They don't, it is usually customers piling on to a train they haven't book on, imagine the uproar if the rail companies insisted on every customer booking a seat for every journey,

Why should it?

Imagine the uproar if they tried to do that at airports ?

Its just a mindset that allows a person to book one service and then do something completely different which no other sector seems to tolorate - if you booked car hire for Tuesday but turned up on Monday for it, booked a ticket for a theatre but went to the cinema instead with the same ticket, you'd be laughed at wouldn't you ?

I use the East Coast line pretty frequently and I've always been impressed with the service since EC took over from National Express.

Punctuality has never really been an issue (and the few delays I have experienced weren't the fault of EC) whilst services are clean and comfortable. I also have to say that, surprisingly, the First class service is a big improvement on National Express' efforts.

The only bugbear is that EC took away free WiFi in standard class - but they're hardly alone in charging for that.

I'm in complete agreement with you on inter-city services. The long-haul coach operators don't allow anyone to stand either. So we have airlines at one end of the spectrum and coaches at the other. In the middle there are the railways who get away with it (and many other elements of poor operational standards), simply because that's how it's always been