To think that if you sit in a reserved train seat that's not yours then you should expect to move?

[Rhine]

Just back from a few days away. We always reserve seats when traveling a long way to ensure that we can all get a seat together. On the way down we got on to find that someone had already taken our seats, the traing was almost full but all moved without hesitation except for one rude women who questioned it. We produced our tickets to prove it and she got up whilst huffing and puffing loudly that she "needed to be sat by her kids" I should add that her kids were not sitting with her, it transpired they were actually sat at the other end of the carriage. So she sits down on the other side of the train and it moves off.

Then at the next stop an elderly lady got on, and told the same women that she was now sitting in her pre booked seat. She once again tried to question it, actually refusing to move at one point and tried to make out that this lady had made a mistake. Eventually she did move, but now started to huff and puff even louder about needing to be near her kids. So I asked her why she hadn't booked her seats as surely it would be easier and it meant she and her children would have been able to sit together but I was promptly told to mind my own business as she's stomped off down the carriage loudly moaning about needing to be near her kids. She found another seat but for ages afterwards I could hear her loudly going on to the person sitting next to her about how rude I was to question why she hadn't pre booked seats and how her need to be sat "Near her kids" was actually more important than those od people whod booked a seat! I was also told by someone sat opposite me that she'd already been moved twice before we got on!

Now if you really need to be sat "near your kids" then common sense dictates that you should pre book seats to ensure you alll get to sit togther, and if others have booked seats then you should expect to be moved on? BTW the "kids" in questions were actually teenagers, not little ones so why they hell she had to be sat near to them is a mystery? And in fact she actually ended up sitting nearer to them when moved on from mine and the elderly lady's seat.

This is not the first time I've encountered this kind of behaviour on trains. One time I' even had a woman point blank refuse to move from my seat and had to fetch a conductor to sort it out. Surely if you sit in a seat with "prebooked" written on it you should expect to be moved on at some point in the journey?

Last year I was returning from a day out in Manchester with my family and we asked what was obviously a regular commuter to move out of one of our reserved seats on a very busy train. He did so, begrudgingly, and then sat ON THE TABLE so that his arse was in my stepfather's face so he couldn't enjoy his own bloody reserved seat. He seemed like the kind of cunt that would assault a woman in front of a full carriage of passengers so all I did was give him the hardest, longest, most deprecating stare I could. It was utterly bizarre. It wasn't the only place he could have sat.

I got on a train to find someone in my reserved seat and asked her (politely!) to move. She recognised my accent as Scottish and announced, loudly, that the SNP had given Scots a sense of entitlement, and that was why I expected to be able to sit in my reserved seat.

I am travelling south tomorrow with ds and have reserved seats as I always do. I will no doubt have to turf someone out, as I always do!

I once had to ask a stag party to move and they were horrible and intimidating .

If someone is sitting in your reserved seat, then you find the guard and he/she will move them.

Most children over a certain age would be far more capable of standing than an elderly person. Whatever happened to good old fashioned manners and standards.

i think the person said adult not elderly. big difference.

Some people just aren't bright enough to know what reserved seat means so you really have to spell it out. We always reserve seats.

I reserved some on a business trip at a table in the quiet carriage to work on my lap top. Guess who had reserved the 3 seats around the table? A toddler, 2 parents and a baby. Their cups, liquids and all the rest covered just about every bit of the table excpet for the space of my lap top and there was not an iota of silence. Why book the silent carriage when you've 2 small children and most of the rest of the train is free of other people?
On the quiet carriage no you canm't talk to the person next to you and no you can't take calls on your phone. If you want to talk you get up from your seat and walk into another carriage and make the noises there.

YANBU.

I once asked someone to move from my reserved seat because it was a forward facing window seat. When she started to get up - with difficulty - I realised she had a cane and a bad leg. I felt very bad and told her it didn't matter but she still moved to the other side of the table. Made for an awkward journey!

But your situation is different OP. She was being a twat.

Why book the silent carriage when you've 2 small children and most of the rest of the train is free of other people?

They probably didn't - there is no option to request not in the quiet carriage when you book.

We were put in the quiet carriage last week without asking for it. We had reserved 5 seats. A businessman had took up our whole 4 seater table with his laptop and files. He was most put out when we asked him to move.

The virgin train we had just said reserved it didn't say from which station.

RedDaisy - I am not sure you can specify the Quiet coach/not the Quiet Coach when you book your seats - they may not have known that's what they'd done. And they could,have moved out of there, but it is a faff moving coaches with children, so maybe they couldn't face it.

I once turfed a chap out of my reserved seat - there were three of them at a table for four, and I had booked the forward facing window seat. He was sitting in my reserved seat, but there was an empty seat next to him, and I was going to sit there, until he told me he'd reserved that seat. I was very at the concept of reserving a seat, then sitting in a different one but insisting on keeping your reserved seat vacant - so I told him that, actually, he was in MY seat so could he move please - which he meekly did.

The best bit? From the conversation I overheard between him and his colleagues, I gleaned the fact that they had all been on a training course. An assertiveness training course - since I had out-asserted him, I did wonder if I should suggest he asked for a refund!

Why book the silent carriage when you've 2 small children and most of the rest of the train is free of other people?

There's no option to not do so, and some booking engines fill the train from the front. If you book well in advance there's a strong chance you'll get the quiet coach, and you may not even know it until you get on. This needs to be fixed: most booking engines allow you to specify the quiet coach, but not say "anything except the quiet coach".

On the quiet carriage no you canm't talk to the person next to you

Says who? That simply isn't the case on any train I use (as someone who always books the quiet coach). Virgin East Coast, for example, says

To help keep things tranquil there are a few rules we need you to abide by in the quiet coach. Mobile phone calls and noise from electronic devices are strictly forbidden, and conversations must be conducted quietly, so everyone can escape distractions or enjoy a nap.

Which is not remotely "no you canm't talk to the person next to you".

Oh god the quiet carriage

It's like daily mail readers anonymous

I have no problem making a scene, but generally you don't have to, you just have to smile, steely eyed at them repeating 'this is my seat' until they move.

I had a seat reserved from London to Edinburgh recently and an extremely rude chap refused to move out of my seat. After some back and forth and demanding to see my ticket he still wasn't moving, so I said "I'm going to win this argument, you are going to move why don't we skip the part where you are embarrassed by the guard being called to move you". He was outraged Etc etc, but he did move. (Much to the entertainment of those in the surrounding seats)

My favourite part was that he got off at the next stop, so why he was so bothered was beyond me.

The quiet carriage is to stop the use of mobile phones - a god send! I once did a 2 hr train journey opposite a woman who phoned 10 different people to tell each one (loudly) about her day!

IMO all mobiles should be banned on trains except on one carriage where everyone who wants go share their news with total strangers can compete for volume!

Both rude. It's not always possible to book a seat. It pisses me off no end that I travel 5 days a week, 48 weeks per year, spending a fortune on trains over the year and I can't book a seat on my season ticket. People with kids travelling once a year book seats, feeling entitled etc etc.
I am a grumpy peak time commuter though

The Virgin train I was on Wednesday just said reserved above the seats on the electronic display would be better if it said from x station and to y station.
I waited to switch from my reserved seat to the empty reserved one facing the other way until we had passed the last station before London.

Has anyone sat on the lap/put baby on the lap of a refuser to move?

Yanbu happens to me a lot. Had this with a woman when I was taking DD to London for a treat - woman was most off with me when I politly asked her to move and seriously expected me and DD to sit in someone else's reserved seats.

Littleorange, if they have booked seats, they don't just feel entitled, they are are entitled. It's the seat reservation that entitles them to the seat.

It's the person with a season ticket who thinks that this should override the seat reservation who feels entitled.

Train reservations are a nightmare...
Afaik you can't reserve seats after booking unless you go into a station the day before. Also if you buy your tickets at the station on the day you travel you can't - which I have started doing since the time the ticket machine was playing up and I couldn't get my pre booked tickets...caused all kind of grief.
I have had problems with people seating in my reserved seats in the past but they have always moved - once someone swapped seats for me because they had messed up the reservation and we had two seats on one table and one on a table down the carriage - my (at the time 7yo) wasn't keen on sitting by themselves on a table full of strangers - I have also squeezed the three of us onto two seats with 3 seats reserved on a busy train so that we freed up a seat. I have not made it to my reserved seats on an extremely overcrowded train with two DCs (one very little) - couldn't physically push my way through for the first hour until enough people had got off.
Also if you reserve a seats (at least this used to be the case) I found that they allocate the seats one after another - meant you had someone sat next to you on a two seater - even on a quieter train. That just encourages people not to sit in their reserved seat - and so if the train then gets busy someone doesn't know whether they can sit in the reserved seat or not.

Anyway I just paid a bit extra to get an open return as our plans weren't fixed, bought tickets in the station -so no reservations.
I also hate the virgin electronic reservations - before you could tell before you got on the train if all the seats in a coach were reserved by the tickets on the back of the seats - with the electronic ones you can't - got on a train with 2 DCs (14 and 8) and had to drag the luggage through 3 carriages of reserved but mainly empty seats reading the tiny displays. When I mentioned it to a virgin staff member and said the old tickets on seats were better for that reason she said they weren't as people used to move them and didn't I know you could view the reservations online? so you know which seats might be free - so for the return I tried to. I don't think you can....
I asked the guard on the platform which was the unreserved coach and got on that - only to find later it wasn't and a lot of the seats were reserved -I assumed it was just very busy (they announced about 45 mins later the unreserved coaches as people were struggling to find seats). After much faffing and letting another family (younger DCs) sit together etc - we were sat on the 3 aisle seats behind each other when I noticed a family at a table get up to get off at the next station so I went to move my DCs and just as I got to the table someone jumped up off a two seater into one of the seats . My DCs sat on the two seater and I sat at the table - so at least we could see each other.
And I found the electronic display confusing as some said 'reserved' and some said 'available until' (?). The old style tickets had more information -saying reserved from X until Y. There were a foreign pair (youngish girl and older woman) with reservations but they came to sit in them between stations just before they were getting off (showed me their tickets) . I think the child opposite me was sat in their seats - but I couldn't get my head round it to help them...

(I ended up on a table opposite a child of about 7 whose parents were sat elsewhere...playing a game on a mobile with the volume on - after 2.5 hrs I did come close to snatching it off her and jumping up and down on it...)

To make things even worse the connecting train was another long journey one -it had the old style tickets on the seat backs but most of them had been reserved until the (major) station we got on at
I just think in this day and age we could have a better, more streamline system - even lights on reserved seats on the electronic display ones would make life a lot easier -and definitely more info on them.
Finally giving up seats - that attitude children have paid for seats etc makes my blood boil. It really is incredibly bad manners. We were recently on a local train and there were a family with two v. young DCs (3-5) sitting on two seats playing on phones. About 20 min before the terminal the train got busy and there were lots of people standing - including a couple of older (60-70) men. I sat my 8 yo on my knee to let one man sit down...the family could easily have sat one of the adults on the two seater with the DCs to let the other man sit down ...they didn't. I would have had some sympathy if they still had hours to travel -but for 20 mins? Just incredibly rude and entitled.

reserved some on a business trip at a table in the quiet carriage to work on my lap top. Guess who had reserved the 3 seats around the table? A toddler, 2 parents and a baby. Their cups, liquids and all the rest covered just about every bit of the table excpet for the space of my lap top and there was not an iota of silence. Why book the silent carriage when you've 2 small children and most of the rest of the train is free of other people?
On the quiet carriage no you canm't talk to the person next to you and no you can't take calls on your phone. If you want to talk you get up from your seat and walk into another carriage and make the noises there

Electronic equipment is usually forbidden in the quiet coach. A laptop is electronic equipment, you shouldn't have been looking to use it for that purpose

I had to make a rare 'long haul' train journey some weeks back for a family funeral. When I got on I completely neglected to look at/think about the reservation status of the seat. It wasn't until someone politely jogged me out of my melancholy that I remembered (with a sinking feeling). I vacated seat immediately and without question, actually embarrassed that I'd managed to sit in someone else's place! Fortunately I managed to find a seat in the unreserved carriage to get back to my thoughts. I would never have the balls to brazen it out in someone else's reserved seat!!

Ubik, speak for yourself I love the quiet coach and I'm certainly no Daily Mail reader!

I was on the tube once, a lady got on the train and told me to move in a very rude manner, because her "little boy wants to sit next to mummy".. the "little boy" was at least 18. WEIRDOS ON THE TRAINS.

While I will move out of a reserved seat if I have inadvertently occupied one, I actually think that given that reserving a seat doesn't cost anything it should just be stopped, and boarding a train should be a first come first serve basis. Everyone on the train has the same ticket, so everyone should have the same entitlements to the seats. IMO.

This is evidenced by the fact that often when there are delays and cancellations virgin etc make trains non reserved so any seat reservations you have then become void anyway.

Years ago I got on a train from cardiff to Swindon and it was completely packed. I managed to get a seat and managed to tuck the dog underneath it so she was out of the way given that at the next stop it ended up with multiple people standing. At Bristol a woman approached with the conductor and said very rudely "there! That's her and she's sitting in my seat." Incredibly unpleasant. The guard said to me "excuse me, this seat is reserved." I apologised and got up, at which point he said to the woman "there you go, there is your reserved seat, I will take this lady to first class." Now, I am VI so had no idea the seat was reserved, had the woman just mentioned it I would have got up and she would have had the same result, but she had to be unpleasant which there was no need for. So I enjoyed my free tea and biscuits in first class.

Virgin do indeed keep an unreserved coach but in the nature of things when the platform is announced (at Euston) and the rush begins it's the people with no children and no mobility problems who get to it first!

I will dislodge anybody except the visibly disabled from my reserved seat - that's why I reserved it. Yes, I know the squatter may be travelling last-minute and it's JTB.

As for the quiet coach: there is nothing wrong with a laptop being used for silent work - the tap of a keyboard is not noise. It's mobiles and shoot-em-up games (unless on silent) which must be O-U-T out. If you are travelling with children and are in the quiet coach, whether you booked seats and found they were in the quiet coach, or you didn't book and could only find seats in it, that's your problem. The noisy devices must go off and stay off.