Train seat reservations

[littlebilliie]

That if you booked a seat it’s yours?

There is a lot of variations in train prices so there isn't a price the rest of you pay, is it a return, did you book well in advance, have you paid for a pass.

By the way it wasn't peak commuter time, train was crowded due to cancellations.

She doesn't she gets an 11 o'clock train going towards London and midday train out of London to avoid peak times at both ends. She still need to know she will be able sit down. The type of people that won't move out of someone else's booked seat aren't going to offer up their seat (even if it's a priority seat) if all seats are a free for all are they?

Then you find the Guard and he will shift him/er. If he/she still refuses then BT police will come and have a quiet word with him/her.

I didn't say they were dicks but actually they were to the young staff member who couldnt magically give us both the seats we'd booked. She repeatedly said they would get seats, they weren't interested and insisted we had to move even though we had booked the seats just like them. Well they got the seats they wanted and we had a wonderful time.

I’ve had people refuse to move before now. They had put the reservation cards on different seats to confuse matters. The train manager wouldn’t do anything about them.

The train I was on was crowded, no idea where the guard was but it would have been a nightmare trying to find him. I tried to go to the toilet, fortunately being a priority seat it was close. Five people were standing in there that's how crowded it was.

There are a myriad of reasons people may not be able to avoid peak times.

A friend has regular appointments at a specialist hospital in London and they're never later than 10.30. It takes 2+ hours to get there, so she has to go in the rush hour. I've had to do it when I've been on courses in London, too.

Does she book assistance. We do if DH is travelling as he's disabled and when this happened they made sure he got his seat.

Guard's wife here.

If people won't vacate booked seats then the Guard will tell them that the train isn't going anywhere until they move.
If they kick off about that then BT Police are called. BT Police have the power of arrest. By this time the culprits have usually vacated the seats with a lot of huffing and puffing

So what? Why does this mean they should be done away with? Is it because you’re disorganised so just want to sit in other people’s seats without issue?

Also I frequently travel between London and my hometown and rarely have cancelled trains / seat reservations.

She may have to do in future but hasn't in the past.

We did have a panic earlier in the year with a cancelled /delayed trains situation meaning all reservations were off. The train staff were brilliant and ensured she got a seat - they probably would have done so regardless but they did say they would find her a seat as she was an elderly traveller with a reservation which kind of implied that if she didn't have a reservation they might not have been so helpful.

I suspected so which is why if I faced an issue I would just find a staff member. I will happily hold up the entire train to ensure somebody gets out of my seat.

The trouble is that on a really overcrowded train you might struggle to find the guard. Not his fault but still a problem.

I had a terrible journey with two changes and could see I wasn't getting a seat on the second train after sitting on the platform in December waiting for over an hour obviously I missed my third train. The train guy on the platform spoke to the guard and they got me a seat in first class. A five hour journey ended up being over 7 hours.

In the last heatwave the two previous trains had been cancelled and they told me not to even try to get in and redirected me to another train. I live in South Devon and we seem to get loads of cancellations. Not sure if it's better elsewhere.

I always assert my right to my booked seat. Usually, I just say 'sorry, this is my seat' with a big smile and the person moves. But recently I had a seat booked for a 4-hour journey, on a train I knew would get very busy later, and found a woman my sort of age (over 50) in my seat with her elderly mother next to her.

In some circumstances (e.g. nice elderly person / mum with baby) I might wander off and try to find another seat but this very naicely-spoken lady stayed seated and told me she had reserved seats elsewhere but someone else was sitting in them, mum then said to her daughter, 'Perhaps we should have asked them to move?' i.e. daughter hadn't wanted to ask so had passed her problem on to me instead. 'My mother is elderly', the daughter said as if that settled it.

'Well your mum doesn't have to move but I have booked this seat,' I said with a smile, 'Oh I see, so you must have it,' the daughter said frostily, made a performance of getting out of the seat and went off to have a martyrdom a couple of rows away in another reserved seat. Mum and I both put our headphones on and settled back.

I’m disabled @littlebilliie
You weren’t ableist if there was many other seats AND the disabled spaces were free.

It sounds to me that they wanted the table seats for themselves whereas the disabled seats are NOT in 4 so they couldn’t sit together.
Using disability in that way is shit and makes our (disabled) life much harder

Pardon?!?

This is a problem with LNER as well. Train line doesnt seem to always recognise when seats are booked via the operators website. Luckily in our case, the couple were very kind about displacing me, DH and two DC under 5, plus the plethora of toys and activity books spread out already, and offered to sit elsewhere themselves.

Last time i travelled by train in the uk it was absolutely pack, aisles completely full of people standing and of course people sat in our reserved seats who didn't want to move. Thankfully someone else let me have their seat as I was carrying my baby in my arms so standing really wasn't safe.

Much prefer trains in my country, they're either commuter trains where no one can reserve a seat but not long journeys, or they're intercity trains where everyone gets a reserved seat when buying a ticket (and you can choose which exact seat, and for a small fee reserve the one next to you too so you don't have to sit next to a stranger). No arguments because everyone has their own seat and no one ever has to stand.

I wonder if this explains the problem I've been having with Trainline recently. I book my journey, request seats and no seat reserved. I then have to phone and they contact the train company who reserve the seat. It is a recent thing.

This would be great but then the train companies would have to do away with the wildly expensive use on any service tickets which cost slightly more than a black market kidney.

If someone refused to move from my reserved seat, I’d say, “I’ll just have to sit on your knee then.” If they still didn’t move I’d follow through…

I would always reserve a seat with extra leg room when I used to travel. The trouble is I don’t usually look disabled. If I’ve got my crutches or similar with me it’s fine but at other times it’s been very awkward to ask someone to move when to them I look well enough to stand. Im a private person so don’t want to go into details about my disability with a stranger.

Even a heavily pregnant woman or someone with a small baby on their lap?

I was talking about people commuting. Pay a lot more per trip than people paying in advance who have much cheaper tickets who can also reserve a seat.

Well yes, thats another reason why seat reservations cause issues. When someone has one, gets to a train and it doesn't even exist anymore.