Mildly Infuriating

This ticket is odd by UK standards, and the arrangement you describe isn't the norm. These seat reservation tickets normally specify a particular seat

I am very familiar with this ticketing system, and if you don't have a specific seat reserved, you'll be very lucky to find a seat unless you're getting on at the beginning of the train's journey.

Then why do you also need this piece of paper that doesn't even seem to function as a ticket?

Any seat you want

Provided that someone doesn't have a specific seat booked.

In my experience it should be called general seating or something along those lines if it isn't for a specific reserved seat.

No, they still sell tickets without reservations and anytime tickets without limit. Your only guarantee is a numbered seat that you can claim. This has no such thing.

Is there though? I've never been unable to buy an Any Time ticket on the day because a train is full.

I've only been unable to board a train a handful of times, and that was because people were rammed in like the Black Hole of Calcutta before the train even arrived.

Having used plenty of EMR services before I'm counting down the days until they're renationalised...

In the UK where this ticket is from, if you buy a ticket from the machine in the station it will spit it out in potentially multiple parts (because one isn't enough space for all the information)

You can see this ticket says "Valid only with Travel Ticket", which means this is the second of two parts. The "Travel Ticket" (not pictured) is the one that actually allows you to travel on the train, and the seat reservation part (pictured) is the one that gives you a seat.

Normally the machine only gives what you need, so if there is no seat reservation you'll get the travel ticket only.

So the mystery isn't that there is no reserved seat, but that because there is no seat, this ticket doesn't even need to exist. The machine could have just not printed this ticket at all.

I think people answering these comments are from other countries that don't understand that on a train from Reading to London in rush hour, there might be 60 seats and 80 passengers per carriage. 20 of these pax standing despite their ticket that said "Feel free to sit on any free seat you happen to find!"

I’m reading some of these replies thinking I’m getting gaslighted by railway operator employees. Unless they actually sell “absolutely no sitting” tickets and the conductors fine abusers, this ticket makes no sense.

I suppose it's irritating that you pay (a likely large amount of money as it's probably a UK ticket) for a ticket with a seat reservation, the least they could do is actually assign you a seat.

If it's a free for all and - as you likely correctly say - they don't oversell the number of tickets against the number of seats, then the reservation card of the ticket is a little pointless really.

Everyone crams to the front to get there faster?

In the UK you can get on a train without booking a ticket for that specific train, for example an open return or just a day pass. The train company has no idea how many seats will be taken or how many people will get on the train. So say it's a 10 carriage train. Every seat is taken by someone, reserved or unreserved, and theres not a bit of standing room anywhere (this is very common). Which person sat on a reserved red light indicator seat should you kick out? And how do you know they didn't reserve that seat specifically before you do that? Or do you kick someone out of a green lit non-reserved seat, with thier proof that the seat is not reserved and they are allowed to sit there, and your proof that you dont even have that seat reserved. It will also be the old people and small children sat down, and you won't really be popular if you make them stand. Yeah you're not sitting if you have this ticket. You'll likely be stood by the entrance door for 3 hours instead. This seat reservation ticket may as well say, "sorry no seat today", and it's definitely infuriating to lean that you will be standing for your journey when you've payed full price for a seat, maybe £40 depending where.

Is that how airlines work where you are? It'd be wild for me to not pick my seat

Yeah but why even give you the checkbox/option for reserving a seat, only to tell you that you might actually be standing if the train is full or you don't arrive early enough?