Great Western Coffee Shop

Passenger boards the train, then takes up an (apparently) unreserved seat. A platform assistant then boards the train with other passengers in tow, and asks the original passenger to vacate their seat, as it has been reserved.

Original passenger points out that there appear to be no reservations on this service, but platform assistant insists that they move anyway.

Who is officially in the right, original passenger or platform assistant?

Platform assistant, as byelaws state that you must follow instructions of any employee of the railway,
morally the passenger already sat in the seat though.

I assume if a platform assistant requests this then the person may have been escorted due to being infirm so I can't see much of a problem as it is courtesy to offer your seat to someone that may struggle to stand. This has happened to me before more as a result of occupant of original seat refusing to vacate so at least I did the decent thing. However thsis may not be the case but it is a possibility

Passenger was able bodied with no sign of being infirm.

Happened to me once. In First Class, as well. I shrugged and moved to another seat. Then as soon as the attendant was gone, I moved back to the window seat again. Nobody ever claimed it.

In fact the platform staff member was wrong. If no reservation labels are provided on a train then it's officially deemed that the reservations have not been provided. You're perfectly within your rights to occupy any vacant seat and ask anyone who waves a reservation coupon at you to go forth and multiply as politely as you see fit.


Not strictly correct. There are various references in the byelaws to obeying the "reasonable instructions" of an "authorized person" but there is no catch-all byelaw that says "you must obey all instructions from rail staff". The closest is 12(2), but that refers very specifically to safety issues which this clearly isn't:


Even in this case you can still argue "good cause" for disobeying the instructions if the authorized person is talking ballcocks.


The byelaw dealing with reservations is here, with my emphasis in bold:


No notice indicating the reservation, no reservation. It's that simple.

Twice on Cross Country  I have got on an up train at  Truro with the seat reservation system not working. Then only to find a bit later on it is working and I am sitting in a reserved seat for someone due to get on before my destination.
I find this really annoying as by then it is not always easy to find an empty seat and the person getting on can quite legitimately ask you to move.

Surely by that reasoning, anyone could just whip out the reservation card and sit wherever they like...

...

Except that this is an offence under the byelaws punishable by a fine. Not that this stops people doing it, of course ::)

'...where a notice indicates that it is reserved for a specified ticket holder...'

which as far as I am concerned can just as well be the seat reservation ticket in my possession - the byelaw says nothing about the notice having to be 'attached' to the seat.

Some electronic systems (bearing in mind that over a long journey some seats can be reserved more than once)only show one of the reservations.... Very irritating when you get a no show and think your safe then after a few hours get turfed out!!

You'll note that the byelaw distinguishes between the "notice" and being the holder of "a valid ticket entitling [you] to be in that particular place". The notice is the tag in the seat indicating the reservation, the ticket is your reservation voucher. Both are required. So your reservation voucher might entitle you to turf someone out of an unreserved seat "as far as you are concerned", but you're wrong, and if you ever try it out on me you'll get short shrift ;)

Indeed. If you interpret the byelaw to say that the 'notice' could be the ticket in your hand then what about the poor sap who's sat in 'your' seat blissfully unaware of any such 'notice'?

It's the railway that is nearly always at fault here, and any ire should be directed at them, not the person who has sat in what they believe to be an unreserved seat.

Yes, I'll concede that a very small minority of passengers will remove a reservation ticket that isn't theirs, but I'd grass them up if I saw them do so and then a debate/argument ensued between them and the reservation holder. If a reservation notice/display is there and they still won't budge then it's time to involve the Train Manager/Conductor. Although I've never witnessed it I have heard tale of folks being bumped up to 1st Class when a stubborn passenger has refused to give up a seat reserved for someone else.

You will not be greatly surprised to learn that I believe your interpretation of the byelaw is incorrect; if I am in possession of both valid travel ticket & seat reservation voucher I expect to be able to occupy the specified seat unless reservations have been officially suspended and a PA announcement made to that effect. Any passenger occupying the seat for which I hold a reservation will be politely asked to move.

In very many years of rail travel this approach has only failed me once and the mere threat of Train Manager involvement resolved the situation very rapidly.     

"Advantage Blakey" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_score)  ;D

Sat on the fence (cf net) rather than the umpire's chair there, Chris? Which (B)blakey?  :P ;) ;D

Or was the capital B an indication of your scoring of the point?

"Quiet, please."  :-X

You won't be greatly surprised to learn that I still think (know, actually) you're wrong then. Regardless of arguments about the definition of a "notice" in the byelaws, reservations are "officially suspended" when a TOC fails to provide the labels. At this point the compensation arrangements that are in place for when seat reservations aren't provided apply: there are minimum compensation levels specified in the NRCoC, and many train companies offer more generous compensation arrangements in the Passenger's Charters should anyone holding a seat reservation have to stand as a result of said reservation not being honoured. As BMN has pointed out, your argument is with the TOC, not the passenger occupying the seat. Put yourself in their position: how would you feel if you ended up playing a game of musical chairs on a train with no seat reservation labels whilst a series of aggrieved and officious passengers brandishing reservation coupons shoved you around from one seat to the next?

In the situation you describe, the passenger was perfectly within their rights to stand their ground and stay put. No reservation label, no reservation. The fact that you managed to intimidate them into moving by threatening them with the train manager is immaterial: had you actually followed through on that threat then the train manager (assuming they know the rules, of course) would have told you exactly the same as I have above. And had it been me sitting there, I'd have told you ever so politely to jog on. I've done it before (although, I assume, not to you of course).

Umpire?

New day, new Ump in the chair....

Deuce (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0cfd74SBKk).

 ;D

I have no idea because the situation you describe has not arisen, and never will, because I do not travel on long distance train services without a seat reservation.

And I do not regard insisting on occupying four reserved seats around a table (yes, they used to exist!) when travelling with the wife and two young children as being officious.   

Fair enough. You opinion evidently differs from mine.

What is indisputable however, is that if one day you find yourself in the situation of trying to evict people from your "reserved" seats on a train with no reservations provided, and the person you're trying to kick out knows the rules and refuses to budge, you can threaten and jump up and down as much as you like but there's nothing you or the train staff will legitimately be able to do about it.

Bearing in mind all the above comments, how about this scenario!

Passenger J Bloggs arrives at Penzance station and boards the 09:40 PNZ-MAN train, finds seat C25 UNRESERVED, and settles down for journey to Manchester.

At 10:00 Mr G Bennett goes on line and buys a Ticket for the 15:31 BHM-SPT train that day, he obtains a reserved seat.

At 15:30 Mr G Bennett finds Mr Bloggs in his Seat C25!

Who is in the wrong?

PS sorry haven't post since Feb 15th, had problems getting Steam Up on my PC, thats the last time I buy cheap coal.

You raise an interesting point, smokey. CrossCountry have made great play in recent months with their facility to book a seat up to 10 mins before departure.

I'd argue that, if Joe Bloggs sits in a seat that is marked as 'available' at the time he boarded, then he should be entitled to occupy that seat for the duration of his journey. If Gordon Bennett comes along later with a seat reservation and the display has subsequently been updated, then Mr Bloggs should stay put and Mr Bennett should take up the issue with CrossCountry. Of course the display could say 'Available until X', but, with the facilty to book up to 10 minutes before departure somewhere en route, should Mr Bloggs have to crane his neck at every station to check whether he can continue to occupy his seat? What if he decides to have a kip?

Again, it's the rail industry at fault. CrossCountry may well trumpet their new fangled reservation option, but I think they've been somewhat blinded by their own (misguided) marketing versus what could happen on the ground.

Now, I know ticket price shouldn't be a guide as to whether you get a seat or not, but I'd be pretty miffed if I'd settled into my 'Available' seat at Penzance after paying for an Anytime fare to Manchester, only to discover some Johnny-come-lately (using XC's silly 'up to 10 mins before' reservation) has legitimate claim to turf me out at Birmingham with his Off Peak to Stockport!

Doesn't the display on XC services show the rather vague, but probably arse-covering 'This seat may be reserved' message on those few seats that can be booked after the train has started its journey?

In all honesty, I was hypothesising and don't actually know what system XC have in place for their '10 minute' reservation thingy.

Should really investigate before making such a hypothesis, (which, after investigation, would be a conclusion rather than conjecture) but I tend to avoid XC unless absolutely necessary.  ;) ::) ;D

The ten minute reservation system should now state "Reserved - this seat may be reserved en-route" if someone subsequently books that seat is will show "Reserved" between the stations of which it has been booked and then revert to may be reserved message. In theory the Train Management System should dial up every ten minutes or so and check for new reservations.
Train Managers are able to suspend ten minute reservations for parts of the journey (other than those that have already been booked) - handy when the screens in coach C aren't working - and also print off paper labels from their avantix machine, 3G signal permitting.
In other news the electronic reservation system on XC HSTs should be online very shortly, although being bespoke like the catering galleys, when anything goes wrong it'll probably take forever to fix.