Little children in the "Quiet" coach

 I was just wondering whether to have a rant about this and came across (yes, it is a Mailonline article) I booked a seat in a train's quiet carriage to work and was disturbed by a mother who let her two-year-old run around screaming - was I wrong to ask them to keep it down?


On long journeys I always book on a quiet coach with the aim to either relax and have a snooze, or do some serious thinking/reading work.

Why on earth would people with young children book on the Quiet coach, you might well ask. 

On the last occasion, I first found someone sitting in my Reserved seat. My son tells me this happens to him very often on GWR. This man, doing a crossword, was sitting in my window seat. A young woman was sitting in HIS Reserved aisle seat.

When I got on the train the young woman looked apologetic and asked if she was sitting in my seat. Well, yes, and no. She moved, but the older crossword gentleman was living up to his hobby, "Do you want me to move?", he asked gruffly.

He said he could not tell which was his seat. The big rectangle against the number indicates the window, for future reference, I said. He was not well-pleased.

The young woman who was clearly associated with two young children across the aisle then moved one of the children somewhere else, to a parent, perhaps.

But she then proceeded to talk loudly to the remaining child about their holiday so far, and coaching her on spelling and pronunciation. She appeared to be an American au pair to a non-English speaking family.

I could not concentrate, and moved to another seat where a young man was working on his laptop. Occasionally he would be tapping on his keyboard, but at least it was not that kind of furious and loud "look-at-me-I'm-a-busy-and-important-person" kind of typing.

What should parents/carers do when placed in a Quiet coach?

(1) ask to be moved: so often off-peak reserved seats are vacant because the ticket holders have gone on an earlier train. I could have gone on the earlier train, but refrained, thinking that I could enjoy my quiet coach. How wrong I was! It is very likely that you would find vacant seats in a non-Quiet coach.

(2) try to restrain/distract your children: yes, they may be two, or five, but it is a good opportunity to instruct them of the importance of "the time and place" principle. There is a right time and right place to be loud and boisterous, but sometimes it is right/proper/better to be quiet. I taught my son this principle, and it has helped him to cope with situations with which he often found difficult. Parents who think that young children cannot learn to be disciplined are storing up trouble for themselves.


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