Pet Peeves

[Gavin Scott]

I changed at York and noticed some signage saying "1705 Cancelled" - yet there was a 1708 service going to the same destination (Glasgow, via Edinburgh).

I was beginning to get myself wound up at the prospect of my reserved seat being useless, as on the way down they announced that there were two cancelled services that day and so to anticipate it being "very busy" from Newcastle.

As it turns out my reservation was fine - but I couldn't help but notice the posters up everywhere on the trains and stations telling the customer how much they will have to pay if they use the wrong ticket etc, as if everyone was a criminal.

But would they upgrade me to 1st class if I'd lost my reserved seat due to their cancellations? I think not.

That said, I do have a pal on the inside who I could call to handle my complaint.

Thanks Ison.

Thison.

[WillPS]

Hence why I said National Express coaches in my original post - they don't (or at least didn't) give you the opportunity to reserve seats. You'll also find that operators like Northern do not offer the opportunity to reserve seats on any of their journeys, so my peeve remains in that situation.

But whilst we're on the topic of seat reservation peeves:

• I hate it when for whatever reason the conductor doesn't put the reservation tickets out, or "the download fails" on Meridians/Voyagers/Pendolinos.[*
• When a person is funny about leaving the seat which you have reserved (with or without the above point)
• When you book a seat and find that it's occupied by part of a sprawling family

[Alexia]

[*[*]When a person is funny about leaving the seat which you have reserved

Hate that. Bastards.

[ashley b]

I'm waiting for the ability to choose which seat you want to book like you can do in Spain. At the moment I don't usually sit in my reserved seat on a Virgin service as I prefer the one's at the back of the quiet coach with the extra leg room (the joys of being 6'6"). These are never usually reserved unless it's really, really busy. Mind the train's in Spain had about 10 times as much leg room in a normal seat anyway.

[Alexia]

I'm waiting for the ability to choose which seat you want to book like you can do in Spain. At the moment I don't usually sit in my reserved seat on a Virgin service as I prefer the one's at the back of the quiet coach with the extra leg room (the joys of being 6'6"). These are never usually reserved unless it's really, really busy. Mind the train's in Spain had about 10 times as much leg room in a normal seat anyway.

For a forthcoming trip I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to specify forwards or backwards, window or aisle, table or no table, power point or no power point... all on a bog standard Arriva service.

[ashley b]

Virgin's so far only allow you to say window or aisle and quiet coach or normal and if you want a table seat or not, but I want to be able to choose the actual seat.

[iSon]

*PLUG*

If you book on a CrossCountry journey through their own website then you can select your seat from a diagram. Alternatively if you phone any train operator's telesales line then you can specify a seat and they can check to see if it's free for you and reserve.

Alternatively, I can do it too - but I expect favours in return.

[Nick Harvey]

I expect favours in return.

I could sell you a strip of land next to Harvey Towers for £5.

[WillPS]

Physical ticket offices can too.

[dosxuk]

But would they upgrade me to 1st class if I'd lost my reserved seat due to their cancellations? I think not.

One trip on EMT between Sheffield & Norwich, they decided to drop two carriages (of four) off at Nottingham, which happened to be the one with all the seat reservations in. As the (now two coach train) was pretty full (as normal) this meant I had to stand most of the way back to Norwich (about 3 hours). Pretty annoying but I was told by the conductor to send EMT my ticket and ask for a refund, which they did, along with an apology for not putting the reservations in the correct part of the train (apparently the carriage drop is planned, but the reservations should be in the part which continues on to Norwich).

[Chie]

When British people refer to policing as 'law enforcement'.

And when people say 'communal garden' instead of 'common-or-garden'.