To not understand why people pay for tickets then not turn up?

[ApignamedJasper]

I travel by train fairly regularly, almost every time I go there are lots of seats with reserved tickets in them. Very often the seats will remain unoccupied.

Some of the journeys indicated on the ticket would have been rather expensive to buy (for example, Penzance to London) and yes they could be sitting somewhere else but if you had gone to the trouble of reserving a seat by a window/table etc why would you not use it? Aibu to wonder why so many people seem to just not turn up?

We couldn't sashh - I asked a number of times.

If for whatever reason I am on the train but not in my reserved seat I leave a note on it saying that it is free. Of course only once I have put enough belongings on the seat which I am using to make very certain that it will stay mine.

So have I Annie but I wouldn't say it happens every time I travel.

What is more annoying is when people reserve and the train company don't put the labels on. At least if you see a seat reserved and the train has already left the "from" station you know you can grab it.

I've heard it rarely, but also, if you don't know the station it can be difficult to know where to stand, so they still could do better!!

Dixie. I never understand why people buy through trainline where they charge admin. Best to either book at the train station (good luck with the queues) or the national rail website or whatever your local train company is website.

www.nationalrail.co.uk

I use takethetrain too :)

I book my tickets online, always get a reserved seat, never bother looking for it unless the train is very busy just sit in an unreserved one. Why does it matter? Every train I have been on in the last few years has had loads of empty seats, i never travel in peak time.