(Thanks to cosmic_fish for the tip!)

When you spot an empty seat on a train, in order to rightfully claim it you must move as close to the arriving train doors as possible. You must judge the exact momentum of the train to stand in exactly the right place as it stops.

When the doors open you should immediately and confidently stride towards the seat. When seats are at stake, you are exempt from letting people off the train first.

If anyone else reaches the seat first, you must glare at the person in a mixture of despair and annoyance. Try to hide the psychopathic voice in your head saying ‘That seat was mine. MINE I TELL YOU. You will die in a horrific accident involving a lorry and a rusty fork.’

It is clearly totally unexpected that a train will begin to move once the doors have closed. For this reason, there is no reason to hold on to anything.

Instead, you should perform one of two acrobatic routines when the train starts to move:

1) The ‘off-balance tap dancing shuffle’ along the train gangway.

Or

2) The ‘nearly lost my balance but managed to grab a support bar whilst punching the person next to me in the face’ manoeuvre.

You should aim to kick or tread on at least one person’s foot along the way.

When somebody holds a door open, you should pass through quickly and deftly without holding the door open for the person behind. You should do this with an air of nonchalance.

The person behind you should not expect to get an easy pre-opened door just because the person in front held it open just for you.

When the door closing alarm sounds, if not yet on the train, you should immediately accelerate and attempt to jump through the closing doors. Approximately 50% of the time, you will make it through the doors and stand looking appropriately smug inside the train.

The other 50% of the time, the doors will close too quickly and clamp around your head/arm/leg/bag. When this occurs, you should attempt to free the trapped head/arm/leg/bag. Other passengers may come to your assistance and attempt to pull apart the doors.

Inevitably, none of the attempts to free your head/arm/leg/bag will be successful and the driver will begrudgingly have to re-open the doors.

At this point, when the door closing alarm sounds again, somebody else will repeat the above.