East coast trains seat selection

[Butts]

Just an observation, but I usually travel on one of the less busy EC services from GLC and there always seems to be a fair proportion of "no shows" for reserved seats, at least to about NCL.

Now a question - is it the accepted practice that:
if the holder of the reservation does not appear within a few minutes after the train has departed the "from" station named on the seat reservation, then it is permissible to assume the seat is no longer reserved for that part of the journey?

Or is that still an offence?
Obviously if they appear later on (having boarded at the wrong end of the train for example) you would have to move.

Perhaps it would be safer to check with the guard/TM?

Theres no need to go through all that palava - just sit in one of the many unreserved seats anywhere on the Train. This applies to East Coast or Virgin.
As most people do a "pavlov" and sit in their allocated seat "without a bell ringing" you will have a wide choice

Peace will be with you, and you will have no trouble !!!

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Just an observation, but I usually travel on one of the less busy EC services from GLC and there always seems to be a fair proportion of "no shows" for reserved seats, at least to about NCL.

I'm not sure that I should publish the figure here, but suffice to say that if I provided the industry's estimate of how many Advance ticket holders do not travel (as booked) you just wouldn't believe me. Really. You wouldn't.

Perhaps it would be safer to check with the guard/TM?

No point. (As I've stated previously) I rarely bother to sit in my reserved seat - there's always better seats to be found, usually NOT in a coach where the first Advance tickets to be sold are to be found.

Peace will be with you, and you will have no trouble !!!

Indeed!

 

[amcluesent]

if the holder of the reservation does not appear within a few minutes after the train has departed the "from" station named on the seat reservation, then it is permissible to assume the seat is no longer reserved for that part of the journey?

On the EC services I use, the accepted practice on a busy service is pax loiter in the vestibule then as soon as the train pulls away they sit themselves down in the 'reserved' seats which remain free.

Only seen it hiccup once, when 10 minutes into the journey four Chinese folks turned up to claim their seats. Where had they been hiding?

 

[lyesbkz]

Only seen it hiccup once, when 10 minutes into the journey four Chinese folks turned up to claim their seats. Where had they been hiding?

Perhaps it was a chain reaction, as in they'd sat in somebody else's seats thinking they were no-shows but had then been turfed out of them when the people appeared - so they decided to fall back to their reserved seats etc.

 

[Deerfold]

Only seen it hiccup once, when 10 minutes into the journey four Chinese folks turned up to claim their seats. Where had they been hiding?

Cafe?

 

[ainsworth74]

Only seen it hiccup once, when 10 minutes into the journey four Chinese folks turned up to claim their seats. Where had they been hiding?

Could have been looking for their seats? Just boarded wherever and then took ages trying to get to the right carriage?

 

[PaxVobiscum]

Cafe?

Ho ho. Took me a minute to get that.