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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

267 replies

someonestolemynick · 23/03/2014 20:41

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?

OP posts:
Fleta · 24/03/2014 19:33

I can't imagine anything worse than having to sit in a "family carriage".

When I travel with my DD by train we chat quietly, she colours, she draws, she reads, she plays on her iPad with headphones. Absolutely we would go in the Quiet Zone/First Class

vexedfoxy · 24/03/2014 19:37

First class is different you pay for that...sort of seat insurance!

tethersend · 24/03/2014 19:43

Vexed- do you think I should have to pay additional money to change seats when the train company allocated me seats in the quiet carriage?

somedayillbesaturdaynite · 24/03/2014 19:48

Surely if silence is that important to anyone, they could put earplugs in?

vexedfoxy · 24/03/2014 20:03

It is not just quiet is it? Even if you had earplugs and children were dancing about...nothing worse than other peoples children.

OnlyLovers · 24/03/2014 20:09

YANBU! This gets right on my tits.

Those of you saying it just means no mobiles etc, IME the signs on the quiet coach windows and the verbal announcements all say something along the lines of 'keep conversation to a minimum', which in my interpretation means no loud noise of ANY kind.

exexpat · 24/03/2014 20:35

The noise that bothers me most on trains is the constant announcements - I wouldn't mind the occasional useful announcement that we're approaching the next stop on a long distance train, but there seems to be someone on the loudspeaker every five minutes advertising hot beverages or reminding people which tickets are not valid etc etc. I don't suppose they turn that off in the quiet carriage, do they?

tethersend · 24/03/2014 20:42

"Nothing worse than other people's children"

Don't be ridiculous, vexed. Of course there's something worse.

I'll be with my children.

MiddleAgeMiddleEngland · 24/03/2014 20:49

I think some people are incredibly intolerant of children on trains, or indeed of any other humans.

The other day I'd got on a train, sat down and got my book out (nobody in the seat next to me) when I realised that a mum was looking for two seats together for her and her toddler son. I immediately got up and gave her my seat, moving across the aisle to an empty seat next to a man. He really glared at me for having the 'cheek' to sit next to him.

When the toddler started chatting, the mum tried to hush him, but he was just excited and happy. I gave her several smiles, but the man next to me was clearly a grump and kept sighing and grimacing.

Unless you book a whole carriage to yourself it's likely that you'll have to cope with humans who may not meet your exacting standards. They may speak, cough, eat, do the their make up, or whatever. They may even turn out to be interesting people with whom you can have a conversation.

UptheChimney · 24/03/2014 21:11

It's not a license for considerably more important than yew people to do their v important work. If you don't want to be disturbed don't go out in public

You see, it's this kind of rudeness & sarcasm I just don't understand. Gosh, I work, and I travel for work. The only way I can do my job is to work while I travel. I book a seat in the Quiet Zone to do just this. It's not that my job is more important, it's that it needs to be done by me, with hopefully enough time to sleep, eat. & see my family.

I really don't see what is unreasonable about that.

It's odd: apparently according to some MNers, it's UNreasonable to expect quiet in the Quiet Zone, and it's entirely REASONABLE to be rude about people who protest about noise in the Quiet Zone.

A reverse of RL. Only on MN!

UptheChimney · 24/03/2014 21:13

I can't imagine anything worse than having to sit in a "family carriage"

Isn't that a little bit like smokers objecting to the smell of smoke?

ArtexMonkey · 24/03/2014 21:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

HectorVector · 24/03/2014 21:25

As someone who commutes, I'm afraid I think you are being unreasonable. 'Quiet' carriages request no earphones and no mobiles. They do not request no children, no babies, no talking, no crying. It's a train and not a library or an office. Trains are very busy, people will sit wherever they can get a seat.

DeWe · 24/03/2014 21:32

I've been put several times in the quiet coach with tickets that are only valid in the reserved seats when I have booked 1 adult, 3x children on a family railcard. I wasn't happy about it either, but do wonder if they actually think about that when sorting tickets.

lurkerspeaks · 24/03/2014 21:45

Another east coast regular here.

Quiet means no loud talking too especially in first.

Last time I travelled guard announced it at each station.

Small children occasionally travel in quiet and are tolerated better than noisy adults.

At Christmas I watched a loud office party type group travelling from Edinburgh to Newcastle be forced out of the quiet coach (they had been moved there so they could all sit together) into another coach as the staff said they were too rowdy.

I do loads of work on the train on my way to meetings and choose my coach accordingly.

Only time I've got seriously aerated about it was with a 70 something year old terribly posh woman who got on with her husband and late primary school aged granddaughter. Discovered whoever had booked her tickets had booked her in standard (diddums) so she plonked herself in the first class quiet coach and then whipped out her mobile to call travel agent to berate them. I was working on a complex document and asked her to move to the foyer, to be told she was on an important call and couldn't be disturbed , I retorted that it would still be important in the foyer and could she please go there. She refused to move until about 6 other people chipped in. Guard then moved her and her entourage as they didn't have first class tickets.

Apparently intending to buy a first class ticket isn't good enough. Who
would have imagined it!

BoomBoomsCousin · 25/03/2014 00:48

Upthechimney it's more like disabled people not wishing to be forced to sit with other disabled people. It's a desire be a part of the whole of society, not Othered or ghettoised for your mere existence.

Having children is necessary for a healthy society as well as being an evoutionarily essential biological desire. Comparing it to a personal habit, especially one that does others harm, is ridiculous. It is shameful that it seems to have become a common way to insidiously denigrate children and childhood.

nooka · 25/03/2014 01:20

Virgin (I think) used to have a family carriage, and I traveled in it a couple of times when my children were small. It was great to be able to relax and not have to be anxious about all the child haters. It's a pretty stupid booking system that doesn't even tell you if you have reserved seats in the quiet carriage, whether you have children or not.

ReginaldBlinker · 25/03/2014 08:10

I've actually just had another encounter with the Quiet Zone this morning! A woman sat next to me (in the Quiet Zone) and instantly started talking VERY loudly. I gave her a few minutes, in case it was one of those, "I'm on the train now." conversations (that never seem to be possible via text!), but no, she showed no sign of hanging up any time soon. I politely tapped her on her shoulder and pointed to the sign directly above us (and across from us!), and she rolled her eyes, called me a silly cow, and kept talking!

It's not a busy train, and she definitely could have just walked to the next carriage if she wanted to continue talking. No need whatsoever for her rudeness.

If you don't agree with a Quiet Zone, just go to another carriage; don't bloody sit there and flout the rules like some sort of one-woman protest.

Aeroflotgirl · 25/03/2014 08:12

Yanbu at all, it us called quiet coach for a reason. If there were seats available in normal section, she was selfish to go into the quiet area.

UptheChimney · 25/03/2014 08:26

I politely tapped her on her shoulder and pointed to the sign directly above us (and across from us!), and she rolled her eyes, called me a silly cow, and kept talking

Yes, this is what really really puzzles me. The talker was the "silly" person, and rude. Yet the person who expects a modicum of quiet in the Quiet Zone is castigated as rude!

It's happened on this thread too. If you don't like the conditions of the Quiet Zone, don't sit there.

I do understand the frustration of being booked into the Quiet Carriage when you haven't asked for it. I know it's possible to request the Quiet Coach deliberately when booking online, but not the other way (ie any carriage but the Quiet Zone. But on Cross Country trains, booking online, you can actually choose your seat & carriage. No excuse there.

I'm not a child hater & children's noise is inevitable. But as we read on here all the time, even their own parents find their own darling LO's noise trying, so how do complete strangers find it? What I do object to is parents who don't model polite behaviour to other passengers to their children politeness is not a set of rules it's having consideration and rspect for others, and doing as you would be done by. Parents don't model this by ignoring their own children, not engaging them, not requiring them to wear headphones when watching iPad films, running up & down the carriage aisle, and whining. As well, some parents add to this by flouting the Quiet Carriage requirements themselves, and behaving rudely when anyone asks them to keep the noise down.

I've been treated in a really hostile manner, including a mother of small children coming right up to me, trying to put her face between me & my paperwork to be rude. THe language was offensive & in front of her children. I was actually concerned for my physical safety. I really do feel sorry for some chikdren: goodness knows why their parents had them, as they don't seem to want to talk to them, or engage them.

caramelwaffle · 25/03/2014 08:43

I'm inclined to agree with Artex

You are being unreasonable.

Enjoy your journey tethers.

ReginaldBlinker · 25/03/2014 08:54

Yes, this is what really really puzzles me. The talker was the "silly" person, and rude. Yet the person who expects a modicum of quiet in the Quiet Zone is castigated as rude!

Exactly!

The fact that there even needs to be a designated quiet carriage is quite sad really, but shows how much people have forgotten any modicum of public decency.

On my train journeys , I have encountered girls clipping their fingernails, painting their toenails (with their feet on the seat, of course), plucking their eyebrows, men discussing, in-depth, personal health issues, a man pissing on a seat, children running up and down the isles hitting each other (and others who happened to be caught in the cross-fire), a child sat in the vestibule crying and screaming while the mother went to go sit in her seat, and just proceeded to shout to her shouting child, "If you want to come sit with mummy, you have to be a good girl. Can you be a good girl? No? Well then you stay there until you can!" I have been hit in the head by a child throwing his toys, and had the mother look at me and just shrug her shoulders...

And the list could go on and on and on...

I'd be happy to pay more for a seat in a quiet carriage if it meant I didn't have to see stuff like this all the time.

stuckindamiddle · 25/03/2014 08:57

YANBU.
I booked a seat in the quiet coach once. I chose it specifically.
A Dad and three kids got on and were very noisy (as kids naturally can be) for a lot of the journey. When I asked if they could keep it down, pointing out that it was the quiet coach (on a not v busy train) the Dad was v offended. He then verbally attacked me for using a mobile phone set to silent (no sound alerts, not even keytones) for texting and internet browsing, citing the window stickers with a red line through a mobile phone. What is the spirit of the quiet carriage rules I ask you? I think he and his kids were in breach of them, not me.
Oh and they had no luggage so moving elsewhere wouldn't have been difficult. Why didn't I move? Because I wanted to be in a quiet carriage and there's normally only one on a train and I was - in theory - already in it.

ReginaldBlinker · 25/03/2014 09:05

According to South West Trains, they say about the Quiet Zone, "Please respect other passengers wishing to sit in the Quiet Zone by keeping noise to a minimum."

All noise. Those of you who say you didn't realise that you were in a Quiet Zone before you sat down, or you were allocated a seat there against your will, then bloody move if you don't want to be tutted and glared at. If I knew that it was an issue with seats being allocated in the Quiet Zone, I would phone up the train company after booking and double check with them. I certainly wouldn't say, "Welp, someone else's fault I guess, so stuff everyone else on this train who has chosen specifically to sit in the Quiet Zone. Not my fault!"

And this has nothing to do with my own inflated self-importance; this has to do with not wanting to hear unnecessary noise!

OnlyLovers · 25/03/2014 09:10

'it's likely that you'll have to cope with humans who may not meet your exacting standards.'

It's not particularly exacting to expect quiet from people in a clearly marked and announced Quiet Coach (which DOES include no loud talking or general noise as well as mobiles and music, for those continuing to insist that it doesn't).

If I'm seated in a normal coach I can 'cope' very well with other 'humans', thanks very much, and have even been known to talk to them.

If someone specifically chooses the Quiet Coach, it's because they want and expect quiet. It's not overly exacting, it doesn't mean they hate people/children. It just means they want quiet for that journey.

It is not rocket science.