feel bad with your glares and tutting just because you're in the weird, train company construct called a 'Quiet Zone'. We are not deliberately being inconsiderate and if you're really bothered it's easier for you to move than us.

[Wisteria36]

We haven't been put in the quiet coach on a long distance journey but if we had we'd be as quiet as possible if there was no option to move. Last week on east coast the children were totally fine (dss 4 and 13 wks, in normal carriage, 4 yr old reading and colouring) and any noise they made was drowned out by the very drunk man opposite who ranted loudly for the whole four hours. He was drunk before departure and the train company helpfully sold him extra vodka. It was very hot so we had to strip the baby down as others have said. When there were baby cries towards the end of the journey we stood in the corridor with him. Personally it's alcohol on trains I hate, small children are fine most of the time.