No, I don`t assume you are necessarily well off at all, and in truth I completely agree with your post but good availability isn`t necessarily confined to bookings months in advance any more than at short notice at times, especially with the likes of cross country. This is of course as you rightly point out a little off topic however.
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Available if Unoccupied
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I usually get decent tickets booking a week ahead . I dont want to book too far in advance if its not something special within the UK.
I'd support this, just have the ticket valid for a particular train, but sit anywhere. I had a period when I got one of the worst seats in the carriage* reserved on several consecutive journeys.
*One of the seats without a window nearby.
I frequently don't know where I'm going until I get to the station.
Sometimes I change my mind on the platform.
That's the beauty of our public transport system.
How it should work (IMO):
If TOCs are going to use electronic reservations then:
a) they should work. Reliably.
b) they should be clear - RESERVED Taunton to Derby (or whatever).
c) they should not become magically reserved en route. If I'm travelling Taunton to Derby I don't want to discover that my unreserved seat is now reserved.
d) they should be reprogrammed as they arrive at a terminating point, not three minutes before departure.
Same rules apply to paper reservations.
No "reservation but no allocated seat" (as used by ATW - do TfW do it?). When I'm on a Cardiff-Crewe I want to look at what's on Gresty Bridge, not field worried passengers asking for "Seat ****".
Reservations - where possible - up to 10/15 minutes before departure from origin OR have a small allocation en route. So on a Plymouth - Newcastle (e.g.) you could have a few "May be reserved from Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield" etc.
If TOCs are going to use electronic reservations then:
a) they should work. Reliably.
b) they should be clear - RESERVED Taunton to Derby (or whatever).
c) they should not become magically reserved en route. If I'm travelling Taunton to Derby I don't want to discover that my unreserved seat is now reserved.
d) they should be reprogrammed as they arrive at a terminating point, not three minutes before departure.
Same rules apply to paper reservations.
No "reservation but no allocated seat" (as used by ATW - do TfW do it?). When I'm on a Cardiff-Crewe I want to look at what's on Gresty Bridge, not field worried passengers asking for "Seat ****".
Reservations - where possible - up to 10/15 minutes before departure from origin OR have a small allocation en route. So on a Plymouth - Newcastle (e.g.) you could have a few "May be reserved from Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield" etc.
Find that quite often on Virgin , the reservations dont show until after departure from Glasgow . Another reason i just go to coach u.
I shall be travelling to Glasgow by Virgin soon, I understand Coach C is the unreserved one, what is Coach U ?
Coach U is unreserved on the 11-car sets.
My go to coach when going from Euston.
Yeah , like Northern do with their advances . I prefer that , its better when your starting from origin .
Saw the other day the confusion the whole "Available if Unoccupied" causes. Train sat at Lime Street and an older gent gets on, sees the sign on ever seat at a table and decides to upgrade himself from his reserved airline seat. He settles down, bags/coat away above and book out then of course the real owners of those seats turn up and there is much kerfuffle about who should be sitting where. Obviously none of them were regular travellers as it all got a bit confusing, and he did say "well it was unoccupied when I got on!" but eventually they sorted themselves out into the correct seats.
It just seems unnecessarily confusing. The system can change from one status to another as each station call is made, so having it show neither reserved or unreserved at the starting station is crazy. And don't get me started with split tickets and being given multiple seats on the same train! If your booking method allows for selection of seats then you can sometimes fix that by choosing the same seat for each leg of the journey, but it's a bit hit and miss if it works or not.
It just seems unnecessarily confusing. The system can change from one status to another as each station call is made, so having it show neither reserved or unreserved at the starting station is crazy. And don't get me started with split tickets and being given multiple seats on the same train! If your booking method allows for selection of seats then you can sometimes fix that by choosing the same seat for each leg of the journey, but it's a bit hit and miss if it works or not.
The reliability of the system is poor especially from starting stations. I've not had a problem to date but can imagine on a very busy service it causing problems.
The wording is problematic especially in the failure scenario been seen. I would change the wording to something like "Possibly available". This would mean customers without reservations would first fill "Available" seats.
Virgin may not be fully aware of the extent of the issue as you only notice it relevant to your situation. In most cases you get lucky, the reserved seat that shows "Available if Unoccupied" and would not raise a complaint. Only once there is an issue or an inconvenience would people go to the effort of complaining.
The wording is problematic especially in the failure scenario been seen. I would change the wording to something like "Possibly available". This would mean customers without reservations would first fill "Available" seats.
Virgin may not be fully aware of the extent of the issue as you only notice it relevant to your situation. In most cases you get lucky, the reserved seat that shows "Available if Unoccupied" and would not raise a complaint. Only once there is an issue or an inconvenience would people go to the effort of complaining.
If they can allow reservations onto moving trains how difficult it would it be to allow you to put in an already purchased ticket ref number and add a reservation - ie reserve the seat you have found for the rest of your journey?
daniel97
Member
Sounds like it just come off depot. Our reservation system isn't currently programmed to determine the difference between Departure from Depot and Departure from Origin Station, hence why it said it at Euston. When it's coming from an inward working, it will say "reserved" until about 5/10 minutes after departure and then changes.
I think it's good personally, but the kinks need to be ironed out for it to be successful. A lot of our TMs are having issues with passengers because of it.
daniel97
Member
Just out of interest, how are the Virgin seat reservations loaded onto the train? Are they remotely loaded from a central control or does the TM or someone have to do it at the start of the journey?
Personally I still much prefer the old fashioned paper seat reservations that leave no room for misinterpretation (unless someone removes them like Begbie in Trainspotting!)
They're downloaded from/using TMS. A TM downloads them and they automatically apply within about 5 or 10 minutes. Location dependant, of course! I'm hearing of more issues than before with the new version that's being used.
kieron
Established Member
They're still the same. If you book on the TfW site, you can get any of the following:
Reservation not possible
Reservations not available
Reserved - no seat allocated *
* The passenger is free to sit in any unreserved seat for the class of travel specified on the ticket
Who knows what it all means?
trainophile
Established Member
And sometimes you click on the info button and see "Reservations recommended". But if you're buying an Advance ticket you can't get one, apparently unless you buy at a station, which rather defeats the object of booking in Advance from the comfort of your home.
Tfw seat reservations , now counted place ones ?
trainophile
Established Member
I imagine the "reservations recommended" applies to non-Advance tickets, where reserving an actual seat is still possible.
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