Bags on seats announcements should be copied from Amtrak

Merle Haggard said:

I recently travelled on a LNR train with a pro-active conductor. He had a conversation with the passenger across the gangway from me on the following lines. 'I asked you to move your bag off the seat earlier, but it's still there. If you don't move it now, you will have to buy a ticket for it'.
If it was a bluff the passenger did not call it, but assented to the request, so the question remains unanswered.

Click to expand...

I would have called out that bluff. A ticket does not buy access to a seat, it pays for a person to be transported. If a ticket in any way included the right to sit on a seat, I would have claimed compensation on top of delay-repay for all the journeys where I have had to stand for 45 minutes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jul 2026 ==

Mgameing123 said:

I honestly don’t see what’s wrong with bags on seats (on a train that’s not busy). I usually have my bag on the seat until someone comes and asks me to move it.

Click to expand...

The problem is the dreadful situational awareness of many people in society, especially in SE England, means that it is more of a problem than it should be, like a lot of things (e.g. hogging the overtaking lanes on motorways).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jul 2026 ==

mike57 said:

The whole issue of bags on seats should be common sense, a lightly loaded train, not a problem, a fully loaded train, not allowed. I think the problem is 'ordinary' people will now tolerate behaviour which when I was growing up would have been dealt with harshly.

I had one memorable case of bag on seat on a standing train about 10 years ago. Individual sprawled over seat with bags on an adjacent seat. I asked him to move them, politely. He told me to F O and sit somewhere else (There wasnt a 'somewhere else'). I told him I was sitting there anyway and started lowering my substantial 21st 6ft frame onto the seat. Bags moved very quickly. Dirty looks for the next half hour, until his stop, when he had to ask me to move, which came out as barely audible grunt 'Smystop'.

Click to expand...

Not all of us have an intimidating physical presence, so F.O. might be followed with the loss of teeth if I insisted on pushing the matter.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jul 2026 ==

officewalla said:

Nothing to do with authority and everything to do with manners and common courtesy. Sits in the same area as feet on seats. Just because you can doesn't mean that you should.

Click to expand...

When people are allowed to get away with doing things they shouldn't, because no-one will call them out, the behaviour ultimately evolves into an entitlement which is impossible to shift and may even be defended with violence in the worst cases. A civilised society works on the basis that whilst we entrust higher authorities to protect us from serious insults to person or property, at lower levels, there exists a societal code of conduct where we accept that we cannot individually use force to stop someone else's antisocial behaviour, but we collectively agree to what is and isn't acceptable behaviour and light condemnation of antagonists is usually sufficient to largely keep poor behaviour regulated. When people lose faith in the effectiveness of that code of conduct, or worse, that authorities will step in and deal with antisocial behaviour, that is where civility is in danger of breaking down when people are provoked into taking matters into their own hands, then you risk transitioning into frequent escalation, retaliation and might-is-right justice.