London Banter - View Single Post

Chris Johns · September 8th 07, 10:05 AM posted to uk.transport.london,uk.railway

On Fri, 7 Sep 2007, wrote:

True. Very True.
Or if you have people used to flying, they are off looking for seat
21A (must be in the same row as 21B 21C...)

If all the seats are individually numbered from 1-78 or whatever, the 'A'
is both useless and confusing.

I certainly believe that a reservation system, in 2007, should have
the ability to hold the following details:
Airline or Table seat,
Window or Corridor seat,
Quiet, Normal, Family (if available) Carriage or near the Bar,
and possibly Facing or Backwards seat. (This is difficult on some
trips, like CrossCountry, where trains may reverse 2 or 3 times,
particularly on the Bournemouth route)

Totally agree.

I've been reserved into the quiet coach and family coach before, neither
of them were really where i wanted to be. It make the whole thing a bit
pointless if you can't specify where you want to sit when you book your
tickets. I've read on here before stories of families being reserved into
the quiet coach.

It's probably easier to number each seat and handle the rest by the
reservation system rather than have the airline/facing/back reservations.
It's less confusing, especially for trains that reverse. "Coach C, seat
21" can only be one seat on the train.

It has to be said, I don't know how much the underlying reservation
system can store - I know it was replaced a few years back, so one
would hope there are some custom fields available, but if ATOC
specified a like-for-like replacement....

You can probably still request a seat in the smoking carriage (I think the
trainline still offers that as an option on the website).
--
Chris Johns