My LNER Guard today turned off the reservations from Newcastle (the previous Guard had the on) to avoid people sitting in quiet areas of the train. We were told we must stick with the same seat; therefore some people were forced to sit 1m apart when they could have had a coach to themselves; I posted this in another thread:
I got the 1000 York to Edinburgh today (this service started from Doncaster); the reservations got turned off at Newcastle. From Newcastle onwards announcements were very harsh in tone, warning of consequences such as fines for people not following rules. We were told the reservations were turned off because people must not look to sit in quiet areas of the trains, even empty coaches, and it was vital that we sat in our assigned seats. There was no visible staff presence north of Newcastle, just regular harsh announcements and threats of BTP boarding randomly....
No ticket checking took place.
I rarely see a Guard these days; XC tend to walk through but Northern and LNER are rarely seen.
I have had one on-board check on Avanti, that's it.
Once ticket checks resume, I imagine some LNER Guards are going to be forcing people to sit in their allocated seat, even if that's near someone and/or in an aisle seat, and there are quiet areas of the train.
XC Guards don't seem to check tickets but are walking through; some of them do the
opposite of some LNER Guards and force people to be sat distant from each other, and force couples to split up and avoid aisle seats.
Of course, knowing how ludicrous and inconsistent the rail industry behaves, we should have predicted all this!