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.

  • tiramichu@lemm.eeEnglish
    18·
    10 days ago

    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.

    • Log in | Sign up@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 days 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.