• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

"Seat reservations essential"

Status
Not open for further replies.

simonm

Member
Joined
6 Aug 2011
Messages
115
I remember approx 10 years (ish) ago travelling on a Wales & West train from Devon to Shrewsbury on one of their Alphaline services. We were on an "Apex" or similar. The train had the code (R) in a white box meaning reservations essential and passengers were not allowed to join unless they had a reservation. Are there any such services around these days and were passengers really not allowed to join unless they had a reservation?
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

rail-britain

Established Member
Joined
12 Aug 2007
Messages
4,102
Mandatory Reservations were reintroduced by BR in the late 1980s
It was mainly for peak services, where demand was high and where manual barriers were in operation
Announcements would also be made that a seat reservation was mandatory
However on the train itself it was still possible to travel without a reservation

InterCity did try to enforce a £5 penalty charge per passenger for travelling without a reservation, but it was so impractical that it was withdrawn after just a few weeks
Some Senior Condutors didn't even issue any such tickets, whilst others went through many pads!

Apex and SuperApex tickets included a seat reservation, and the same applies to Advance tickets today
 

Wath Yard

Member
Joined
31 Dec 2011
Messages
864
ScotRail sleepers are still shown as compulsory reservation services in the GBRT. I don't know if it's enforced.
 

tom1649

Member
Joined
5 Jul 2010
Messages
961
Perhaps it permissible to stand on a mandatory seat reservation service without a seat reservation.
 

hairyhandedfool

Established Member
Joined
14 Apr 2008
Messages
8,837
I remember approx 10 years (ish) ago travelling on a Wales & West train from Devon to Shrewsbury on one of their Alphaline services. We were on an "Apex" or similar. The train had the code (R) in a white box meaning reservations essential and passengers were not allowed to join unless they had a reservation. Are there any such services around these days and were passengers really not allowed to join unless they had a reservation?

Compulsory reservations are mostly used when popular and busy events are taking place, concerts, cup final matches, festivals, that sort of thing, or on the Caledonian Sleeper services.

ScotRail sleepers are still shown as compulsory reservation services in the GBRT. I don't know if it's enforced.

Tickets can be purchased at the train side before departure if there are berths or seats unreserved on the train. At all other times reservations are compulsory.
 

Wyvern

Established Member
Joined
27 Oct 2009
Messages
1,573
I remember when we would be returning from holiday, you bought a seat reservation on arrival at the station. If there were none left you got one for the next train. You weren't allowed through the barrier without one. You also, of course, buy one beforehand. It was simply to prevent trains at peak periods being overcrowded.
 

6Gman

Established Member
Joined
1 May 2012
Messages
8,383
I remember when we would be returning from holiday, you bought a seat reservation on arrival at the station. If there were none left you got one for the next train. You weren't allowed through the barrier without one. You also, of course, buy one beforehand. It was simply to prevent trains at peak periods being overcrowded.

Seat Regulation Tickets were widely used for travel from seaside resorts - I would reckon from the early/mid 1950s to the late 70s? They did not identify a seat, but merely granted permission to board the train.

They were intended to avoid the situation where the 0843 Paignton - Paddington would be Full & Standing, but the 0857 Paddington was half-empty.
 

12CSVT

Established Member
Joined
18 Aug 2010
Messages
2,612
I suspect there were many instances where trains had 'Compulsory Reservation' restrictions when there was no justification for it. For example, this restriction applied to nearly every train calling at Alfreton on a Saturday afternoon for several years during the 1990s.
 

errata

Member
Joined
21 May 2011
Messages
25
As recently as last year I was denied boarding a VT service from EUS because I didn't have a seat reservation with my SVR.

This was during the bout of heavy snow which led to many cancellations on the line.

I believe they had a quota in place for passengers without a seat reservation as every few seconds the RPIs were shouting out consecutive numbers, counting up. Unfortunately I was further up the ramp and reached the ticket check after they had counted to 30, after which I assume the quota had been reached and all other seats had been reserved. The service must have been at least half full before the passengers for my service arrived, as we were boarding the train which had been cancelled half an hour prior and had been 'merged' with the one I intended to get.

Personally I dislike the policy in several other European countries of mandatory seat reservations on many, usually fast suburban and intercity, services. Many times I have had a visit from a guard whilst travelling across the Hungarian Plain and the like and have been hit with another 20% of the ticket cost in seat reservation fees, despite the train being nigh on empty, my (perhaps cheeky) offer to stand -- and the fact that had I travelled on a service that departed 25 minutes earlier but took only 5 minutes longer to reach my destination, I wouldn't have been charged!

I have also been charged a seat reservation fee when travelling from Ferihegy into Budapest, Domodedovo into Moscow, and into Belgrade. In the first case the fare was the equivalent of £1.10, a few kilometres yet I was charged 650% of that in seat reservation fees, the same as a passenger travelling the entire intercity journey!

I think an introduction of mandatory seat reservations in the UK would be a major cause of more public grumbling and additional inconvenience. Not to mention chaos on currently unreservable peak time commuter routes. At least if one hasn't got a seat reservation, there is still a chance of sitting in a free seat in a reserved or unreserved carriage -- and passengers with seat reservations ate pretty much guaranteed that seat.
 
Last edited:

alexjames

Member
Joined
2 Dec 2009
Messages
90
Refusing boarding to those without seat reservations is likely to happen, on Virgin at least, if vast numbers of PAX turn up for a particular service and Virgin have enough staff on hand to form a barricade.

Its never happened to me but I have witnessed it at Manchester Piccadilly after an Arsenal match.

Next likely occurrence is the 19.15 off Piccadilly on 23 September which is the obvious train for the Arsenal support and the increasing number of London Man City types.

Anybody aiming to use that service and not currently in possession of a reservation needs to rectify the position. Passage through the barricade will probably not be allowed if you state "I'm only going to Stoke to switch to LM
because you thieving lot are charging too much for this train" even if, as for me, that will be a statement of fact.
 

transportphoto

Established Member
Associate Staff
Quizmaster
Joined
21 Jan 2010
Messages
4,570
InterCity did try to enforce a £5 penalty charge per passenger for travelling without a reservation, but it was so impractical that it was withdrawn after just a few weeks
Some Senior Condutors didn't even issue any such tickets, whilst others went through many pads!
This is interesting, could you provide a documented source for this please? Both about the £5 surcharge and regarding the difference in issuance between guards?

Cheers,

TP
 

tamesidedepot

Member
Joined
3 Jun 2012
Messages
83
i tried to get a seat reservation for 0949 Crewe - Bangor for next week (hopefully coach D) to be told at Crewe that they (VT) don't do reservations after 5.30pm. Should have asked if they could sell me an advanced ....
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top