Believe it or not today I finally got most of the train tickets bought and printed out. Ira will be proud. I have gone online trying to find a seating chart, would have sworn a couple of years ago there was one. Just curious as to how I did since I was doing totally on french site. It would be the TGV, thanks.

My previous experience has been that SNCF starts assigning the seats in the middle of the car and works forward and backward toward the end.

I keep hearing about this "seating chart" but have never seen one.

Last year I bought what i am sure were some of the first tickets on a TGV servive from Paris to Bordeaux and again we were seated almost in the middle of the cars.

There were also unassigned seats we could have easily moved into had we wished.

good luck.

Hi J,

Good for you.

I am very proud of you.

Do all TGV train sets have the exact same seating chart

or are the newer models like TGV Est different

some cars have duo clubs, etc and other don't

wonder if there is one chart or many charts needed

http://www.seat61.com/France.htm#On%...20the%20trains

Scroll down to the TGV section. The site has seating charts, video and many photos of the 1st and 2nd class cars.

There are different configurations on different TGVs. Some are double-deckers, some have those enclosed compartments that hold 6-8 people, some have "family-style" face-to-face seating.

There must be several types of seating charts.

I don't think there is any seating chart on SNCF. I have seen seating charts for TGV-type trains on the Thalys website. The above info that AAFF posted looks good as I've never seen those before. They are old, I think, but better than nothing (I know they must be old as they refer to smoking cars).

I'm not sure what method SNCF has as I've been assigned a seat in a car that was the very end seat when the car was practically empty, so they don't always start in the middle. IN fact, I would have thought they started at the end from my experience (someone else was seating in an end seat, also, but no one was in the middle). I don't think it really matters much, the main thing I care about is the type of seat (single, clubs, etc) which you can specify). I would like to figure out the train direction, but that changes anyway, so you never can tell. I don't think they allow you to choose the direction when booking.

Every time I've been in first class, there have been enough free seats to switch somewhat. That isn't usually the case when I've been in second class.