Just ordered my cheap train tickets up to Manchester in August . Had them for £15 each

The system for cheap Advance Tickets is changing slightly (and possibly not every operator) for travel from mid December and these dates are already on sale.

Basically, Advance Tickets will still be allocated to a specific train, subject to a quota, but an actual seat may not be reserved. The reservation part of the ticket will show the specific train the ticket is valid on but will say "Coach * Seat ***". You may still be able to reserve a specific seat but will have to ask for it. The official reasons given for this are that many people don't like the seats they have been allocated or have bumped into someone else they want to sit with - both common and true. There is of course the possibility that at some later date they could introduce a small extra charge for a specific seat reservation.

Even if the reservation part of the ticket does not show a specific seat it still needs to be produced with the travel ticket as proof that you are on the allocated train.

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Something else cropped up in a query earlier this week. Advance tickets are only sold as singles and, when available, will be the cheapest singles. But Off-Peak or Anytime return tickets are not always twice the price of their equivalent singles. Off-Peaks can be way less, the case I looked at earlier was a 4 hour journey with an O-P single at £80.70 and the O-P return at £81.70 - yes, just £1 extra. So if you are making a return journey make sure you do the enquiry as such and find out what the return price is before buying combinations of singles. In the Nationalrail journey planner http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/en/s/planjourney/query make sure you click the little Gold button to add the return leg before doing the timetable enquiry, When you click Check Fares from the timetable result it will probably show a list of Singles with a column hidden behind it with the return prices, click the tab that says "As a return from". If you are searching less than a month to go you may find the standard class Advance quota has sold out or gone up in price, don't forget to check whether there is a First Advance quota as that sells out slower and can be cheaper than Standard O-P or Anytime.

Thanks for this notice Steve. On occasions we have had reservations on a train which has been jam packed, with people sitting in our seats, and we have had to ask them to move. How would this new system work then on a full train? If you don't have an allocated seat, do you have to stand for the journey, or have I misunderstood.

Well they say you can ask for a specific reservation if you want one (assuming the operator changes to this method and doesn't continue with automatic reservations). Not sure how the on-line software will work since that issues automatic reservations with tickets where they aren't compulsory anyway! And I still suspect that once things have quietened down they will start to slip in the odd £1 per seat charge for reservations - certain airlines already charge to select your own seat so people are geting used to it. Looking back a long way, when the computerised reservation system came out (about 1979) they charged £1 a seat then, that would equate to about £8 in terms of todays fares.

And you're quite right - if you don't have a specific seat and it's full you'lll have to stand until someone gets off. The number of seats doesn't change and the number of people travelling won't so the number left standing should be the same, it'll just be different people in different patterns. I say should be the same but there is one oddity that may confuse things. There are a substantial number of people who don't like asking strangers if the seat next to them is free and they will stand, or even sit on the floor, next to the toilet if they aren't given specific directions. I rarely fail to get a seat but often have to squeeze past a crowd in the doorway to get in - each to his own I suppose.

There is a negative effect from the reserved seat labels at present and that's people don't read them or don't have sufficient knowledge of geography. People will stand and leave seats that are reserved for no-shows or which are only reserved for part of the journey and available at that point. So with fewer labels it might get better.

And I still suspect that once things have quietened down they will start to slip in the odd £1 per seat charge for reservations - certain airlines already charge to select your own seat so people are geting used to it.

I thought that Easy Coast were already doing this because so many people with 'open' tickets made reservations and then didn't travel on that train in the end? I'm sure that I had to pay the last time I was travelling on a ticket for which a reservation wasn't compulsory.

There are a substantial number of people who don't like asking strangers if the seat next to them is free and they will stand, or even sit on the floor, next to the toilet if they aren't given specific directions. I rarely fail to get a seat but often have to squeeze past a crowd in the doorway to get in - each to his own I suppose.

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who's noticed this! But just as bad are the seated passengers who see others standing and yet still leave their bag or coat on an otherwise vacant seat next to them! This I'm afraid brings out the worst in me - the train I get to work is usually very busy and if I see that people are standing, I now find myself purposely choosing to ask the person who has spread their possessions around the most to move them so that I can sit down. The woman who huffed and puffed at me the other day was affronted when I pointed out that I would vacate the seat if she'd purchased a ticket for her handbag and coat but if she hadn't then I felt that my season ticket gave me more right to the seat than her belongings. I'm pleased to say that I notice that some of the other regulars are now starting to do the same.

People will stand and leave seats that are reserved for no-shows

I have noticed recently that the guards on Scotrail trains now remove the tickets from seats after the the train has passed through the station that they are reserved from which does ease the situation.

SM

SMa

see, I said the charges would appear! I rarely use ECML trains, last time they were still run by GNER. The details on East Coasts site are a bit vague merely listing which ticket types get free reservations and letting the user work out that the rest are chargeable! Not sure what the deal would be if you booked on one of their trains via an on-line system run by someone else. Or if you booked on someone else's train at an East Coast ticket office.

Not sure what the deal would be if you booked on one of their trains via an on-line system run by someone else. Or if you booked on someone else's train at an East Coast ticket office.

I usually book all my tickets at my local station which is run by FirstScotrail because they make a real effort to book you the best deal and are really on top of the 'book a return to an intermediate station and a second one from there to yout final destination because it will be cheaper' stuff and they get me a better deal than I can often find for myself on the Net. Where it applies they do cahrge for a reservation on an East Coast train but not on other operators services and the same applies when you book an East Coast train from the Scotrail website. I've never done it the other way round so can't comment.

SM