Saving seats in train

[managedmis]

Every morning a woman on my train saves her mate a seat. Every morning the train is rammed and loads of people ask her to move her bag but she refuses and saves she saving it for her pal, who eventually shows up. People end up standing, the seat free, then pal arrives. I've seen a couple of people ignore her, move the bag and plump down in the seat, the entire train almost cheered.

What's the protocol here?

I was thinking about reporting her to the train staff but then that seems childish?

She’s the childish one, I haven’t ‘saved seats’ since the school bus!

Announce that you will sit on the bag unless it's removed. If it isn't removed, sit on the bag.

I'll admit I can be very petty but I would consider it time well spent finding out where bag woman gets on, driving to the stop BEFORE hers in the morning and sitting in 'her' seat, having placed empty bags on all the seats around me, so that when she gets on the train you can tell her 'sorry, these seats are ALL saved'.

Or buy her a camping chair for Christmas and present it to her on the train so her friend can always be guaranteed a seat.

A Londoner friend sees this often and asks is this your bag? Sometimes the person ignores him so they can keep saving the seat so he pulls out his phone, 'Best get the TFL on this! Unattended bag no one's claiming!' and they move it.

@HebeMumsnet That’s brilliant! I’m here for that level of pettiness!

I've picked up the bag in the past and I would again. I can't believe all these regular commuters are putting up with this.

Report to the conductor and start tweeting about it.

In fact, take a photo of the entitled bitch and include it in your tweet to the train company. Nice, measured response.

"Oh, is this an unattended bag?! Can someone call the guard to alert them to a suspicious item? Yikes, can't be too careful!"

CF will pick it up pdq and then you have a seat

@HebeMumsnet Namechange fail?

Oh @HebeMumsnet I think I might love you a bit that's the level of petty I aspire to when dealing with dickheads like seat saver.

Very selfish woman. If her friend wants a seat next to her that badly, she can travel down the line to meet her mate at the further station and they can get on together.

Otherwise, if they want to chat and there are not two seats, they can stand and chat.

Butchy No, no namechange fail. I'm out and proud as petty! (Ask anyone on my train).

I used to catch the train to school. We often tried to save seats for our friends who got on at a later stop in our compartment but we always moved our things at the very first request. In our defence we were young and also used to take up far less space this way (as we would squeeze around 12-16 of us into an 8 seater compartment) than is we sat separately throughout the train.

Even at that age we knew that you can't actually save seats on public transport and this woman is an adult who should know far better.

I do however understand your reticence to touching/moving somebody else's posessions but the vast majority of people know they have to move them but just try their luck hoping nobody will ask. So you're always better to ask.

In this situation I would say it will likely go something like this;

OP- Can you move your bags please?
Woman - Oh actually I'm saving a seat for my friend
OP - It's a public train I'm afraid you can't save seats. Please move your bag.

She will most likely then sulkily move her bag. If she doesn't you can either;

1. back down (which is a shame and I don't advocate but I know some people can't do confrontation at all)
2. Sit on the bag
3. move the bag yourself and sit down
4. Take the attritional approach and just ask her repeatedly to please move her bag until she gets annoyed and moves it.

I hate people who do that. I once saw a man move his bag onto a vacant seat when lots of people got on at a stop on an already crowded train.

Pick up bag then with the rest of the carriage rugby pass it to the front of the train, when it passes an open door at a station, DROPGOAL!

I've moved bags in the past, to sit down. Once I just dumped the bag in the lap of the person who'd left it on the seat. I'm quite shy and timid, but sometimes I surprise myself.

My favourite though, was on a packed train, all regular passengers. My preferred seat was taken, so I sat nearby . A couple of stops later, a woman got on and asked me - in a very entitled way - to move up so she could have my seat. She wanted to sit near her friends, who had the four or six seats across the aisle. She was very surprised when I said I wasn't going to move but the two seats to my left were vacant.
"But I want to sit there!" She spluttered, in outrage.
I calmly and sweetly replied "Oh! You should have got on the train earlier. I wanted to sit by the window, where that man is sitting, but he was already there so I had to sit somewhere else. That's how it works on public transport." And smiled.
The bloke by the window had a good chuckle.
She sat to my left and talked across me. That was fine. The whole group of women were playground bullies (in their fifties and sixties) led by an appalling 'queen bee'.
Ah. Those days are gone. The Queen Bee retired, the trains became trams, I don't work any more... so much better now.

Ha! Hush Patty.
In a minute.

At a major railway station, exhausted, spotted a seat, sat down.
Woman "My husband's sitting there!"
Patty "Oh? He must be very small - I didn't see him."

Pick up bag then with the rest of the carriage rugby pass it to the front of the train, when it passes an open door at a station, DROPGOAL!

I once knew somebody who has harrassed by someone on a train for sneezing (!) so when they got off they took their bag and dumped it in the station toilets

It never bothers me as in the days when I used the trains a LOT you could pull down the windows lean your head out a bit and get a loverly lungfull of that unique steam and coal smoke mixed together.

Necter of the gods that:)

At a major railway station, exhausted, spotted a seat, sat down.
Woman "My husband's sitting there!"
Patty "Oh? He must be very small - I didn't see him

Perfection.

I always move the bag unless they do. I’ve also thrown one and sat on one when the person has refused. Her friend can sit on her lap. I don’t ask either I tell them.

At a major railway station, exhausted, spotted a seat, sat down.

Woman "My husband's sitting there!"

Patty "Oh? He must be very small - I didn't see him."

---

This is one of my favourite MN posts ever - genius 😂

What does the friend do when she gets on and someone is in her seat?

The thing is how can she relax everyday knowing there is a potential battle to be had on a daily basis. I would find it so stressful knowing that people were seething in resentment about my entitled behaviour

Recently I caught the train to Oxford starting from Paddington, it only had a couple of carriages and when the doors opened everyone scrambled for seats. We were a group of 4 pensioners but two Oriental tourists pushed past us and grabbed the table for 4 we were about to sit down, very creakily, at. Imagine our surprise when they put their suitcases on the window seats and sat in the aisle seats!

I asked them politely to move their cases so two of us could sit, but they just ignored us. Then a very tall young man who'd observed all this reached over, said 'let me help you with that', and grabbed the two suicases and swung them up and over on to the overhead luggage racks, to screams from the tourists who suddenly spoke English, saying 'thief, thief'. They got up to check their suitcases and the 4 of us slid in to the seats.

The rest of the packed coach all applauded! And the tourists had to stand most of the way to Oxford.