Why can’t I get a seat reservation?

If you cannot get a seat reservation at the time of booking, it will be for one of the following reasons:

• The train service you are travelling on does not have reservable seats. When you book an Advance train ticket on one of these services, you ticket will say ‘no specific seat reserved’
• The timetable is not yet confirmed. If you find that Advance train tickets aren’t available yet either, then this means that the operator hasn’t confirmed the timetable. Engineering works might be planned, for example. We’d strongly recommend waiting and not booking any tickets in this case
• Seats that are reservable have all been booked already. If it’s very close the date of travel, you’ll find that some more popular services are fully reserved
• You’re booking a train on the same day. Some operators close reservations as early as 18:00 the day before travel.

More details on seat reservations are available here.