Reservations recommended

[1e10]

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P30129/2013/08/27/advanced

This seems a little confusing. Reservations recommend between Penzance and Plymouth, reservations only available from Plymouth onwards. Can anyone explain to me how this works?

Thanks

 

[MCR247]

Although it's not communicated very well, I'm assuming its saying that reservations are available for all of the journey, but are recommended between Penzance - Plymouth

 

[Paul Kelly]

MCR247 is right. CrossCountry wouldn't be recommending passengers make reservations if they weren't available. But it's an interesting piece of confusion! Is this page showing the same train on brtimes.com, with separate reservation icons for each leg of the journey, any more or less confusing? (You can hover over the icons for a pop-up explanation. Genuinely interested in comments...)

 

[Tom]

My thinking on this one was that if a service was talking about reservations, then it'd be pretty obvious that they were available...

 

[IanD]

There's no confusion.

The term "Reservations Recommended" obviously means "Seats are reservable and we recommend that you reserve one as this service will probably be busy" but that is too long-winded.

"Reservations available" means "Seats are reservable but it's up to you if you bother".

Plenty of trains are marked with the former throughout but no-one would think "How can they recommend reservations if reservations are not available?"

For clarification and the long-winded version of the symbols used in the NRT (and translated on the websites quoted above), see page 12-14 of the NRT.

 

[TEW]

Does make sense as well, that service is very busy into Plymouth but generally a bit quieter beyond.