What is the etiquette?

[Dharmamother]

I'm going to preface this by saying if it's my biggest problem I'm lucky. But genuinely I want to know what the etiquette is....

This morning I got on a train to London from Birmingham. The reservations were labelled above every seat as not working. And when I got to my seat there was already someone sitting there.

In this situation would you a) ask the person to move or b) sit elsewhere?

I did b on the grounds the reservations weren't labelled and they'd sat there in good faith. However, I was conscious someone might demand I left the sit I moved to. ( They didn't)

I'm genuinely curious if there's an etiquette here. What if the person in your original seat refused to move and the person who was supposed to sit in the other seat demanded you move?!

b)

Often the train manager will do an announcement to apologise the seat reservation system is not working and its a free for all. There are free seats in Coach A (or whatever).

I would sit elsewhere if there were plenty of free seats. I would then only claim “my” seat if someone got on and claimed mine, and the train had filled up so I’d have to stand. But that’s because I find prolonged standing incredibly painful (which is why I always book a seat).

We had this situation a few months ago, everyone was in the wrong seats, so people tbat didnt have seats sat anywhere, but the people that booked the ones we in asked us to move so we did, was a bit of a pain with my disabled wife, but there enough free seats. And we actually ended up at a table which l suppose was better.