Great Western Coffee Shop

I'm looking to book a weekday off-peak 1st class ticket for early December. I would prefer one of the single seats, however using GWR on-line booking (and trying different preferences) I can only seem to reserve one of the 2 single seats facing each other (1 & 6 in coach L), or one of the seats in a group of 4 around a table. I have managed to book a single seat in the past, but without success now apparently.

Could it be that GWR have changed their allocation of seats, or perhaps there are more 1st advance bookings? Also is it possible to ask GWR if a specific seat is available rather than see what the booking engine gives you?

Thanks in advance (no pun intended!).

Not as I understand it using the online booking engine.  What you can do however is request table, window/Aisle preference. 

One trick to note is that most booking engines tell you your seat number when the ticket is added to your shopping basket but before you have checked out by paying for the ticket.  If you don't like your seat, then keep your booking in your basket and book another identical ticket (hopefully price will not have gone up),  the booking site will give you a different seat for the second ticket and if you prefer that delete the original ticket from the basket and check out with the one you want. 

And keep trying that if you don't like the second offer!

Many thanks Tim and ChrisB! I'll try that and see what I can book.  :)

I've tried that method before. It can help to remove or add some of the preferences - aisle, window, quiet carriage etc as that sometimes seems to make quite a difference to the seat the booking system allocated to you.

It appears to me that seats are allocated in a certain order for a certain kind of stock.  I tend to book as soon as tickets are released and my last 4 or so trips to London (HST, standard class, 4 people round a table) have all been booked into coach D seats 29 etc.  I suspect I may have had the first booking on those trains. 

It used to be possible years ago to reserve a specific seat at the station as I remember doing it on a few occasions. This was back in the Aptis days and it also worked for sleeper berths as I managed to snag cabins in the middle of the carriage.  Then things changed and the bloke (who was ex-BR) at my local station told me that this was no longer possible with the new kit. He was the most knowledgeable bloke who could do obscure tickets and when he retired it wasn't great.

I have no conclusive evidence for this but with HST diagrams being slowly replaced by IETs, it may be that the differing seat layouts might mean that certain types of seats are not available due to which train may turn up on the day.

I suspect you might be right - certainly for bookings in 2018

I suspect you are right as well.  Although I'd be surprised if the booking engine websites (which are not just specific to GWR will not continue to offer the option of indicating seating preference (which always has a caveat that it isn't guaranteed) 

Maybe the desired seat is already booked? There are very few in each set,

Yes that may well be the case. Out of interest I've attempted various bookings on several different days and I'm finding the same issue, ie the booking engine is providing seats at tables-for-four and tables-for-two in K & L, but no single window seats which I would prefer.


Yes the transition from HST to IET will have to be taken into account in the booking systems.

If there is only a small number of these seats and they are popular I imagine they go quickly on release.