Made seat reservation, but no coach and seat numbers given??

I booked a trip to Liverpool for a couple of weeks time. When I was booking my ticket it said seat reservations are compulsory for the Newport-Chester leg of the journey. So I chose window airline facing seat. But when I got the confirmation of it, the coach and seat number are not given. It just displays it as - seats reserved: Coach: * Seats: ***. Bit confused by this. Never had this happen before when booking train tickets and making compulsory seat reservations. Does this sound right? Will the coach and seat numbers be on my ticket when I goto collect them? Or has something gone wrong during the reservation process when I made the booking?

I don't always sit in the reserved seats when I travel, as I usually find another unreserved seat where I can have two seats to myself and more space! Reserved seats, you usually get put next to someone else. The service I will be getting is the 0721 Cardiff Central-Holyhead. Is this service likely to be really busy upon departure from Newport?

Thanks for any info on this.

This is called "counted places" in industry jargon. You may sit anywhere you like - there will be no reservation labels on the train. It's a way of selling limited-availability quota-controlled fares through the National Reservation System (NRS).

Answering your questions a little bit more:
- nothing has gone wrong
- yes, the asterisks will be on your tickets (well, reservation coupons, strictly speaking) when you collect them
- the selection you made (window, airline, facing) has no impact - sit anywhere

If you are wondering "why was I asked to make a selection for seat preferences when there are no specific seat reservations?", the answer is straightforward: there is no distinction in NRS between trains that have reservations for specific seats and those that are "counted places" only. So booking engines can't tell the difference, and default to asking the question about preferences. Not ideal, but that's NRS for you.

ATW do reservations on that service but do not give them out with advance purchase tickets and save them for flexible Off Peak and Anytime fares.

It's perhaps worth adding that if the ticket is an Advance ticket, the effect of the counted places reservation is that the OP is required to travel on the specified train.

you can still take your advance purchase ticket to a booking office and get a seat reservation from them free of charge

rg177 said:

ATW do reservations on that service but do not give them out with advance purchase tickets and save them for flexible Off Peak and Anytime fares.

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That's interesting. I didn't know it was possible in NRS to set up a train so that it was counted places for some ticket types, and physical reservations for others, presumably all using the same seats (not different seat allocations). Other than where bikes are involved, which have different allocations. Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?

TPE use counted places for their Advance on the day while earlier bought Advance have reservations.

alistairlees said:

That's interesting. I didn't know it was possible in NRS to set up a train so that it was counted places for some ticket types, and physical reservations for others, presumably all using the same seats (not different seat allocations). Other than where bikes are involved, which have different allocations. Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?

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Nope, that's pretty much how it is. Reservations for specific seats are not given with cheaper advance purchase tickets but are available for flexible ticket holders. Hence some trains are pretty well filled with reservations.

Thanks for the info confirming that's OK. I'll just get on and find an available window airline seat hopefully.

Slightly worrying though is that there's only an 11 minute connection time at Newport between the arrival of the service from Bristol and the service to Chester. Hope that train from Bristol isn't more than about 8 minutes late(which could easily happen) and I go and miss that 0736 to Holyhead. Otherwise it seems I've no choice but to wait another 2 hours for the next ATW service to Chester! If that connection is missed, would my ticket then be valid for the alternate route from Newport-Liverpool via an ATW service to Crewe and Virgin Trains to Liverpool? I expect probably not. I might have to just play it safe and get the 0620 service from Bristol-Newport instead on the 0651.

Class 33 said:

Thanks for the info confirming that's OK. I'll just get on and find an available window airline seat hopefully.

Slightly worrying though is that there's only an 11 minute connection time at Newport between the arrival of the service from Bristol and the service to Chester. Hope that train from Bristol isn't more than about 8 minutes late(which could easily happen) and I go and miss that 0736 to Holyhead. Otherwise it seems I've no choice but to wait another 2 hours for the next ATW service to Chester! If that connection is missed, would my ticket then be valid for the alternate route from Newport-Liverpool via an ATW service to Crewe and Virgin Trains to Liverpool? I expect probably not. I might have to just play it safe and get the 0620 service from Bristol-Newport instead on the 0651.

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If you miss your connection I don't see why you would have to wait for the next direct ATW service to Chester. You should be accommodated on the 08.19 to Shrewsbury (arrive 09.58; the service is to Manchester Piccadilly), followed by the 10.23 from Shrewsbury to Chester (a Birmingham to Holyhead service). That way will get to Chester one hour later, rather than two.

dave4jackie said:

you can still take your advance purchase ticket to a booking office and get a seat reservation from them free of charge

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I've had arguments with Arriva booking office staff about this. They can be adamant that a seat reservation is only available if you buy your ticket from them, not if you present an already obtained ticket and ask for a seat res. They can sell Advance tickets at the counter, but most of us prefer to grab them online while they are available, rather than risk missing out, or dealing with a clerk who says they can't find the ticket you saw half an hour ago!

alistairlees said:

If you miss your connection I don't see why you would have to wait for the next direct ATW service to Chester. You should be accommodated on the 08.19 to Shrewsbury (arrive 09.58; the service is to Manchester Piccadilly), followed by the 10.23 from Shrewsbury to Chester (a Birmingham to Holyhead service). That way will get to Chester one hour later, rather than two.

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Thanks for pointing that out. This travel itinerary surprisingly didn't come up in the train booking engines. Why not? It instead comes up with getting the 0819 ATW to Crewe, then the 1049 Virgin Trains to Chester. I'll go via your suggested itinerary if I miss that 0736 service to Chester, if the 0651 from Bristol arrives at Newport too late! Cheers.

Just a follow-up to that. That journey up to Liverpool didn't go quite as intended! I thought I'd tell you about it.

I did think it was a bit of a risk going with the suggested itinerary when making the booking, of getting the 0651 service from Bristol Temple Meads-Newport, and then only an 11 minute connection time to the 0736 to Chester. As when I looked it up on the National Rail live departures over the past couple of weeks, I notice it was several minutes or more late arriving into Newport a few times. So I thought I'll play it safe and get the 0620 service from Bristol Temple Meads instead, to allow plenty of time at Newport to get that 0736 service. When I arrived at Temple Meads, I realised that I could have got a the 0627 Cross Country service to Newport as well, calling enroute at Patchway only. But I thought "Naaaah. I don't really like Voyagers. I'll just get the 0620.". The departure screen was showing the 0620 service as being 4 or 5 minutes late though. But it arrived at 0624. It was a 2-car Class 158. Thought it would have departed swiftly, or at least just after that 0627 to Newcastle. But no, it was staying stationery for a while. An announcement then came across the PA system basically saying that there was a problem with the carriage lighting in the front carriage, and that engineers had been called to fix it, and that we hope to be departing very shortly. Anyway, skipping forward a bit to 0645 when the train was still stationery the conductor then said on the PA system "Anyone travelling to Newport or Cardiff are advised to get the 0651 service on platform 11 and you will get there before this service.". So I departed the train, as did a number of others on the train and headed for platform 11. I then a few minutes later saw that that 0620 service then departed a few minutes later!!! And the departure screen said the 0651 service was expected at 0655. Anyway, it departed at 0656. But was running fairly slow as far as around the Pilning area. So there must have been some other train in front of it. Anyway, didn't arrive into Newport until 0741, and I had missed that 0736 service to Chester! So got the 0819 service to Shrewbsury, then the 1023 to Chester, then the 1131 to Liverpool. Arrived at Liverpool Central at 1223. What a long journey! About 7 hours after I left my house!

Still overall a good journey though. And the journey between Chester and Liverpool on Mersey Rail was a first for me, never done that line before. Annoying though I arrived at Liverpool an hour(well just over an hour actually) late, due to that 0620 between Bristol and Newport messing things up for me, and that 0651 service also being late too. If I had ignored that conductor's advice and just stayed on the train rather than getting that 0651 service, the train would have departed just a few minutes later and I'd have got to Newport in time for that 0736 service to Chester and arrived in Liverpool at 11:15! Oh well. It was what it was. I wish I'd have got that 0627 Cross Country service to Newport now calling at just Patchway only.

I’m sure you can claim delay repay for that catalogue of complications. Start with GWR (assuming they run the Temple Meads to Newport service) as it was the knock-on from the advice you were given on there that caused you to miss your subsequent connections.

Northern do this with reservations too , none of their services do . Ive heard the cheapest Scotrail s do as well .

trainophile said:

I’m sure you can claim delay repay for that catalogue of complications. Start with GWR (assuming they run the Temple Meads to Newport service) as it was the knock-on from the advice you were given on there that caused you to miss your subsequent connections.

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Thanks. I might do that then. Never claimed delay repay before. Luckily I still have the outbound tickets. How much would I likely be compensated for a ticket that cost me £27?

route101 said:

Northern do this with reservations too , none of their services do . Ive heard the cheapest Scotrail s do as well .

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That's correct, Scotrail have them just for their lowest tier advance (1st and std) tickets but all other Scotrail advance tickets come with seat reservations. It's VERY annoying!
You have to travel on a particular service so why don't they give us a seat too if available at time of booking? I often see complaints on Facebook about it.
With busy services it's often worth waiting for the cheapest tier to sell out just so you can buy the next tier with a seat reservation! Stupid Scotrail system.

Class 33 said:

Thanks. I might do that then. Never claimed delay repay before. Luckily I still have the outbound tickets. How much would I likely be compensated for a ticket that cost me £27?

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I can't find anything that actually states the level of compensation, but I think it is 50% for a delay of over 1 hour (nothing for less than that).

GWR's compensation system is old and outdated, essentially the compensation you are entitled to depends on which franchise would have run your service back before the three Great Western franchises were merged. However the standard percentage of compensation is 50% of a single for 1 hour, or 25% of a return.

Wallsendmag said:

TPE use counted places for their Advance on the day while earlier bought Advance have reservations.

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Another question: last week I travelled in the UK and had for my return an advance Sheffield-LON/KIngsX, routed via Doncaster, with of course reservation made on the LNER-HST (!diesel) that came from Leeds to LON. However, the leg Sheffield-Don was without any reservation, and this train (just 3 cars, as is normal )was very busy with lots of standees (around 12.00) and loads of luggage anywhere in the hallways too. There was also no fixed train noted. So could I have used CrossCountry too? How does this relate to this stated TPE quota?

With no reservation you were most likely supposed to take a Northern service , without a reservation it wouldn’t be valid on a reservable service.

Wallsendmag said:

With no reservation you were most likely supposed to take a Northern service , without a reservation it wouldn’t be valid on a reservable service.

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I'm not sure how an ordinary customer is supposed to know that. The route code is 00430 which is "Only valid on booked London North Eastern Railway services and required connecting services.". What exactly does "Required connecting services" mean? If it required (in the sense that this was the most optimal / only option) me to get a CrossCountry train, I would get that to Doncaster.

As it happens, this fare appears to be set up for TransPennine Express and Northern, but to specifically exclude CrossCountry - at least, on one day in October, I can find no CrossCountry trains on which it is valid, whilst there are many Northern and TPE trains on which it is valid.

But how is a real person supposed to know that?

It would be more sensible to create a route code that specified Northern or TPE, if that's the desired outcome. Yet more route codes! And, of course, it's then difficult to know what to do at times of disruption.

Simply by travelling on the service on your booking confirmation.

alistairlees said:

I'm not sure how an ordinary customer is supposed to know that. The route code is 00430 which is "Only valid on booked London North Eastern Railway services and required connecting services.". What exactly does "Required connecting services" mean? If it required (in the sense that this was the most optimal / only option) me to get a CrossCountry train, I would get that to Doncaster.

As it happens, this fare appears to be set up for TransPennine Express and Northern, but to specifically exclude CrossCountry - at least, on one day in October, I can find no CrossCountry trains on which it is valid, whilst there are many Northern and TPE trains on which it is valid.

But how is a real person supposed to know that?

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Agreed. Restricting a non-reserved +connections part of a journey to a particular TOC or TOCs (or in this case excluding a TOC from it), without explicitly spelling that situation out to the passenger, is unenforceable.

trainophile said:

I’m sure you can claim delay repay for that catalogue of complications. Start with GWR (assuming they run the Temple Meads to Newport service) as it was the knock-on from the advice you were given on there that caused you to miss your subsequent connections.

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To follow-up on this. I put in a claim for GWR Delay Repay. About 10 days after I put the claim in I got a reply to say they had checked my journey and as the delay to my journey was only 38 minutes I would not be entitled to any compensation. A delay of only 38 minutes?! Not sure where they got that from. And whilst the delay to the GWR service between Bristol and Newport was only 16 minutes arriving into Newport, it caused me to then miss my booked connecting service to Chester, and I was actually about 1 hour 8 minutes late arriving into Liverpool! A total delay of over an hour! I have emailed them back again to go into more details about my journey - which I wasn't able to do on the online GWR Delay Repay claim form. I await their reply....

And looks like I'm going to have to wait up to another 14 days to get a reply back from them!

Class 33 said:

To follow-up on this. I put in a claim for GWR Delay Repay. About 10 days after I put the claim in I got a reply to say they had checked my journey and as the delay to my journey was only 38 minutes I would not be entitled to any compensation. A delay of only 38 minutes?! Not sure where they got that from. And whilst the delay to the GWR service between Bristol and Newport was only 16 minutes arriving into Newport, it caused me to then miss my booked connecting service to Chester, and I was actually about 1 hour 8 minutes late arriving into Liverpool! A total delay of over an hour! I have emailed them back again to go into more details about my journey - which I wasn't able to do on the online GWR Delay Repay claim form. I await their reply....

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GWR don't do Delay Repay.
They use an inferior Delay "compensation" scheme, basically you need to be delayed by an hour or more.(unless you're traveling in the Thames Valley)
They will only pay out if the delay is a fault of the rail industry.

cactustwirly said:

They will only pay out if the delay is a fault of the rail industry.

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It is slightly and subtly different to that - they may refuse to pay out if the fault was entirely outside the control of the rail industry. There will be some causes of delays that are not the direct fault of the rail industry, but which equally are not entirely outside their control - and those are not exempt from compensation.

ForTheLoveOf said:

It is slightly and subtly different to that - they may refuse to pay out if the fault was entirely outside the control of the rail industry. There will be some causes of delays that are not the direct fault of the rail industry, but which equally are not entirely outside their control - and those are not exempt from compensation.

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Such as?