Standard Class coaches reserved for private parties

[All Line Rover]

I recently had the misfortune of travelling on a 9-car Virgin Pendolino from London to Manchester which had Coach A (the Standard Class Quiet Coach) reserved for a private party.

This is, I acknowledge, a rare occurrence. I'm glad it doesn't happen more often, as the Quiet Coach is (for me) what makes travelling long distances by train bearable.

My only question is what permits Virgin to make entire Standard Class carriages unavailable for public use? I can understand why Virgin would make a First Class carriage unavailable for public use, because its Pendolinos have ample First Class accommodation and (I assume) the provision of 145 First Class seats per train is not a franchise requirement. But does Virgin, along with every other train company, not have a franchise requirement to provide a minimum number of Standard Class seats? Surely Virgin couldn't reserve the Standard Class Quiet Coach for a private party on every one of its services?

 

[thenorthern]

I recently had the misfortune of travelling on a 9-car Virgin Pendolino from London to Manchester which had Coach A (the Standard Class Quiet Coach) reserved for a private party.

This is, I acknowledge, a rare occurrence. I'm glad it doesn't happen more often, as the Quiet Coach is (for me) what makes travelling long distances by train bearable.

My only question is what permits Virgin to make entire Standard Class carriages unavailable for public use? I can understand why Virgin would make a First Class carriage unavailable for public use, because its Pendolinos have ample First Class accommodation and (I assume) the provision of 145 First Class seats per train is not a franchise requirement. But does Virgin, along with every other train company, not have a franchise requirement to provide a minimum number of Standard Class seats? Surely Virgin couldn't reserve the Standard Class Quiet Coach for a private party on every one of its services?

I don't think there is a franchise requirement to have a set number of seats but I may be wrong. I know there is something about which trains they are going to use.

Normally when people reserve a whole coach its because they from a political party going to an event or something similar I would have thought.

 

[route:oxford]

I recently had the misfortune of travelling on a 9-car Virgin Pendolino from London to Manchester which had Coach A (the Standard Class Quiet Coach) reserved for a private party.

This is, I acknowledge, a rare occurrence. I'm glad it doesn't happen more often, as the Quiet Coach is (for me) what makes travelling long distances by train bearable.

My only question is what permits Virgin to make entire Standard Class carriages unavailable for public use? I can understand why Virgin would make a First Class carriage unavailable for public use, because its Pendolinos have ample First Class accommodation and (I assume) the provision of 145 First Class seats per train is not a franchise requirement. But does Virgin, along with every other train company, not have a franchise requirement to provide a minimum number of Standard Class seats? Surely Virgin couldn't reserve the Standard Class Quiet Coach for a private party on every one of its services?

If someone books the entire coach, it's fairly reasonable. Indeed, many many years ago, my school booked 2 entire coaches on "The Highland Chieftain" for a trip to London.

The most sensible thing to do is to book the coach that is least likely to have through traffic.

What gives you the right to enter a coach that someone has paid for private use of?

 

[cf111]

Virgin let people do this:
http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/redcarpet/

Whether you're travelling in a group of 10 or 1000, travel in a style that only Virgin Trains could provide. Whether it's an exclusive carriage or your own private train, we offer a range of packages to ensure you arrive at your destination feeling awesome.
Book a private carriage on Virgin Trains

How about your own private carriage or two? Your party will be able to travel in the privacy and security of their own train carriage, giving you the freedom to work, rest or play - and of course travel - in style.
Get in touch and we'll start making all the arrangements for you.

Can't be cheap!

 

[455driver]

What is the difference between 70 people booking one seat each and one person booking 70 seats?
The end result is the same!

 

[Bletchleyite]

I recently had the misfortune of travelling on a 9-car Virgin Pendolino from London to Manchester which had Coach A (the Standard Class Quiet Coach) reserved for a private party.

This is, I acknowledge, a rare occurrence. I'm glad it doesn't happen more often, as the Quiet Coach is (for me) what makes travelling long distances by train bearable.

Interesting you say that, because I don't find it's noticeably quieter than any of the others these days, mainly because most people using mobile phones on the move now aren't holding conversations on them, they are using various Internet based communications methods instead.

Indeed, that you have the quiet coach almost seems to legitimise the occasional antisocial group (usually a family, it seems) who think it is perfectly OK to play a movie on a tablet out loud in another coach. It disappoints me that traincrew have to be asked to tell people to pack that in; why do they not consider they should use headphones, with a splitter device if necessary?

All coaches should IMO be "basic consideration" coaches, i.e. by all means hold a conversation, but personal entertainment and communication devices should not be audible to others, and if you're going to shout down your phone go into the vestibule to do it. That's how it is on LM south WCML commuter services, anyway.

Neil

 

[Hadders]

I regularly use the quiet coach on Virgin, East Coast and FGW services and IMO there is a far better ambience in these carriages.

I doubt quiet coaches would really work on any other operators services due to either the shorter formation of the trains and/or the general length of the journeys made on them.

 

[Mugby]

I once travelled on an XC Cl.170 on the Nottingham - Cardiff service which had one car fully reserved, don't know if it was one party but the labels suggested it was.

I seem to remember it was only a 2 car unit also, leaving just one car for the rest.

 

[185143]

My school reserved half a pendo coach last year. Total cost for all of us, Manchester to London: £747! 28 children 4 teachers

 

[SPADTrap]

A reserved coach is a reserved coach? Surely you can't be asking what gives a TOC the right to have a fully reserved coach? Is it only allowed if none of the passengers know each other?

 

[yorkie]

What is the difference between 70 people booking one seat each and one person booking 70 seats?
The end result is the same!

I agree, except if...

What gives you the right to enter a coach that someone has paid for private use of?

...is the case, then that's a very different matter. I'd argue ORCATS allocations should be reduced if that's happening.

 

[dcsprior]

I can't see a problem with a full coach being reserved, provided that either

• it was done before normal reservations opened for the service
• another coach was designated as quiet for those who'd booked a seat in the quiet coach - this would of course then moving those who'd booked "non-quiet" seats unless there was another coach where no seats had yet been reserved
• people who'd booked the std-class quiet coach get a free upgrade to the 1st-class quiet coach

I'm unsure from their post whether the OP had booked a seat in the quiet coach, or if their complaint is that there were no quiet coach facilities for passengers without reservations?

What is the difference between 70 people booking one seat each and one person booking 70 seats?
The end result is the same!

I guess that one difference is that if a whole coach is reserved, then this also includes the standing space. On a long distance service, this presumably only be a concern in times of severe disrupion

 

[30909]

Perhaps I have missed this but it seems to me that Virgin probably looked at the "party booking" for standard seats in one coach and if the number requested was no more than 46 then the quiet coach fitted the requirement. It also had the advantage of being at one end of the train so no need for other passengers to pass through the reserved area. Also the OP is unclear if they had reserved a seat on the particular service in the quite coach or were they traveling without a seat reservation?

 

[All Line Rover]

I don't know what happened to customers requesting seat reservations in Coach A as I didn't have one. I never do.

The train was an off-peak service, but a busy one because it was on a Friday.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Interesting you say that, because I don't find it's noticeably quieter than any of the others these days, mainly because most people using mobile phones on the move now aren't holding conversations on them, they are using various Internet based communications methods instead...

All coaches should IMO be "basic consideration" coaches...

That's how it is on LM south WCML commuter services, anyway.

I couldn't disagree more. More often than not the Quiet Coach is completely silent, especially on peak services. The worst services are evening 'off-peak' departures from London, which are packed and occasionally have people with the bright idea of bringing their baby into the Quiet Coach. Passengers also tend to be less considerate if they are travelling short distances (e.g. MKC-EUS or BHM-COV). If you only have experience of packed off-peak services or Euston-Birmingham services you might not have a high opinion of the Quiet Coach, but on the services I travel on it is an excellent facility.

Can you imagine going up to someone who is on their mobile and saying: "Excuse me, this is the 'basic consideration coach', so please go into the vestibule if you want to continue your conversation"? I don't think that would work, whereas politely pointing out the existence of the Quiet Coach has, in my experience, never failed to elicit a positive response.

The worst thing about the Quiet Coach is the risk that people will be chatting for the entire journey. There's nothing I can do about that as it isn't a Silent Coach (even though it should be).

I've stopped using the London Midland Trent Valley services because without fail I was sat (having stood until MKC) in a packed sardine can with someone chatting on their mobile phone for their entire journey.

 

[Class377]

Something that hasn't been mentioned here yet is that Virgin often carry a lot of football teams up and down the country, as Lancashire is packed to the brim with sides from all 4 divisions, as is London.

I know that any of the top sides travel first class (normally with some form of security or police at the entrance to that coach stopping people going in!) but equally I'm aware of lower division sides travelling in standard. As a team could easily bring 20 players plus a similar number of staff, I assume they could legitimately book out a coach and travel in comfort!

 

[Greenback]

I think the point is that everyone should show basic consideration to others in every carriage. The problem is that the definition of that varies widely between individuals. I don't think that using a mobile with a normal speaking voice is failing to show consideration, but if there was a very loud conversation it would be. Others probably have different views on the level of noise that would cross the line.

Back on topic, I don't really have any problem with 'private' coaches. It happened on BR for as long as I can remember. It wasn't a common occurrence at all, but it certainly did happen, usually in relation to school trips or political events, but the facility was not limited to those specific reasons as far as I can recall.

There are no requirements for a set number of seats to be provided in either class as far as I'm aware. I'm glad about that, as I'd rather see a service run short formed than not run at all, thereby forcing an entire train load on to other trains which may be very busy themselves.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think the point is that everyone should show basic consideration to others in every carriage. The problem is that the definition of that varies widely between individuals. I don't think that using a mobile with a normal speaking voice is failing to show consideration, but if there was a very loud conversation it would be.

Agree. I don't find a mobile conversation in and of itself any more annoying than a conversation between two people, unless in either case they are shouting.

Mobiles don't provide in-ear feedback, which did "cause" people to shout in the early days, but most people are used to that now. And as I said most people aren't phoning anyway, they are Facebooking, e-mailing, Twittering, Snapchat-ing, texting or whatever - none of those activities are noisy.

Neil

 

[Greenback]

Absolutely right.

On a similar note, the tolerance to children playing or babies crying varies a lot between individuals too. I have quite a high tolerance for the former, however noisy, yet a very low tolerance to the latter, even though it's perfectly normal.

 

[Tetchytyke]

You think that's bad? I had the recent pleasure of travelling on a 2-car 158 on the Settle to Carlisle where Northern had reserved one of the two carriages for a coach holiday party. Needless to say the train was full and standing from Skipton all the way through to Carlisle, while the coach party on a group discount were as snug as a bug. And as us mere mortals can't reserve seats on Northern there wasn't any sort of compensation forthcoming- "you pay for the journey and not for a seat".

As for babies crying, the reason why the noise is stressful is because we have evolved to find that noise stressful. If you could ignore the noise then you would ignore the noise, but the noise is the only defence mechanism a baby actually has. It's perfectly normal and understandable to find babies crying infuriating- you're meant to. Just spare a thought for the poor parent who also desperately wants the baby to shut the hell up and go to sleep, but doesn't have the luxury of putting headphones in or moving to another carriage.

 

[Greenback]

You think that's bad? I had the recent pleasure of travelling on a 2-car 158 on the Settle to Carlisle where Northern had reserved one of the two carriages for a coach holiday party. Needless to say the train was full and standing from Skipton all the way through to Carlisle, while the coach party on a group discount were as snug as a bug. And as us mere mortals can't reserve seats on Northern there wasn't any sort of compensation forthcoming- "you pay for the journey and not for a seat".

At least they didn't reserve both coaches

As for babies crying, the reason why the noise is stressful is because we have evolved to find that noise stressful. If you could ignore the noise then you would ignore the noise, but the noise is the only defence mechanism a baby actually has. It's perfectly normal and understandable to find babies crying infuriating- you're meant to. Just spare a thought for the poor parent who also desperately wants the baby to shut the hell up and go to sleep, but doesn't have the luxury of putting headphones in or moving to another carriage.

Yes, that's all true, but I do have an abnormally low tolerance to this compared to others. I am almost screaming in agony myself, while those around are seemingly unaffected, or at least much less affected!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Absolutely right.

On a similar note, the tolerance to children playing or babies crying varies a lot between individuals too. I have quite a high tolerance for the former, however noisy, yet a very low tolerance to the latter, even though it's perfectly normal.

I'm led to believe that the reason most adults find a crying baby difficult to stand is that natural instinct is to want to calm it, which as it's not yours you can't.

Neil

 

[Greenback]

I agree, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm trying, perhaps mistakenly, to provide an example which illustrates how we all find different levels of annoyance in different things.

I probably should have chosen something different!

 

[PermitToTravel]

I agree, except if...

...is the case, then that's a very different matter. I'd argue ORCATS allocations should be reduced if that's happening.

Why? ORCATS allocations wouldn't be reduced if they presented a 2-car 142 instead of an 11-car 390

 

[AM9]

You think that's bad? I had the recent pleasure of travelling on a 2-car 158 on the Settle to Carlisle where Northern had reserved one of the two carriages for a coach holiday party. Needless to say the train was full and standing from Skipton all the way through to Carlisle, while the coach party on a group discount were as snug as a bug. And as us mere mortals can't reserve seats on Northern there wasn't any sort of compensation forthcoming- "you pay for the journey and not for a seat".

If the service was very crowded, at what point would the number of standing passengers be able to stand in amongst the 'snug bugs'? Or would they be forced to wait for the next train?

As for babies crying, the reason why the noise is stressful is because we have evolved to find that noise stressful. If you could ignore the noise then you would ignore the noise, but the noise is the only defence mechanism a baby actually has. It's perfectly normal and understandable to find babies crying infuriating- you're meant to. Just spare a thought for the poor parent who also desperately wants the baby to shut the hell up and go to sleep, but doesn't have the luxury of putting headphones in or moving to another carriage.

How about somebody with a irritating cough or repetitive sneezing? There are those who make extreme noises when sneezing, some of which I'm sure is controllable.

 

[swt_passenger]

What is the difference between 70 people booking one seat each and one person booking 70 seats?
The end result is the same!

There is one major difference, the one person booking 70 seats can get a much bigger headline when he claims he's been chinged for having the wrong ticket, as the guy a few weeks ago did... :roll:

Booked compartments were a common sight back in the sixties and seventies, if you had a set of 8 reservations they'd block book a compartment for you, that would come with stickers on the sliding door...

 

[Bantamzen]

Absolutely right.

On a similar note, the tolerance to children playing or babies crying varies a lot between individuals too. I have quite a high tolerance for the former, however noisy, yet a very low tolerance to the latter, even though it's perfectly normal.

You're right, tolerance levels do vary from person to person, but also varies depending on circumstances. Normally I can zone out a bady crying for a while, but recently on a 4 hour overnight flight back from Kos when a young child screamed for the entire flight it really stressed me out by the time we landed. But to be fair, the other 291 passengers probably felt the same when we hit the tarmac at 1.30am!!

As for the OP's issues, if a TOC can guarantee to fill a coach with pre-booked, pre-paid passengers in bulk then they are likely to do so, especially on a 9/11 car Pendo which is fair enough. It might be a bit much on a 2 car 158 along the S&C though! That they used coach A was probably to make boarding easier as I presume they would have alerted the train / station staff in advance to assist with boarding. It's a shame that other passengers lost the ability to use the Quiet Coach, but to be honest if you are really wanting to travel in one you really ought to book in advance as this would alert you to it's unavailability when booking. Personally I feel slightly uncomfortable in them, as you can feel like a villain if you so much as rustle a newspaper let alone cough.

 

[stut]

A booked out carriage is certainly better than ending up in the middle of a large (often quite drunk) party that effectively takes over the carriage you have a booking in!

Eurostar used to have a large amount of this on Friday evenings - to their credit, the onboard staff were very good at shifting people around, even upgrading, to make it a bit more tolerable all round.

As for babies crying, personally I don't find it that stressful - I find children's films and games blaring out of iPad speakers infinitely more irritating.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As for babies crying, personally I don't find it that stressful - I find children's films and games blaring out of iPad speakers infinitely more irritating.

Agreed - that anyone even considers it is OK to do this (rather than use headphones on a splitter if necessary) beggars belief, and that staff don't stamp on it without a complaint is also highly disappointing.

Neil

 

[merlodlliw]

Its a common practice for Trade Unions to book one or two coaches for events,however I do get frustrated when 70% of a two coach 175 has reserved seats, or tickets saying reserved from A to B

 

[davyp]

Once booked thirty seats from Manchester to York and return (back in the 80's). We had seats reserved in Coach E. Fine going out, but the return had coaches A to D and then G, which was locked out of use! There were plenty of seats available, but not all together.