What if someone is in your assigned seat on a train

It can get touchy especially if they think it is ok to be in your seat. Find the conductor. Had it happened once when traveling with son and dil. It was a mother and daughter who refused to move and claimed that someone else was sitting in their seats and we should make them move. I was going to find the conductor but son and dil didn't want to make a scene so they went to the club car and had beer.

Happened to me years ago. Showed them my ticket with seat number. They moved.

This has happened to us on trains in several different countries. We’ve always double checked our tickets as we approach the seats and made eye contact with the people sitting in our seats. 100% of the time the people in our seats have always said ok and gotten up and left.

Tell them it is your seat and ask them to move. Show your ticket. However do make sure you are in the right car. Often people do not pay attention...

Happened to me when a person insisted that there was no car 7 on this train. There was (TGVs always have 8 cars)...

Simply point out their error. I have made that error myself. Treat It like it happens on airplanes in the USA. You only need to find the conductor if the person refuses to follow the rules.

I've wondered this. In 2019, like you we were on the highspeed train from Nice to Paris-in 1st class. It wasn't a problem for us as we were the 1st on our car. It appears from my observations that people wander into cars looking for open seats and if they find it they just sit down. The first portion of the trip isn't at high speed and more like a commuter train and the flow of traffic through the car looking for seats was constant.

Then, at Marsellie (I think) which was the final stop prior to the high speed-non stop route to Paris a couple boarded and one of their seats was taken, so the guy just sat on the arm of his chair for the entire journey to Paris. That example made me confused about proper protocols. I don't recall ever seeing a conductor coming through and checking tickets.

If you are worried do a little homework - i.e look up what the phrases "my seat" or "our seats" are in the relevant language. Repeat it firmly while showing your ticket. As often as necessary. Be polite. Be persistent. Loom over them not going away. Also, learn the phrase for "Window" and "Aisle." In one Central European county a local couple claimed first the they had the proper seats (they did not) or that their seats were the window seats and we got the aisle (we knew the difference, they were wrong). Families with children will claim all the seats they want together - that may be a tougher call because you may be stuck next to kids, not adults.

Well I triple check everything first…. Then I ask them, using my ticket. No assumptions or “please move” unless absolutely necessary. Happened to me once on a very full Vienna to Budapest train and the guy refused to moved and made me show him my ticket to prove I had a seat… (he had no reserved seat and ended up standing the whole way). Him I had to be nicely firm with. Then it happened in Nov in England, and I asked them very diffidently. Turns out the car my reserved seat was in was not even on the train and a bunch of people were in the same boat. (One time I was REALLY happy to not have been firm.) I ended up with a seat at that table after the next stop and the four of us there had a great time till I got off!

Neither of those times was in France, though….

Just happened to us going from Germany to Denmark - the train did not yet have the carriage numbers lit up as we all boarded so there was much confusion. Train was quite crowded which added to the confusion. Turned out many of us were in what we thought were correct seats but ended up being the wrong car. When we realized, one of us went to find the correct seats and, of course they were occupied by passengers without reservations. When informed, they were very friendly and offered to move. We decided to stay in our current spot until those with our seat reservations boarded. Hours later, they got on, we moved to our reserved seats, the people occupying our seats saw us coming and got up before we asked. They had seats most of the trip, we had a quieter car than our reserved seats were in for most of the trip and we didn’t need the staff to intervene. : )

This happened to me in France a couple of years ago. I was traveling in first. A young lady was in my seat. She said she thought she could sit anywhere. She moved.

Later, the conductor came around and kicked her and her friend out of first class.

They had tickets in second class.

This has happened to us multiple times, but only in Italy! Just make sure you're in the right car before speaking up. Get a conductor if they don't move.

Just happened on my Paris to Reims TGV. Group behind me were in the wrong carriage (apparently they didn't realize each car had a different #, and even though this is on the SNCF website/app on the day of your train, they couldn't be bothered to check). The correct seat owner showed them her ticket and told them they were in the wrong carriage (they were American) and poof, the Americans moved!

It’s rarely happened to me, and I ride the trains a lot during yearly trips. If it happens, I just hold up my train ticket where they can see it and stand there. It’s never been an issue.

I do think there is potential for greater confusion on cars that have both reserved and non-reserved seats. I always have trouble understanding the reservation notification. Especially a problem when the seat is reserved for a part of your trip. I do like the Italian approach where all seats are reserved except for Regionale trains.

Unless on a moving train with mandatory reservations, it's easy to assume that a seat is unoccupied if no one is in it. And if it's only reserved for part of a trip, the signage indicating it's reserved can be hard to understand. So It can easily be an honest mistake not an intentional squatting. I've asked people to vacate my reserved seat before a few times - never been an issue. But if they refused, yes I would have gotten a conductor. Good time to know some language.

"Turns out the car my reserved seat was in was not even on the train". . . The same thing happened to my husband and me in England last June. We just had to sit wherever and hope we hadn't taken others' seats! There was no conductor to be found. Fortunately, it was a short journey.

This has happened to me several times. What I do is triple check everything -- right car, right train, etc. and then I approach the person and show them my ticket. Every time, the person has known that they were in the wrong seat and were either hoping I would not show up or wanted to switch their seat. As an aside, last time, I switched seats it turned out to be great because the other people wanted our seats so they could be near their family. That family included a very ill behaved child and a major altercation broke out in that area of the car over the child's behavior.

So a few details... its a SNCF Direct inOui Nice to Paris on a Sunday. We are in car 12. So as I understand, this is 2 trains stuck together, and "12" is the second car in the back half. Will the car # on it say "12" or "2", and is this also displayed somewhere inside the car?

Take a look at this site—Seat61–for great information on train travel in Europe. I give the link for the Paris to Nice train but you can imagine the reverse. The car numbers are almost always displayed near the doors on the outside of the train’s individual cars.

https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/paris-to-nice-by-train.htm

BillTN, just dont waste too much time looking for the right car if you're not sure. You can get on anywhere and work your way to it.

I had a strange seat-occupied situation in Poland in 2018. The train carriage was the old style, with compartments. I found the compartment with my seat number, but all the seats were full. I showed my ticket. The fellow in my seat insisted it was his seat. One of the compartment folks explained that seats had two numbers--I think one in red and one in black. It turned out that was true, though I still don't know why--maybe something to do with making the carriage up for nighttime couchette use? So off I go to find the other seat on the car with my seat number. Indeed it was there, but someone was in the seat and claimed it was his.

Having no clue which of the occupied seats was really mine, I hopped off the train, found a rail-company employee and asked for help. He headed straight to the first compartment I had tried and booted the interloper out of my seat.

That dual-numbering business is an open invitation for folks to try to take advantage of less-informed travelers.

I do like the Italian approach where all seats are reserved except for
Regionale trains.

How do you know if it's a regional train? We didn't have a seat issue last month in Italy, but I didn't know what was regional and what wasn't, especially if they were both heading for the same destination, in this case Naples to Rome.

I suspect the Circumvesuviana from Naples to Sorrento is regional and is obvious there is no seat assignments, but the Campania Express is supposed to be by reservation but there were so many people on it one day that it was standing room only.

BillTN, if you’re riding on a two-set train, you absolutely need to find the right train car number before getting on the train. Otherwise, you may be trying to walk to a train car that is not possible from the side you chose. Arrive a little early and look at the train layout map displayed at your train line track as you’re waiting. It may look like this:

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. XX 11, 12, 13, 14.

That would show you where to stand, so you are near the correct end. At some point, one portion of the train will drop or head into different paths, so you wouldn’t want to be at #9, for instance if your train car is #12. If this is confusing, just ask someone waiting for help.

Allan, the schedules show the type of train. "R" is a regional, as is "RV" (a faster regional that doesn't make all the stops). InterCity trains are so labeled on Trenitalia, but I've sometimes seen them shown as "IC". Various flavors of Freccia express trains are clearly labeled. I see some "M" entries between Salerno and Naples; that stands for "Metropolitano", which seems to be a local slow train.

I've never taken the Campania Express, but the internet does say it has "guaranteed seating".

Since French high-speed trains are all-reserved, the situation is rare. 95% of the time, the person is in the wrong car (easy mistake to make). In other cases, you can be firm. I've had a double booked seat maybe once, and I take the TGV 20+ times per year.

Lleede, the same exact thing happened to me on the same train (from Hamburg to Copenhagen). The cars were connected differently from the chart, and the lights had not been lit up, showing which cars were where. So I sat in the seat I thought was my assigned seat. About three-fourths of the way through the trip, a conductor came by looking at tickets and told me I was in the wrong seat, then showed me where to find the correct car.

When I found the car, there was someone sitting in it, but she moved immediately when I came up. I felt bad, because she evidently did not have a reserved seat, and by that point, there were no empty seats available. However, I figured at least she had the benefit of sitting in a nice seat for 75% of the trip. 😊

I've never taken the Campania Express, but the internet does say it
has "guaranteed seating".

It does say that, but maybe "guaranteed" and "seating" mean something else in Italy. It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode at the rental car counter. https://youtu.be/4T2GmGSNvaM

How do you know if it's a regional train?

It's called a Regionale. And there is no seat and car number printed on the tickets.

I suspect the Circumvesuviana from Naples to Sorrento is regional

It isn't. It's not even run by Trenitalia.

It does say that

It doesn't, the official site English page says that those who hop on and off do not have a guaranteed seat:

Campania Express ticket allows you to: book the return trip on a different date. hop on/hop off - on the scheduled date of the outward and/or return journey, get off at the intermediate stops and resume the journey with another Campania Express train. In this case, the reservation does not guarantee the availability of the seat on intermediate routes.

It doesn't, the official site English page says that those who hop on
and off do not have a guaranteed seat:

I've been rereading and you are correct. I think the confusion is other websites such as Sorrento Insider, Naples Insider, etc. that don't differentiate the various situations. If I'm interpreting the Campania website correctly, the only way to guarantee a seat is to leave from Naples where you are escorted on board. We unknowingly hopped on in Sorrento toward Naples and Herculaneum toward Sorrento on a couple of occasions. We didn't realize it was the Campania at the time, mainly because it was packed with locals and tourists and wasn't much nicer then the Circumvesuviana. We stood the entire trip to Sorrento and were able to sit a few stops after Sorrento on our way to Naples.

edit to add
The RS Snapshot, Naples and the Amalfi Coast book also indicates reserved seating on page 116 of the Sorrento Connections section. We saw no evidence of that.

One way to find out which trains have compulsory reservations, which have optional reservations and which have no reservations is to use the DB website. This site shows for each train if you must reserve.
Another thing I do when looking up trains is look up for today. If I see that I can buy tickets for all trains for today, and the price is the same for all the trains than I know that I can just get that at the station.

the SNCF app or website shows you where your reserved car is on the train now.

Taking highspeed train from Nice to Paris next month. Wondering what the protocol is if someone is in our assigned seats? Just ask them to check their ticket or find staff?

One time a few months ago I was in somebody else's seat. They tapped me on the shoulder and said excuse me sir and showed their ticket. I apologized and moved back a row to where it turns out my (actual) seat was

I say just politely ask. Finding staff is an escalation IMO

It's no Biggie. If it's REALLY REALLY important for you to be in your allocated seat just say "pardon m'sieur/madam" and show them your ticket. Otherwise sit elsewhere. Usually it will be someone like me who moved seats for a trivial reason like facing forwards, or sitting on the side that's in the shade.

There's no need to go looking for a conductor and causing a scene.