Thanks
@Cowley.
Thought I'd report that with a partial resumption of work travel I've tried to book EMR travel from Nottingham to both London and Manchester in the last few days, less than a week ahead so it's unlikely to be too early for reservations to be opened. All options showed "limited availability" on both EMR and our travel agency portal and those that I took closer to booking only offered *** counted places rather than actual reservations.
Has anyone else had similar recent experience, or can shed any light on why this should be or how long it might continue?
With the stories in other threads about overcrowding I had to think several times before booking EMR at all for a longish journey, and ended up booking with LNER for the London trip (then couldn't go due to weather disruption). Counted places are effectively useless for the traveller unless the operator prevents anyone without a reservation from boarding, and I don't believe EMR are doing that. Even if I knew there was a seat available somewhere, hunting through the reservations to find it is very tedious, and verging on the impossible on a 222 where you have to read the little display above each seat.
If this is going to continue it will really put me off travelling, as I've always been able to point out that it's not dead time if I can get the laptop out and do some work. But for that to happen I have to have one of the rare table seats.
