Seat reservations, how are they allocated?

[stuu]

Got on a train to Plymouth at Paddington this evening. There are about 10 reserved seats in this carriage, scattered randomly as far as I can tell. Most of them are ones with terrible window alignment though. Just weird

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Travelled on a TPE 397 from Wigan to Liverpool on Saturday, sat in an almost empty and almost completely unreserved Coach B, later on went for a walk up the train and saw that Coach C was almost fully reserved and was packed!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Travelled on a TPE 397 from Wigan to Liverpool on Saturday, sat in an almost empty and almost completely unreserved Coach B, later on went for a walk up the train and saw that Coach C was almost fully reserved and was packed!

This seems not entirely unusual on trains with fake compulsory reservations. G and U tend to be quiet on 11 car Pendolinos these days too, because people don't realise the compulsory reservations are fake. I'm slightly surprised Avanti don't reserve some seats in C now, though doing G and U would prevent 9s and 11s being interchangeable so I doubt they'd put them in those.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

This seems not entirely unusual on trains with fake compulsory reservations. G and U tend to be quiet on 11 car Pendolinos these days too, because people don't realise the compulsory reservations are fake. I'm slightly surprised Avanti don't reserve some seats in C now, though doing F and U would prevent 9s and 11s being interchangeable so I doubt they'd put them in those.

Oh, is B TPE's Nova 2 (397) unreserved carriage? I saw some reservations at the C-end of the carriage so thought it was more like Avanti Coach D.
I didn't know TPE had unreserved carriages.

I didn't have a reservation since I had about 10 minutes' notice since I didn't plan on the connection (From an ex-Liverpool 331 to a to-Liverpool 397, booked 2 minute change, but we arrived 4 minutes early), I just got on Coach B hoping it would be quiet.

 

[Bletchleyite]

D is unreserved on TPE according to Google. So maybe it was just that it was quiet.

On Avanti Pendolinos it's C, G and U. Don't know about 80x.

 

[OscarH]

This seems not entirely unusual on trains with fake compulsory reservations. G and U tend to be quiet on 11 car Pendolinos these days too, because people don't realise the compulsory reservations are fake. I'm slightly surprised Avanti don't reserve some seats in C now, though doing F and U would prevent 9s and 11s being interchangeable so I doubt they'd put them in those.

s/F/G, think it's a typo?

 

[Bletchleyite]

s/F/G, think it's a typo?

Yep, sorry, G and U. Edited.

F was until the refurb was complete.

Interestingly if they swap 80x for Pendolino or vice versa they try to map them across rather than just putting everything green. (The 1652 MKC to Birmingham, don't know the Euston time, can be formed of just about anything at the moment, could be a Pendolino of either length or could be 5, 7 or sometimes even 10 cars of 80x, and has been known to be a Voyager when those were about - so little point bothering with the seat picker!)

 

[route101]

This seems not entirely unusual on trains with fake compulsory reservations. G and U tend to be quiet on 11 car Pendolinos these days too, because people don't realise the compulsory reservations are fake. I'm slightly surprised Avanti don't reserve some seats in C now, though doing G and U would prevent 9s and 11s being interchangeable so I doubt they'd put them in those.

What do you mean compulsory reservations ?

 

[Bletchleyite]

What do you mean compulsory reservations ?

At present all Avanti and LNER trains plus the TPE Scotland services (and a few, but not many, others) are set in the timetable data to show as "reservation mandatory", the effect of which is that the train will show "sold out" if there is no reservation availability for any ticket type valid on it. This was done to allow a more granular control over which services are on sale, mostly, and as a hangover from COVID when it was done to prevent overcrowding. The reservations aren't actually mandatory - you can just buy a walk up ticket and board any valid train you like and nobody will say anything - but occasional users can be forgiven for not knowing that because it doesn't actually say it anywhere, we just know it is the case.

The only trains in the UK where you'll actually be turned away if you have no reservation are the Caledonian Sleeper and Eurostar. Though you might on the Penzance Sleeper if it's Glastonbury, generally that has about 5 people in 2 coaches of 2+2 seating so you won't. The fact that both of these types of train carry the same "compulsory reservation" flag is confusing and really could do with being sorted, but it's out of the scope of ths thread to go into that as it's not speculative.

 

[Kite159]

This seems not entirely unusual on trains with fake compulsory reservations. G and U tend to be quiet on 11 car Pendolinos these days too, because people don't realise the compulsory reservations are fake. I'm slightly surprised Avanti don't reserve some seats in C now, though doing G and U would prevent 9s and 11s being interchangeable so I doubt they'd put them in those.

Don't give them ideas similar to LNER to reduce the unreserved seating area

 

[Grecian 1998]

I think XC's approach pre-2024 to standard class reservations on Voyagers was to fill D first, then F, then C. 10 minute reservations were placed in C.

During Covid, F became fully unreserved, but that changed again last year.

After XC started receiving AWC Voyagers, I think the reservations have switched to fill C first, then F, then D. There are a few seats at one end of D which are always unreserved as the AWC Voyagers have fewer seats in D than XC Voyagers.

B is always unreserved. The current reservation system therefore lets XC switch between 4 coach 220s or 221s, 5 coach 'legacy' XC 221s and 5 coach ex-AWC 221s without any reservations being lost.

I don't know if XC offer reservations in G - L when running double sets, as I can't recall seeing any. However I have heard guards announce H (equivalent coach B) and L (equivalent coach F) are fully unreserved, so I assume they can offer reservations in the second set.

I always aim for services run by double sets, and to use the standard class carriage furthest to one end of the train in the G - L set (H, I or L). I usually travel at weekends and most leisure travellers seem to pile into the middle of the train. It's quite rare that there are even 10 people in there on trips from Bristol - Exeter - Plymouth or Bristol - Birmingham. Voyagers are very pleasant trains when your carriage is largely empty.

 

[route101]

Don't give them ideas similar to LNER to reduce the unreserved seating area

Do LNER even have a unreserved coach now?

 

[Gwr12345]

Do LNER even have a unreserved coach now?

Half of coach C! Not nearly enough on a 9 coach train often used for local trips!

 

[317 forever]

Got on a train to Plymouth at Paddington this evening. There are about 10 reserved seats in this carriage, scattered randomly as far as I can tell. Most of them are ones with terrible window alignment though. Just weird

I wonder whether, as part of selling cheap Advance tickets, TOCs allocate people the least favourable seats.

 

[Sealink]

The opposite for me and the Caledonian Sleeper - I've memorised the good seats.

11A is the dream seat - opposite end from the toilet, nobody sat next to you, lots of legroom, and the table is fixed to the wall in front rather than folding down from the seat; this is more spacious, sturdier, and ideal for putting your feet up on (keep your socks on please!) if you struggle to sleep sat upright.

Thanks for this - have picked 11A for my next Sleeper trip. Booking via LNER (needed a through ticket) was tricky but got it in the end!

 

[leedsblue]

What I find annoying (from an altruistic perspective) is when I am travelling alone (generally my experience is with TPE) and I am allocated a seat on a table of 4. I would be happy sitting in an "airline" seat, rather than preventing a family/group of 4 from sitting together.

 

[PP57601]

Another big bug of mine is when GWR allocate you a seat in a carriage that isn’t platformed at certain ‘short’ stations….