TPE reservation dispute

[ThePannier]

Hi,

Yesterday, with school, I went on a trip down to Leeds to visit the mosque as part of an RE project. Enjoyed the trip itself, but something that happened on the journey back has been playing on my mind.

We all had had seats reserved, all close together, by our teachers. There were 18 of us (including two staff) and from what the team leader told me, we were all meant to be in Coach B.

After all boarding 185116, we found that about 15 people were sitting in our reserved seats. After asking them to move, they said that there were 'no reservations on this train' and that 'they had reserved the same seats on another train that had been cancelled'. None of them wanted to budge.

This left us in an awkward situation, because the train was rather crowded, and we just wound up being dotted all over with about 6 in each coach, the majority standing.

Just a question - something that's annoyed me is, should we still have claimed the seats? - as I think the overall total of the reservations from Leeds to Chester-le-Street came to about £200 plus. At the end of the day, we had reserved the seats for this specific journey, and wasn't really our problem that their original train had been cancelled.

Just to let you know, all of the money for this trip was FUNDED, not paid for by each individual student. So, when you think about it, that's over £200 of public money wasted on seat reservations.

Thanks in advance!

*Also, I'd just like to point out, I'm not representing my school in any way, I'm just personally looking for an answer.

 

[DelayRepay]

Seat reservations are normally free aren't they?

If you had a reservation but had to stand, I think you're entitled to compensation (50% of the cost of the single leg of your journey). But if you found alternative seats I don't think you have cause for complaint.

 

[ThePannier]

Seat reservations are normally free aren't they?

If you had a reservation but had to stand, I think you're entitled to compensation (50% of the cost of the single leg of your journey). But if you found alternative seats I don't think you have cause for complaint.

I normally pay something extra if I'm doing a solo journey. I'll check.

I'm really not sure on the ins and outs, as I didn't book.

There were about half standing and about half sitting. Some people also had to move around a bit due to people requesting for their seats.

Nonetheless, it was still quite frustrating that we wound up being seperated. More to the point, as I'm really no good with the 'law' regarding these sort of things, did those passengers on the cancelled train have right to claim our seats.

Marcus

 

[najaB]

Nonetheless, it was still quite frustrating that we wound up being seperated. More to the point, as I'm really no good with the 'law' regarding these sort of things, did those passengers on the cancelled train have right to claim our seats.

No, they didn't have the right to sit in your reserved seats as reservations are for a specific train and don't automatically transfer to any other service.

Seat reservations are free on TPE (and I believe all TOC's) so you aren't technically entitled to any compensation if everyone in the party was able to find a seat for the entire journey.

However, if it was specifically made as a group booking then TPE may give something as a gesture of goodwill - though if you (or a member of your party) didn't bring it to the attention of on-train staff at the time then it does imply that you were okay with the situation.

 

[ThePannier]

No, they didn't have the right to sit in your reserved seats as reservations are for a specific train and don't automatically transfer to any other service.



Seat reservations are free on TPE (and I believe all TOC's) so you aren't technically entitled to any compensation if everyone in the party was able to find a seat for the entire journey.



However, if it was specifically made as a group booking then TPE may give something as a gesture of goodwill - though if you (or a member of your party) didn't bring it to the attention of on-train staff at the time then it does imply that you were okay with the situation.

Thank you very much! - that's what I needed to know.

I think it was more a case of our teachers didn't want to make a fuss, and make the situation even harder, with over a dozen kids all over the train.

I was of the understanding that the Head of RE had paid for the reservations using the money given to them.

Cheers!

 

[yorkie]

Can you clarify: were there seat reservations on the train, which the other group had ignored?

Or did the train not have any seat reservation labels (for the current journey) displayed?

If the former, then you need to speak to the Guard who will either move the group or find alternative seats.

If the latter, then the group were correct that they didn't have to move (see previous threads) but you would be entitled to compensation if you had to stand. The cost of reservations is £0, but you'd be compensated based on the price of your tickets.

 

[ThePannier]

Can you clarify: were there seat reservations on the train, which the other group had ignored?

Or did the train not have any seat reservation labels (for the current journey) displayed?

If the former, then you need to speak to the Guard who will either move the group or find alternative seats.

If the latter, then the group were correct that they didn't have to move (see previous threads) but you would be entitled to compensation if you had to stand. The cost of reservations is £0, but you'd be compensated based on the price of your tickets.

I could see some seat reservations for some of the seats we were meant to be sat in, but not all. Don't know if that was a result of a rushed job or something, or a result of the cancelled train's passengers getting confused with ours.

All I know is they were adamant on sitting in our seats and we ended up anywhere and everywhere as a result.

Thanks a lot!


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[bb21]

I could see some seat reservations for some of the seats we were meant to be sat in, but not all. Don't know if that was a result of a rushed job or something, or a result of the cancelled train's passengers getting confused with ours.

All I know is they were adamant on sitting in our seats and we ended up anywhere and everywhere as a result.

Thanks a lot!

If some of the reservations are shown then chances are that they were put out and some labels may have been removed by those passengers. You should have found the guard who would have moved those people. They had no right to be in them.

 

[yorkie]

I could see some seat reservations for some of the seats we were meant to be sat in, but not all...

Did you just see the labels or did you read any of them and identify them as being for the correct train, and showing your journey details?

The reason I ask is that TPE seem to not bother with reservations sometimes, and they leave the old ones out. I've not experienced this on any other TOC that I can recall.

TPE don't seem to be such a professional company as, say, East Coast, who would at least remove the old reservations and make announcements that reservations were cancelled. Leaving out old reservations is unheard of at most TOCs, but not uncommon on TPE.

It's not 100% clear to me if the reservations were for your journey, but if they were, then it sounds like some were removed and you should speak to the Guard about that.

 

[ThePannier]

Did you just see the labels or did you read any of them and identify them as being for the correct train, and showing your journey details?

The reason I ask is that TPE seem to not bother with reservations sometimes, and they leave the old ones out. I've not experienced this on any other TOC that I can recall.

TPE don't seem to be such a professional company as, say, East Coast, who would at least remove the old reservations and make announcements that reservations were cancelled.

It's not 100% clear to me if the reservations were for your journey, but if they were, then it sounds like some were removed and you should speak to the Guard about that.

I have to second that! - the reason I rarely use TPE on my own trips out is because they don't really seem to care about the important things like seat reservations.

I prefer EC personally, I love a ride on an InterCity 125 (if I'm lucky!), and the Class 91s. Still chasing 91111 since it got painted into it's WW1 Memorial livery! :P

 

[najaB]

The reason I ask is that TPE seem to not bother with reservations sometimes, and they leave the old ones out. I've not experienced this on any other TOC that I can recall.

It's been posted on other threads that this is because their turnaround times are often too short for guards to get their personal breaks and also deal with putting out seat reservations.

 

[6Gman]

I think it's very unlikely that you paid extra for reservations, so that's not a factor.

You could have approached the on-train staff and asked for their assistance - it is their job to 'police' the train after all - but it seems that you didn't do so.

If it was the case that a preceding train was cancelled I think a bit of cheery blitz spirit, all in it together, chumminess might have been appropriate .

 

[BestWestern]

Best thing to do in this case, though probably not appropriate here, is sit on their lap! I bloody would!

Did anybody speak with the Guard? Did he appear at all during the journey?

 

[Darandio]

Best thing to do in this case, though probably not appropriate here, is sit on their lap! I bloody would!

But I'm fairly certain you are not still in school!

I'm sure anyone can see how a schoolkid sitting on the lap of an unknown adult could be viewed as strange.....

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The reason I ask is that TPE seem to not bother with reservations sometimes, and they leave the old ones out. I've not experienced this on any other TOC that I can recall.

Personally speaking, we have never travelled on First TPE on journeys to Durham, York and Cleethorpes with seat reservations ordered at the time of pre-booking with the rail tickets and then found that a seat reservation label had not been correctly installed in our pre-book seats. I have been on return services from Manchester Piccadilly station to Manchester Airport station where staff have been seen actively removing existing journey seat reservation labels and installing new seat reservation labels for the next outward journey from Manchester Airport station.

On the other hand, I have made a number of postings on this website over the last three years where Arriva Trains Wales seemed to take a cavalier attitude to the display of seat reservation labels, on our return journeys to Wilmslow from Hereford and from Ludlow.

 

[pemma]

Personally speaking, we have never travelled on First TPE on journeys to Durham, York and Cleethorpes with seat reservations ordered at the time of pre-booking with the rail tickets and then found that a seat reservation label had not been correctly installed in our pre-book seats. I have been on return services from Manchester Piccadilly station to Manchester Airport station where staff have been seen actively removing existing journey seat reservation labels and installing new seat reservation labels for the next outward journey from Manchester Airport station.

On the other hand, I have made a number of postings on this website over the last three years where Arriva Trains Wales seemed to take a cavalier attitude to the display of seat reservation labels, on our return journeys to Wilmslow from Hereford and from Ludlow.

I've never had a problem with TPE reservations either. However, I'm aware some late running TPE services get turned around short e.g. at Manchester Piccadilly instead of Manchester Airport. Also it tends to be the train cleaning staff who put out the reservation tickets not the conductor, so I wonder if turning around a service at the wrong station can result in the reservations not being updated?

Virgin and EMT (Liverpool to Norwich route) are the worse for missing seat reservations from my experience.

 

[island]

FTPE does not charge for seat reservations (and you will see £0.00 printed on your seat reservation coupons, if they're separate). The full amount paid was towards travel.

A polite letter/email to FTPE may yield a gesture of goodwill such as Rail Travel Vouchers, although if I was in receipt of such a communication I would be wondering why you did not speak to a member of staff on the train about the issue.

 

[IanD]

Best thing to do in this case, though probably not appropriate here, is sit on their lap! I bloody would!

Did anybody speak with the Guard? Did he appear at all during the journey?

I think the teachers should have stood their ground and insisted that train staff sort it out - and crucially kept the school party together, crowding out those refusing to move and causing them maximum discomfort during their journey if necessary. How can 2 teachers be adequately supervising 18 students spread across 3 coaches? Leeds to Chester-le-Street is quite a long trip (surprised there are no mosques closer to Chester-le-Street though.) If I was one of the parents, I'd be having words with the school. And if I was the school I'd be having words with TPE.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think the teachers should have stood their ground and insisted that train staff sort it out - and crucially kept the school party together, crowding out those refusing to move and causing them maximum discomfort during their journey if necessary. How can 2 teachers be adequately supervising 18 students spread across 3 coaches? Leeds to Chester-le-Street is quite a long trip (surprised there are no mosques closer to Chester-le-Street though.) If I was one of the parents, I'd be having words with the school. And if I was the school I'd be having words with TPE.

It is perfectly normal for teenage children to travel to school on their own by train. So I'm sure there would have been no actual issue caused by this.

Neil

 

[yorkie]

We don't actually know the ages, so this is all guesswork.

Some people consider Year 12/13 (ie, age 17-19 normally, or even 20 if someone has been kept down a year!) to be "school", though I personally wouldn't.

If they were, say, Year 11s, then - while it's not really much of an issue in practice, I was travelling loads of places independently at a younger age - it would almost certainly be a breach of the risk assessment to have them in separate coaches and I agree would be 'frowned upon', and the teachers could potentially get into a spot of trouble if it was found out.

There's also an assumption that there weren't any students with special needs, etc.

FTPE does not charge for seat reservations (and you will see £0.00 printed on your seat reservation coupons, if they're separate). The full amount paid was towards travel.

A polite letter/email to FTPE may yield a gesture of goodwill such as Rail Travel Vouchers, although if I was in receipt of such a communication I would be wondering why you did not speak to a member of staff on the train about the issue.

Perfectly put.

 

[najaB]

It is perfectly normal for teenage children to travel to school on their own by train. So I'm sure there would have been no actual issue caused by this.

Except that the teachers have a duty of care towards the children. In the unlikely event that there had been an accident, it would have been more difficult to determine if the whole party was accounted for if they were spread across different carriages.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Except that the teachers have a duty of care towards the children.

Duty of care does not necessarily require direct supervision. A long-distance train is a very safe environment.

In the unlikely event that there had been an accident, it would have been more difficult to determine if the whole party was accounted for if they were spread across different carriages.

That is *so* unlikely it won't be anything more than a tiny footnote (if that) on any risk assessment for taking young people around by train (something I as a Scout Leader do quite frequently).

Neil
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If they were, say, Year 11s, then - while it's not really much of an issue in practice, I was travelling loads of places independently at a younger age - it would almost certainly be a breach of the risk assessment to have them in separate coaches and I agree would be 'frowned upon', and the teachers could potentially get into a spot of trouble if it was found out.

You can't "breach" a risk assessment. If the risk assessment identified that the group should not be split, mitigation would be necessary to absolutely prevent that, such as a decision to leave the train and wait for another as a group if it was not possible to stay together, or even to cancel the trip in those circumstances.

But only a paranoid RA would consider it a massive problem for teenage, non-special-needs young people.

Neil

 

[Starmill]

though if you (or a member of your party) didn't bring it to the attention of on-train staff at the time then it does imply that you were okay with the situation.

It may or many not be related to their compensation policy, Passenger's Charter or anything else, but I would strongly advise anyone against bringing your lack of a seat despite having a seat reservation to the attention of a TPE guard, with only the odd exception. If you are able to locate the guard and do choose to, do not expect a friendly response nor any assistance in finding a seat!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

We don't actually know the ages, so this is all guesswork.

Some people consider Year 12/13 (ie, age 17-19 normally, or even 20 if someone has been kept down a year!) to be "school", though I personally wouldn't.

That would have been totally normal for me, because the place I went to for years 12/13 was a School, and I had been going there and calling it that for five years!

I used to know someone who referred to her University classes as 'School' - that was different.

Perfectly put.

Not bad, see above.

The reason I ask is that TPE seem to not bother with reservations sometimes, and they leave the old ones out. I've not experienced this on any other TOC that I can recall.

TPE don't seem to be such a professional company as, say, East Coast, who would at least remove the old reservations and make announcements that reservations were cancelled. Leaving out old reservations is unheard of at most TOCs, but not uncommon on TPE.

This is perfectly put.

TPE's seat reservations are empirically incredibly unreliable at present, I created a thread about it recently and it was established that the pressure is increasing on the whole operation to perform well and carry more passengers with already insufficent resources. Unfortunately, this appears to be driven by government policy to reduce subsidy to some franchises (to charge more for a worse service) and looks set to get worse before maybe getting better at some undefined point in the future 'Jam Tomorrow' style.

 

[PermitToTravel]

I used to know someone who referred to her University classes as 'School' - that was different.

Fairly common in some parts of the world - an American friend presently studying towards a master's degree frequently refers to being "in school"!

 

[muz379]

My experience of traveling with TPE is that seat reservations are most of the time put out . And on the one occasion some drunk guy decided his need to sit down took precedent over my seat reservation the staff where helpful although it was pointed out when I first approached the guard that they could not physically remove somebody from their seat which is fair enough .

The last time I had problems with a seat reservation was traveling from man pic to Huddersfield about 8 months ago , the train had been terminated short of the airport at pic and they did not get a chance to change the seat reservations and the guard made a clear announcement , he did remove the old ones when he came through checking tickets as well . Before that it was at Edinburgh a few years back now when 3 subsequent trains had been cancelled due to signalling failures or something at Carlisle . I fully expected seat reservations to get cancelled in that case and an everyman for himself free-for-all occur instead . Although some extremely posh women could not understand why this was the case :roll:

If I had a school group on board I would try everything within my power to keep them all together . But obviously this would be contingent on me knowing about it in the first place .

Duty of care does not necessarily require direct supervision. A long-distance train is a very safe environment.



That is *so* unlikely it won't be anything more than a tiny footnote (if that) on any risk assessment for taking young people around by train (something I as a Scout Leader do quite frequently).

Neil
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


You can't "breach" a risk assessment. If the risk assessment identified that the group should not be split, mitigation would be necessary to absolutely prevent that, such as a decision to leave the train and wait for another as a group if it was not possible to stay together, or even to cancel the trip in those circumstances.

But only a paranoid RA would consider it a massive problem for teenage, non-special-needs young people.

Neil

Until one of the "kids" decides to jump off and have an impromptu day out at one of the intermediate stations , and then when the train arrives at its destination and there is a pupil or two missing all hell breaks loose .

 

[Jonny]

I think the teachers should have stood their ground and insisted that train staff sort it out - and crucially kept the school party together, crowding out those refusing to move and causing them maximum discomfort during their journey if necessary. How can 2 teachers be adequately supervising 18 students spread across 3 coaches? Leeds to Chester-le-Street is quite a long trip (surprised there are no mosques closer to Chester-le-Street though.) If I was one of the parents, I'd be having words with the school. And if I was the school I'd be having words with TPE.

Coming from that part of the world, there aren't any mosques for miles around and there are very few in the North-East as a whole. I know at least one (now retired) teacher from Chester-le-Street who would arrange to take her class to Bradford for a Mosque visit.

 

[pemma]

That would have been totally normal for me, because the place I went to for years 12/13 was a School, and I had been going there and calling it that for five years!

Indeed. I also went to a school with a sixth form opposed to a further education college.

 

[Tetchytyke]

My experience of traveling with TPE is that seat reservations are most of the time put out

They do tend to be. However they also have a tendency to mysteriously disappear, especially when a group of drunk chavs on their way home from Magaluf decide they want a table after all.

Coming from that part of the world, there aren't any mosques for miles around

There are Mosques up the Westgate Road in Newcastle, which is all of 10 miles away.

If the risk assessment identified that the group should not be split, mitigation would be necessary to absolutely prevent that, such as a decision to leave the train and wait for another as a group if it was not possible to stay together, or even to cancel the trip in those circumstances.

Most people risk assess the difficulty of travelling by train and choose to take road transport instead. Maybe that is what TPE want. It would certainly help to cut overcrowding if everyone decided to drive instead.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Until one of the "kids" decides to jump off and have an impromptu day out at one of the intermediate stations , and then when the train arrives at its destination and there is a pupil or two missing all hell breaks loose .

That could happen, but if you put the right kids in the right place it almost certainly won't. (As noted I have plenty of experience of doing this kind of thing and I have never had one do anything quite that stupid).

But my main point was that if the school's RA does identify that the group must not be split under any circumstances, rail is the wrong choice of transport, unless something like a coach is available on standby. Rail cannot and will not make guarantees a group will not be split, nor will any other kind of public transport. And school groups do not have priority over other users, and nor should they have.

Neil
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

They do tend to be. However they also have a tendency to mysteriously disappear, especially when a group of drunk chavs on their way home from Magaluf decide they want a table after all.

That is a big problem with card reservations, which is solved by moving to electronic ones. Depending on how well XC's on-the-day reservations work, there may even be a case for moving to reserved coaches and unreserved coaches, with no need to place anything at all, though I doubt that would be workable on always-overcrowded TPE.

Most people risk assess the difficulty of travelling by train and choose to take road transport instead. Maybe that is what TPE want. It would certainly help to cut overcrowding if everyone decided to drive instead.

There is no significant organisational or environmental disbenefit to a school choosing a coach for transporting large numbers of young people rather than a train. There may be an educational benefit of using the train (one reason why I tend to use it for the Scouts even where a minibus might be easier/cheaper - and we did ask them and they mostly prefer the train), though part of that educational benefit does involve some of the challenges using public transport can occasionally bring.

FWIW, I would be unlikely to take the Scouts on a journey involving TPE, because it *is* so overcrowded. We usually use LM if going south or VT if going north, neither of which have a massive problem along those lines.

Neil

 

[ThePannier]

Just to answer a few questions and not create a huge quoting post! lol

Our topic for the trip was to review how religion, mainly athiesm and islam, have had an effect on one of the larger cities in our country. We originally planned for Bradford in the early stages, but this was changed to Leeds, for reasons I do not know.

I agree with the post(s?) regarding the teacher's duty of care towards us. The amount of paperwork a teacher undergoes before even taking a group of 18 an inch out of school grounds is incredible. The Head of RE said she was on for a whole night afterschool sorting out all the little details like risk assessments and itinerary planning to the last minute.

A large group of Year 9 & 10 students, for those interested. I'm in Year 9, which has actually been taken quite surpringly because of the way I write (lol), and I don't think many of us felt secure being spread across such a distance.

The risk of being sat near a door, and not near a teacher with others, and suddenly being snatched by an adult, puts stuff into perspective for me.