The sorry state of British train etiquette – and the 10 worst offences

[whole diary]

[eightonedee]

Quote from: Mark A on February 09, 2025, 10:22:10
.....By the way, in France, has anyone ever managed to claim a seat that they've reserved once it's been occupied by someone else?.....

Since you ask the answer is 'Yes' - in fact two seats when we were travelling to the south west of France to watch Exeter Chiefs play.

Our seats were occupied by a couple of Twenty Somethings who quite happily moved when I pointed out, in my best Failed GCE 'O' Level schoolboy French, that we held reservations for them.

As this seems a common issue on all reserved seat services (to be fair, it can sometimes be difficult to match numbers to seats when you are unfamiliar and in a fluster working out where you can put your luggage), and as I have done a number of TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) trips over the years, I cannot say I have noticed it being more difficult to sort this out in France than in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

There is one issue though that I think should be given more prominence than the 10 in the article. This is the habit of some people to push their way onto a busy train as soon as it arrives, sometimes before departing passengers have even started disembarking, and despite clear instructions to let the passengers off first, please.

Oh - and add bikes in vestibules when there are bike spaces free nearby, especially now that bike spaces are mostly clearly marked. I might make an exception for the two-car Turbos where as far as I can see the pike spaces provided on the last refit look more like luggage racks!

[infoman]

Correct me if I am wrong but if you are sat in a seat marked unreserved on cross country services

Another passenger can buy a ticket at the ticket office

and can then claim that "unreserved" seat saying that they have a reservation for that seat.

Even though the seat was shown unreserved for the entire length of trains journey 

[grahame]

Correct me if I am wrong but if you are sat in a seat marked unreserved on cross country services

Another passenger can buy a ticket at the ticket office

and can then claim that "unreserved" seat saying that they have a reservation for that seat.

Even though the seat was shown unreserved for the entire length of trains journey 

Correction un-necessary - you are not wrong.  Reservations can be bought on Cross Country trains even when the service is under way.    If you get on the 09:27 at Plymouth this morning, headed for (say) Ladybank and take an unreserved seat, someone could book a ticket and reservation on that train from Newcastle at 16:35 headed to Edinburgh.

Two pedanticisms.  I believe there are some seats that are unreservable.   And it's not just another passenger buying a ticket at a ticket office - people can buy reservations online too.

[ChrisB]

People can obtain free reservations through texting with XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)).

You are correct in that there are unreservable seats that are marked 'available'. Those that can be reserved but aren't yet are marked 'May be reserved'.

So sit in any empty 'unreserved' seat where possible. All others maybe reserved at some point in the journey. I do think that they now have this about right & quite often their '10-minute reservations' are full & seats are still available on boarding.