We had exactly this problem last year on a very crowded Cross country service from Birmingham. Advance purchase paper tickets , weeks before , seat reservations . After a struggle to get on the train due to being so busy, our seats were occupied and the display said "available" Couldn't really argue with the people sat there, they were entirely innocent. Had to stand until Cheltenham Spa, partner had recently had a new knee and a hip replacement! Fortunately two people nearby got off at Cheltenham so we could sit down for the rest of the journey to South Devon. I questioned the train manager later and got some excuse about failure to download reservations,even though the data was available weeks before.
In this case it's a simple case of the train being as if it was any other train without reservations (like the one I'm on now!); in which case I would suggest asking anyone nearby if they were able to allow the passenger with the knee/hip replacement to sit down. In my experience any request in earshot of a good number of passengers is likely to recieve more than one offer of a seat.
The corollary of this is that if you sit in a seat that's shown as 'available' you have to frequently check that the display hasn't changed. Frequently - the above suggests every two minutes
If it's "available" then anyone can sit there and that is that; no-one has the right to force anyone to move.
Seems to be an XC thing.
My most extreme personal experience was when I boarded the DMF at New Street. The reservations were all blank, and there was no-one else in the coach. The T.M., accompanied by a passenger, approached me and said, bluntly, 'you're sitting in this lady's seat, MOVE' To be clear, this was the first approach I had received.
I did ask where I should sit, to avoid the same problem occurring later,. Presumably this reasonable extension of his logic had never occurred to him but when presented with it he simply walked off silently never to be seen again.
This is completely unacceptable; I would refuse and put in a formal complaint about the inappropriate behaviour of the TM
As for seats that "may" be reserved...
This is I accept slightly different to the 'may be reserved en route' display - it was the case (and may still be) that the display over every seat in the DMF either had that or a firm reservation.
...is a very poor implementation, but notwithstanding that....
What happens to the unsuspecting passenger already sitting in that seat?!!
Providing it is clear that it "may" be reserved en-route, then people can't really argue if it changes to "Reserved". I don't necessarily agree with it, but it is quite different to a seat being shown as "Available"
You get told to vacate it. Has happened to me on XC.
Indeed; I've also had the reverse on LNER where I reserved the seat, but the display did not change to reflect this fact. Obviously in that case, I wouldn't chuck someone out as that wouldn't be right.
The other day a lady without a reservation was wanting a seat from London to Perth; there were seats available from Edinburgh so we attempted to reserve one for her; the LNER site allowed the seat to be selected but an hour later the display wasn't showing it. However there were still several hours before Edinburgh, so I don't know if it got updated later in the journey.
It really needs to be made clearer by TOCs that sometimes the system fails and when that happens, there should be a recognition that no-one can turf someone out of a seat that isn't showing a reservation. The majority of TMs do clearly advertise that fact, but a significant minority of staff do not. It should be part of the basic training.
