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Train in Scotland

Going to Scotland with my cousin in April. We are both over 60 so I have taken advantage of the rail card and advanced ticket purchases. We will be there a month and have booked seven train routes on the ScotRail App using etickets.
I have sent two emails to ScotRail customer service regarding my questions. I have received two responses with no reference to any of my questions so I hope someone here will be able to answer them:
1) On the West Highland Line routes, Glasgow to Oban, Oban to Fort William, Fort William to Mallaig, is there an option of 1st class seats and if so, how do I book them?
2) How do I select seats on the regular routes with ScotRail? When purchasing the tickets I selected the box for seat selection and there was never an option to chose the seats.
Any help will be appreciated. Thank you.
Texas Cousins

Posted by
5792 posts

Q1- no, the trains have no first class car;

Q2- you will or should have been allocated a seat number randomly as that just comes automatically with advancd tickets. Whether you missed the option to choose facing/back; aisle/window is hard to know.
Anyway most people don't make seat reservations, so it is not an issue. Just turn up and take the seat you want.
If it is still an issue just book seats for free at your first UK station.

But your ticket should say Seats 30 and 31 or whatever.

If you booked for after 12 April (as of today) seat reservations are not yet open, but tickets can still be bought, at a higher price. It is possib!e to buy too early.

Posted by
12 posts

Ins31c,
Thank you for your response to my train questions. I appreciate your help as I was getting confused with the ticketing process.

Posted by
27135 posts

I took several trains in Scotland in 2019. On at least two occasions I boarded a train and found the reserved seats weren't marked; we could just sit anywhere. It was never a problem to find seats, just be aware this can happen.

Posted by
12 posts

Acraven, thank you for sharing this information regarding the train seats. We will look for these when boarding.