Short distance seat reservations

Last Thursday 23rd, I boarded the 1444 3 car TPE Manchester Airport to on Redcar Central train at Man Piccadilly.

Needless to say it was heavily loaded, but I managed to find an unreserved seat. This train takes 3 hours and 4 minutes from start to finish, yet the seat in front of mine was reserved from York to Thirsk, a journey time of just 18 minutes.

So if a passenger got on at the airport going to Redcar and rightly occupied their seat, they would have to vacate after just short of 2 hours. If this is the criteria TPE uses for reserving seats what is to stop reserving a seat from Man Picc to Man Oxford Road; a journey time of 3 minutes?

Surely seat reservations are for long distance travel?

railrambler said:

Surely seat reservations are for long distance travel ???

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If a train is marked as having seat reservations, then all connections on advance fares on that train get a seat allocated, no matter how short that part of the overall journey. The connection may well be part of a long-distance journey.

JonathanH said:

If a train is marked as having seat reservations, then all connections on advance fares on that train get a seat allocated, no matter how short that part of the overall journey. The connection may well be part of a long-distance journey.

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Ok get your drift.
Thanks for your reply

If you find standing difficult for any length of time why wouldn't you reserve York-Thirsk.

For that matter, if you are travelling Airport-Redcar why wouldn't you reserve!

railrambler said:

Surely seat reservations are for long distance travel ???

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While yes that is presumably the main intention, the way the system is arranged now has no way to ask for reservations on some trains and not on others, it's all or nothing (and nothing is not an option if any of your trains have compulsory reservations (even though most uses of this flag are simply wrong), or if you're on an advanced ticket).

Presumably the shortest possible reservation would be Manchester Piccadilly - Oxford Road on TPE, although attempting to get just that doesn't seem to be possible on TPE's website.

pokemonsuper9 said:

While yes that is presumably the main intention, the way the system is arranged now has no way to ask for reservations on some trains and not on others, it's all or nothing (and nothing is not an option if any of your trains have compulsory reservations (even though most uses of this flag are simply wrong), or if you're on an advanced ticket).

Presumably the shortest possible reservation would be Manchester Piccadilly - Oxford Road on TPE, although attempting to get just that doesn't seem to be possible on TPE's website.

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I’ve seen several Bristol Parkway to Filton Abbey Wood reservations (less than a mile and a half and hardly time to find your seat before you have to get up again to get off)

Sometimes short reservations form part of a longer journey with an interchange. For example a journey from Birmingham to Thirsk may require an interchange at York, and give a reservation York - Thirsk if the train was set up for reservations, which this one was.

I don't see much of an issue with short-distance reservations as long as those who book them actually sit in "their" seat. I certainly have made use of them before, and found them quite useful (especially when traveling with a group for, say, 15-30 min).

Obviously less ideal if they prevent someone travelling further from reserving, but that can probably be mitigated to some degree by having the system book strings of short distance reservations into a few seats, leaving others either unreserved or available to book for longer journeys (which the system seems to already do, at least to some extent).

railrambler said:

what is to stop reserving a seat from Man Picc to Man Oxford Road a journey time of 3 minutes!!!

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I have had reservations from Pic to Oxford Road as part of longer itineraries.

Needless to say, I didn't make use of them.

I don't think many people would do Manchester Airport to Redcar without a reservation, but anyone who did would have first pickings of unreserved seats at the Airport. Many of these trains are 6 cars, with 3 unreserved coaches, but some - such as the one you took - are only 3 cars.

Obtaining a reservation would be recommended when making a long journey on a 3-car train; you can get one for free from the GWR website, if you don't already have a reservation from when you made your original booking.

railrambler said:

Surely seat reservations are for long distance travel?

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There isn't any way for a passenger to know where the passenger from Thirsk was travelling to; they could have been going on to London, Birmingham etc.

As others have said, there may be other reasons why they may not want to stand for 20 minutes.

JonathanH said:

If a train is marked as having seat reservations, then all connections on advance fares on that train get a seat allocated, no matter how short that part of the overall journey. The connection may well be part of a long-distance journey.

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Generally speaking yes, but not always; XC in particular block certain segments from reservations on certain services.

xotGD said:

I have had reservations from Pic to Oxford Road as part of longer itineraries.

Needless to say, I didn't make use of them.

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Indeed I have had an itinerary from Oxford Road to Bristol Parkway. It came with a reserved seat for the 2 minute inital leg on TPEx!