this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2024
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Mildly Infuriating

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Any guesses for what chaos awaits us on this train?

Edit to add: This is not the ticket, it was printed alongside the actual ticket, after asking for seating preferences.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

It means they are essentially guaranteeing you that the seats are not oversold. There will definitely be a seat for you somewhere on the train - that’s all this is saying. It’s capacity management. Have you not used regional rail before?

[–] davidagain 7 points 10 hours ago

No, they still sell tickets without reservations and anytime tickets without limit. Your only guarantee is a numbered seat that you can claim. This has no such thing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 hours ago

Is there though? I've never been unable to buy an Any Time ticket on the day because a train is full.

I've only been unable to board a train a handful of times, and that was because people were rammed in like the Black Hole of Calcutta before the train even arrived.

Having used plenty of EMR services before I'm counting down the days until they're renationalised...

[–] WhyFlip 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Same thing as general admission at a concert, but on a train.

[–] XeroxCool 3 points 16 hours ago

Everyone crams to the front to get there faster?

[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm not familiar with the ticketing system, but I think that it'd be reasonable for the ticket to simply be used to ensure that there is a seat somewhere, but not a specific seat.

If you go to a restaurant and reserve a table, the table doesn't need to be a specific one...just means that the restaurant will make sure that one is open.

[–] davidagain 4 points 10 hours ago

I am very familiar with this ticketing system, and if you don't have a specific seat reserved, you'll be very lucky to find a seat unless you're getting on at the beginning of the train's journey.

[–] br3d 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This ticket is odd by UK standards, and the arrangement you describe isn't the norm. These seat reservation tickets normally specify a particular seat

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Great western railway operates like this, offering you a "mystery seat" regardless of whether they've sold 120% of the seats in the train.

[–] Dasnap 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Every east-midlands train I've been on has had to cancel specific seat reservations when I got on anyway. I think they just constantly overbook or something.

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[–] Chainweasel 52 points 1 day ago (3 children)

It means you can sit anywhere you want and you're not stuck in an assigned seat.
You get on the train early you can have any seat you want.
This seems like the exact opposite of infuriating.

[–] adam_y 18 points 1 day ago

Any seat you want

Provided that someone doesn't have a specific seat booked.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Then why do you also need this piece of paper that doesn't even seem to function as a ticket?

[–] valkyre09 10 points 1 day ago

My money is on it being part of the ticketing computer’s programming.

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[–] spankmonkey 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

In my experience it should be called general seating or something along those lines if it isn't for a specific reserved seat.

[–] slazer2au 7 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

Not really infuriating at all.

Think of it like an airline. You have a reserved seat, but it isn't actually allocated until you check in .

[–] [email protected] 7 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

In the UK you can get on a train without booking a ticket for that specific train, for example an open return or just a day pass. The train company has no idea how many seats will be taken or how many people will get on the train. So say it's a 10 carriage train. Every seat is taken by someone, reserved or unreserved, and theres not a bit of standing room anywhere (this is very common). Which person sat on a reserved red light indicator seat should you kick out? And how do you know they didn't reserve that seat specifically before you do that? Or do you kick someone out of a green lit non-reserved seat, with thier proof that the seat is not reserved and they are allowed to sit there, and your proof that you dont even have that seat reserved. It will also be the old people and small children sat down, and you won't really be popular if you make them stand. Yeah you're not sitting if you have this ticket. You'll likely be stood by the entrance door for 3 hours instead. This seat reservation ticket may as well say, "sorry no seat today", and it's definitely infuriating to lean that you will be standing for your journey when you've payed full price for a seat, maybe £40 depending where.

[–] OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe 1 points 16 hours ago

Is that how airlines work where you are? It'd be wild for me to not pick my seat

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[–] spankmonkey 13 points 1 day ago (6 children)

So many people in the comments don't get that having something called a seat reservation which doesn't literally reserve a seat is mildly infuriating.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

I think people answering these comments are from other countries that don't understand that on a train from Reading to London in rush hour, there might be 60 seats and 80 passengers per carriage. 20 of these pax standing despite their ticket that said "Feel free to sit on any free seat you happen to find!"

[–] mykl 8 points 1 day ago

I’m reading some of these replies thinking I’m getting gaslighted by railway operator employees. Unless they actually sell “absolutely no sitting” tickets and the conductors fine abusers, this ticket makes no sense.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You see, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding.

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[–] apfelwoiSchoppen 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Fairly common in Germany. Trains can be so full often times that people are standing butt to belly in the aisles.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

In the UK where this ticket is from, if you buy a ticket from the machine in the station it will spit it out in potentially multiple parts (because one isn't enough space for all the information)

You can see this ticket says "Valid only with Travel Ticket", which means this is the second of two parts. The "Travel Ticket" (not pictured) is the one that actually allows you to travel on the train, and the seat reservation part (pictured) is the one that gives you a seat.

Normally the machine only gives what you need, so if there is no seat reservation you'll get the travel ticket only.

So the mystery isn't that there is no reserved seat, but that because there is no seat, this ticket doesn't even need to exist. The machine could have just not printed this ticket at all.

[–] davidagain 2 points 10 hours ago

I suspect it's an "Advance" reduced fare ticket, which is only ever valid with a seat reservation, but either the seat was over specified (ticking all three of facing forwards, table seat, near the entrance, for example), or the train company continued to issue "Advance" tickets even after all the reservable seats are gone, which you could count as a dick move, or you could interpret as allowing more people to buy tickets at the reduced fare.

It could be that that was one of the least overcrowded trains scheduled on a day that's expected to be very overcrowded indeed, and they're trying to spread the no standing room pain across as many trains as possible. It's certainly cheaper than putting on additional services.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"Specific." It's general admission. Ideally, they would only sell as many seat reservations as there are seats available in whatever cars are in the "seat pool."

I don't see a problem here.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (12 children)

I suppose it's irritating that you pay (a likely large amount of money as it's probably a UK ticket) for a ticket with a seat reservation, the least they could do is actually assign you a seat.

If it's a free for all and - as you likely correctly say - they don't oversell the number of tickets against the number of seats, then the reservation card of the ticket is a little pointless really.

[–] davidagain 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

They absolutely oversell on a regular basis on UK train.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Do you have a reference for this?

I'm not questioning that it happens - it's a common thing in high volume hotels or high value airline routes after all - but I'd be interested in what sort of margins they oversell at.

That said, most of the documents would likely be commercially sensitive I should imagine.

[–] davidagain 2 points 10 hours ago

I've travelled on hundreds and hundreds of trains in the UK. On busy services, unless you're getting on at the start, if you don't have a specific seat reserved, you will be standing. This is normal. I don't have a source for that claim, I just have many years of experience.

There's a plausibility gap on capping ticket sales for trains. Why on earth would they stop selling "anytime" tickets? They're really expensive and a train with plenty of people standing costs the company no more but earns them a great deal.

What's unusual here is that this looks like it came with an "advance" ticket, which is cheaper, limited in number, only available in advance, and is required to come with a reserved seat, but they've clearly oversold even them.

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[–] Chonk 2 points 20 hours ago

Heavenly: If there are few people then you can sit anywhere.

Hell: If there are a lot of people then you might not be able to board the train.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Seems reasonable enough to me if you bought a ticket for a train which doesn't have assigned seating, which is pretty common. Just choose your seat as you board the same way you would with a bus.

[–] davidagain 2 points 10 hours ago

Not common in the UK where this seat reservation ticket is from.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah but why even give you the checkbox/option for reserving a seat, only to tell you that you might actually be standing if the train is full or you don't arrive early enough?

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[–] Lost_My_Mind 4 points 1 day ago
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