What's the point of 'Quiet Coaches' on trains?

[Terfinator]

Genuine question.

I used to think that it was one coach of the train reserved for a quiet atmosphere. However, this quite clearly isn't true as half the time there's someone having a loud banal phone conversation, or narrating their entire day out loud, or listening to the latest radio one shite.

Being British, most people (myself included ) usually just give the death stare and a few tuts, but not actually challenge the culprit directly...

Sorka - I was stuck on a train stuck between stations when a woman on the seat across the aisle, put her feet up on the seat opposite, took a pair of nail clippers out and proceeded to ping bits of her nails about the place.

Gingernaut Ah nail clippers. I've seen that a few times on the train. I have definitely seen more than one person doing it, though am not sure if it's the same group of people or loads of different people (I struggle to remember their faces).

Perhaps there's a shared delusion among commuters that they're at home when they're actually on the train?

Flossing was a first. I'm hoping it doesn't catch on.

To the pp ^^ worrying about having been given reserved seats in the quiet coach with a family, you could just sit in unreserved seats in another carriage. I do it all the time, train staff have never cared.

I don't get friends who decide to book seats on the quiet coach when they want to yak the whole journey. Elderly deaf women seem particularly bad for this.

That's the one case I'd have some sympathy for - deaf people often can only hear conversation properly if there isn't too much background noise.

I used to get put into the quiet coach when I reserved a seat without having requested it... I was always quiet anyway, but it would have been extremely annnoying if I'd needed to use my phone to work.

Sitting somewhere else only works if there's somewhere else to sit in the first place!

I loathe the quiet coach.

Full of self-important, boring people.

To stop you having to listen to overbearing jizzpenguins, full of their own self importance, talking utter shit. I love them

It drives me fucking mental that you can't request a non quiet carriage seat when booking. It completely defeats the point of the whole thing. And yes to the point that at busy times you often have no choice either.

I agree with the poster above that on commuter trains people usually are quiet.

But outside commuter times, forget it - especially at weekends. I've no idea why people have to be so noisy when there are lots of other carriages to choose.

I loathe the quiet coach. Full of self-important, boring people

Yep and proud of it. Actually, when I have to get up at the crack of dawn to go into London I just want to snooze on the train.

On Virgin east coast that allocate a seat but you can change it so if they put you in the quiet carriage just change it.

I don't understand why you'd continue to sit next to someone flossing their teeth. If someone annoys me even if I have a reserved seat I get up and move to an unreserved seat. And even if there's no seats I would rather stand than sit next to someone flossing their teeth/clipping their toe nails.

Well, heron98 I'm quite glad to be rid of nasty fuckers like you. You don't need to sit in the Quiet Coach. Indeed, please don't.

As far as I can tell it's so when you reserve 1 adult and 3 child tickets they can laugh to themselves as they place you there with "have to sit in the reserved seats or the tickets aren't valid" tickets.

I use trains a lot & rarely sit in my reserved seat. Sometimes coz I'm too lazy to find it or I just don't like the ambience/noise level of the carriage. No conductor has ever ever asked me why I'm not sitting in my reserved seat!

I was on a long distance train too early this morning, in the Quiet Coach, natch.

The announcement made by the train manager about the Quiet Carriage was that use of mobile phones was not permitted and "noise should be kept to a minimum" - so that is a direct contradiction of all of those posters saying that it's OK to talk at normal volume etc.

It was Great Western, who remain the most civilised train operating company , IME.

It seems fairly obvious that you shouldn't rabbit on at full volume in the quiet coach. Clearly they're not going to ban all talking but keep it quiet.