Reservation of an entire coach

[Cantab26]

I can't imagine the train manager would have had that difficult a time defending themselves. The BTP are responsible for the orderly conduct of the users of the rail network, complimentary first class upgrades to make segregation easier are not an obligation of the train operator to ensure that passengers don't misbehave/act like feral animals. "The passengers were offered the opportunity to purchase a first class upgrade and declined to do so" would probably be the end of the matter.

Personally provided you were well behaved yourselves I wouldn't have had a problem with it, and at that time of day it seems a bit petty, but the idea of successfully personally suing the guard for enforcing the railway ticketing regulations seems somewhat unlikely to me.

You might have had more luck with suing the BTP for failing to prevent the other fans from misbehaving, but again I doubt it - people behaving like scum is roundly tolerated in the UK.

In the circumstances as described, had something untoward happened then I wouldn’t rule out personal liability for the train manager being in play.

 

[LowLevel]

In the circumstances as described, had something untoward happened then I wouldn’t rule out personal liability for the train manager being in play.

How so? I genuinely find it an interesting subject. The BTP are generally coached that when it comes to any matters arising to a train in service, they need to be in conversation with the guard, or driver if it's a DOO service. They don't generally have the authority to dictate to the traincrew, though it might be said to be unwise in the same fashion for the traincrew to disregard their advice - and personally, I wouldn't.

Surely as a railway employee if someone genuinely poses a risk to the safety of others on the network I have the right to expect the Police to protect me and others and remove them from the train (if that means deploying a riot squad, so be it), rather than resort to giving those who might upset them an upgrade to first class for which they've not paid?

Again, purely hypothetical - I would quite happily be concerned with getting myself and others back in one piece.

 

[D6130]

I remember on CIGs in the 1980s on Portsmouth Direct fasts you'd occasionally get carriages with paper "Reserved seats - numbers...." notices stuck on the windows. Usually a whole carriage.

Until the late 80s, it was not obvious that reservations were available on these services, at least the reservation symbol wasn't shown in timetables. But I don't think I ever saw individual seat reservations - just these group ones.

This happened a lot in the 1970s too. Quite often a half-carriage or a whole carriage on an off-peak train would be reserved for SAGA holidaymakers. Very occasionally, when bookings were exceptionally high, we would run one or more special charter trains for them.

 

[co-tr-paul]

Happens regularly with GWR Night Riviera. Recently with Great Railway Journeys.

 

[43066]

How so? I genuinely find it an interesting subject. The BTP are generally coached that when it comes to any matters arising to a train in service, they need to be in conversation with the guard, or driver if it's a DOO service. They don't generally have the authority to dictate to the traincrew, though it might be said to be unwise in the same fashion for the traincrew to disregard their advice - and personally, I wouldn't.

Liability of the guard here meant in civil (negligence) terms rather than in the criminal sense.

In the circumstances as described, had something untoward happened then I wouldn’t rule out personal liability for the train manager being in play.

Not to be ruled out, but equally seems a bit of a stretch. If a guard, following company instructions in the ordinary course of their employment, asks someone to sit in the correct (by their ticket) part of the train, and the passenger ends up being assaulted by another passenger, it would be a high threshold to establish proximate cause. There are certainly good policy reasons why that guard *shouldn’t* be found liable.

Even if they were potentially liable, it’s highly doubtful anyone would think it was worth suing a railway guard as an individual. Vicarious liability of the company all the way in cases like this.

(The subject of negligent causation brings back happy memories. The Wagon Mound, Palsgraf, late nights in the law library struggling through Lunny & Oliphant on Torts etc.)

 

[LOL The Irony]

Victoria Beckham did it a while back to Manchester on a Pendolino.

 

[patrick.hearn3]

Burnley's temporary manager talked of enjoying a glass on the train home, so I presume they travelled on a Watford - somewhere Pendo this evening (Manchester? Preston?)

For his sake I hope there was no alcohol restriction!

 

[VauxhallandI]

They are but do they always behave as such? No

By ordinary passenger I simply mean someone who has turned up at the station for a purpose such as leisure, perhaps taking their kids for a day out, not realising that 200 hundred joyful fans were heading to their train complete with BTP and Police escort

Careful with that brush.

 

[Wolfie]

I can't imagine the train manager would have had that difficult a time defending themselves. The BTP are responsible for the orderly conduct of the users of the rail network, complimentary first class upgrades to make segregation easier are not an obligation of the train operator to ensure that passengers don't misbehave/act like feral animals. "The passengers were offered the opportunity to purchase a first class upgrade and declined to do so" would probably be the end of the matter.

Personally provided you were well behaved yourselves I wouldn't have had a problem with it, and at that time of day it seems a bit petty, but the idea of successfully personally suing the guard for enforcing the railway ticketing regulations seems somewhat unlikely to me.

You might have had more luck with suing the BTP for failing to prevent the other fans from misbehaving, but again I doubt it - people behaving like scum is roundly tolerated in the UK.

We were being well behaved and the BTP on the train told the Train Manager that they had told us to sit there. He ignored them. I suspect that the next time he called them out he might well have been disappointed at the response because they were unimpressed.....

 

[Cantab26]

How so? I genuinely find it an interesting subject. The BTP are generally coached that when it comes to any matters arising to a train in service, they need to be in conversation with the guard, or driver if it's a DOO service. They don't generally have the authority to dictate to the traincrew, though it might be said to be unwise in the same fashion for the traincrew to disregard their advice - and personally, I wouldn't.

Surely as a railway employee if someone genuinely poses a risk to the safety of others on the network I have the right to expect the Police to protect me and others and remove them from the train (if that means deploying a riot squad, so be it), rather than resort to giving those who might upset them an upgrade to first class for which they've not paid?

Again, purely hypothetical - I would quite happily be concerned with getting myself and others back in one piece.

The key issue here is that the passengers were acting under instructions from authorised officers of the railway to sit there and those instructions were given for reasons of safety.

That forms part of the context by which the standard of care exercised by the train manager must be judged.

And ultimately, in a situation like this, a constable trumps the train manager. In a general legal sense at least. Operationally there may of course be consequences if the train manager doesn’t play ball such as cancellation of the train, but in the circumstances as described I can’t imagine the TOC would be impressed by such behaviour.

Liability of the guard here meant in civil (negligence) terms rather than in the criminal sense.

Agreed. Potentially a couple of other quirky things too depending on the specific location and fact pattern.

Not to be ruled out, but equally seems a bit of a stretch. If a guard, following company instructions in the ordinary course of their employment, asks someone to sit in the correct (by their ticket) part of the train, and the passenger ends up being assaulted by another passenger, it would be a high threshold to establish proximate cause. There are certainly good policy reasons why that guard *shouldn’t* be found liable.

Even if they were potentially liable, it’s highly doubtful anyone would think it was worth suing a railway guard as an individual. Vicarious liability of the company all the way in cases like this.

(The subject of negligent causation brings back happy memories. The Wagon Mound, Palsgraf, late nights in the law library struggling through Lunny & Oliphant on Torts etc.)

Generally, I would agree.

I wouldn’t expect ‘just following the revenue protection policy, guv’ to carry much weight though. It is the direction by BTP which makes this case interesting.

On a practical level, I think you would simply sue both and let them argue amongst themselves. And on one level there would be a certain vindictive satisfaction for some litigants in being able to get a charge over the train manager’s house or to send in the bailiffs even if no actual cash was forthcoming. I have a client at the moment which has made clear to us that it’s not interested in the money (a trifling amount in the grand scheme of things) so much as setting an example ‘pour encourager les autres’.

I shall say no more lest we derail the thread further though.

 

[ScotsRail]

It wasn't the whole carriage but a few years back I was on Inverness-Kyle and all but the 4 seats at the end of one carriage were block booked by a coach party that got on at Dingwall. Thankfully on the return journey a couple of days later they weren't on the same train.

I'm sure the off peak money is nice for Scotrail but it was a massive pain in the bahookey for me trying to get a seat.

 

[LRV3004]

As has been mentioned, I have seen Manchester United waiting at Stockport for a train to London. I used to be an on board cleaner for (then) Virgin Trains and have been involved with the cleaning and preparation for a train that Manchester United were travelling on. The entire coach was reserved and the doors at each end of their coach (Mark 3 stock) were locked with a member of staff guarding them to prevent anyone from gaining access other than traincrew.

 

[Taunton]

I remember seeing - when compartment & corridor stock was common on long-distance trains - that it was possible to reserve an entire compartment for yourself (or more likely your family / group). This was promoted in part-page adverts in BR timetable books at the time.

I think the stipulation was you needed to purchase travel tickets for all of the seats in the compartment(s) you wanted, irrespective of how many people were actually in there. Presumably 6 in First Class - not sure if you needed 6 or 8 tickets per Third Class compartment. Also, not sure if this facility applied only to the small-ish number of long distance expresses which offered seat reservations back in the day, or if you could do it for a wider range of trains which didn't normally have reservable seats.

Certainly leaving Taunton back in old times, if you were getting married and going away, the staff would reserve a whole compartment, just for the two. Needed a bit of co-ordination as the train would be coming through from Plymouth etc. As you can imagine it would be a bit of a mob scene on the platform in the couple of minutes the London train, etc, stopped there. In youthful times I can remember mostly that we all swept in from multiple cars, onto the platform Without Platform Tickets (otherwise unknown) ...!! Afterwards the platform porter had the task of sweeping the confetti onto the track.

 

[Bald Rick]

Quite often done for senior members of Government + entourage.

 

[riceuten]

I was on a Eurostar to Paris recently, and a tour group thought they had reserved the entire coach and were asking people to leave! The guard informed them that they had reserved seats, but not the entire coach - it did look as if they'd been misled by their tour operator.

 

[Jimini]

My lot (Fulham FC) regularly do this out of Euston to games in the north west. Sometimes the security guards let some of the young'uns down to the door to their carriage to get autographs etc., and then there's sometimes a photo opportunity or two at Euston before they hop on the coach back to Motspur Park after the game (I've got a photo of me shaking Roy Hodgson's hand somewhere in the archives from about 12 years ago!).

 

[Vanmanyo]

I've been on scouting trips which half a class 143 were reserved for

Not anymore you won't

 

[Anonymous10]

Not anymore you won't

no now its the entire train we upgraded (153)

 

[Skie]

Managed to do this accidentally once many years ago. Booking for a group of 30 people months in advance and specifically asked for table seats. Instead when the tickets arrived they had just ignored the table flag and put everyone in seats 1-30 in coach D. I had a moan, they said okay "give us seat numbers and we'll reserve those for you too". I listed the tables in D and some in E, got a "can't do that, some are already booked" reply which was bloody unhelpful as they wouldn't take any initiative and wanted 30 entirely new unbooked seats selecting - almost like playing minesweeper via email. So I just cheekily gave them the rest of the seats in D (as the initial response made it sound like this was in addition to) and to my surprise they did it. Bit embarrassing in the end as we had almost the entire coach reserved with my name showing on the LCD panels but we were clustered at clumps of seats and the airline ones opposite. 90% of passengers boarding walked through, with just a few chancing it.

VT were pretty good with groups in all other instances. Quite a few first class trips due to how they allocated (or didn't allocate) standard advances so it worked out cheaper nearly every time. Looks like Avanti have ruined any chance of that with their pricing shenanigans, though it also looks like first is pretty rubbish now. Though they do quote a fairly cheap rate for booking an entire carriage, it's probably a "from" price for the shortest journey they do.

 

[Western Gaffer]

A few years ago, Virgin Trains used to offer a combined train/bus package from Euston to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix, which involved several (country end) carriages being exclusively reserved for holders of these tickets on a few Sunday morning WCML trains as far as Milton Keynes. However, they apparently also continued to issue individual reservations in those same carriages, resulting in some awkward conversations....

 

[Bevan Price]

A few years ago, I was on an afternoon peak hour Manchester to North Wales service on which the operator** had made a stupid decision to allow a school group to reserve about half a coach. Worse, it was only a 2 coach 175, for a train that normally over-filled 3 coaches. Reached Oxford Road and the commuters piled on, totally ignoring the reservations. It was very fortunate that the school group failed to appear - I hate to think what chaos would have arisen if someone had tried to remove all the commuters.

(** - Cannot recall if it was ATW or still Northern as the TOC).

 

[PlatformEdgeVT]

I know this is kinda irrelevant, but if you full-coach hire a 153, you've got the full train. Might be a bit annoying to regular travellers though.

 

[43066]

I know this is kinda irrelevant, but if you full-coach hire a 153, you've got the full train. Might be a bit annoying to regular travellers though.

That could be rather amusing!

 

[PlatformEdgeVT]

That could be rather amusing!

Indeed

 

[noddingdonkey]

But if they'd paid for tickets they'd every right to be there. The issue is nowadays there's very little flexibility for rail operators to change sets or add carriages if such a party does book. However it is somewhat irksome that parties often select a usually busy train to travel on. Maybe rail operators should offer financial incentives for groups to hire carriages on quieter services?

They did; my irritation was more that the TOC has accepted such a bulk booking for a service that they should have known was already oversubscribed instead of either offering an incentive to take a quieter service or strengthening it.

 

[Anonymous10]

That could be rather amusing!

soooo whats the cost to hire one (unsure how to use emojis this is sarcasm)

 

[Efini92]

A few years ago, I was on an afternoon peak hour Manchester to North Wales service on which the operator** had made a stupid decision to allow a school group to reserve about half a coach. Worse, it was only a 2 coach 175, for a train that normally over-filled 3 coaches. Reached Oxford Road and the commuters piled on, totally ignoring the reservations. It was very fortunate that the school group failed to appear - I hate to think what chaos would have arisen if someone had tried to remove all the commuters.

(** - Cannot recall if it was ATW or still Northern as the TOC).

The Northern Franchise never had 175’s. If it was FNW would’ve been pre 2004.

 

[Snow1964]

I remember on CIGs in the 1980s on Portsmouth Direct fasts you'd occasionally get carriages with paper "Reserved seats - numbers...." notices stuck on the windows. Usually a whole carriage.

Until the late 80s, it was not obvious that reservations were available on these services, at least the reservation symbol wasn't shown in timetables. But I don't think I ever saw individual seat reservations - just these group ones.

Back in 1970s we had some school trips, where this happened and a label would be on the window for each group of 4 seats, from one end of the carriage for as many blocks of 8 seats as needed. Think start and end stations was handwritten on each label

So must have happened on REPs and TCs as well as CIGs, but it was always the open saloons, never any compartments for school trips

I remember school trips by train to Dorchester, Winchester and Southampton all by train. I think Hampshire county council schools must have have some deal with BR and it was easier or cheaper than getting road coaches.

 

[Vanmanyo]

no now its the entire train we upgraded (153)

haha, 153s underrated though

 

[Mikey C]

Burnley's temporary manager talked of enjoying a glass on the train home, so I presume they travelled on a Watford - somewhere Pendo this evening (Manchester? Preston?)

For his sake I hope there was no alcohol restriction!

I immediately thought of this thread when I heard that

Slightly surprised they're taking the train back as well, as often clubs will take the train to the away game and come back on the team coach (which will be down there anyway to bring all the kit etc). Unless he's going separately from the players.

I remember when my team played at Sunderland, they went up by train but most came back by coach, except for a couple of players who wanted to get back to London quicker, so they individually took the Grand Central train.