Amtrak now does assigned seating - oh when will they lear

My trip from Orlando they had us wait outside the train until everyone got off. One at a time, the conductor asked each passenger of their final destination. He had a print out of the rail car with each seat, then told each person what seat to sit in. Of course, this created mass confusion and delayed boarding time. The conductor changed his mind about where you were to sit 3 times, then when you got on the train you forgot what seat he wanted you in, then of course when you got to your assigned seat someone was sitting in it.

For crying out load. Take the advise of Southwest Airlines. Assigned seating causes delays. Get on board, sit down, and go.

carajul wrote:My trip from Orlando they had us wait outside the train until everyone got off. One at a time, the conductor asked each passenger of their final destination. He had a print out of the rail car with each seat, then told each person what seat to sit in. Of course, this created mass confusion and delayed boarding time. The conductor changed his mind about where you were to sit 3 times, then when you got on the train you forgot what seat he wanted you in, then of course when you got to your assigned seat someone was sitting in it.

For crying out load. Take the advise of Southwest Airlines. Assigned seating causes delays. Get on board, sit down, and go.

They did this when I took a trip on the Lake Shore Limited when I boarded in Schenectady. I didn't mind it, but I asked one of the assistant conductors since I have haven't heard of it before and he told me they use it on trains with full loads.

I agree that assigning actual seat numbers is a bit of a reach, but assigned cars based on destination is not uncommon. It helps prevent people from getting left on the train, especially when the train makes night time stops.

It's done to try to keep families grouped together. They'll typically ask "How many?" Singles are placed next to other single travelers to keep pairs open for pairs and families grouped together.

It's part art and part science, and by no means perfect, but there is a method behind the madness.

That's SOP for the LD trains. It's important to get people on and off in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night w/ minimum fuss.

I don't like the arbitrary seating assignments either, since I always want a window seat if I'm traveling coach and don't want to spend hours sitting on the aisle with a lousy view. If Amtrak wants assigned seating on long distance trains, they should allow people to select a seat when they make their reservation, just as most airlines do.

AgentSkelly wrote:They did this when I took a trip on the Lake Shore Limited when I boarded in Schenectady. I didn't mind it, but I asked one of the assistant conductors since I have haven't heard of it before and he told me they use it on trains with full loads.

This. On 7/8, during peak seasons when we had sold out/oversold coaches, seat assignments became necessary, because when folks got to the top of the stairs, they would see a full coach and just stall, wondering what to do. Obviously they wouldn't want to sit in a single seater next to somebody. Quickly, a backup in the stairway and vestible would ensue, and suddenly we were exceed our dwell times because folks were still lined up out the door. So, an inventory of available seats would be made prior to the station stop, and we would go off of that.

Families and couples, was more of a matter of "just get on, and we'll sort it out" - at least for me. (This is troublesome in its own right, since Amtrak cars don't really have enough space for folks to wait in while the staff figures out where to put them - but that's another can of worms.)

The practice I ended up adopting, when assigned seating was necessitated by a full train, was to write the available seat #s down on seat checks, and then just hand them out to each person as they got on. This helped a little bit with avoiding confusion/forgetfulness and wasting time.

As we know, assigned seating is not an "official" practice at Amtrak, and if the train is empty enough, most conductors and attendants are content enough to let people sit pretty much wherever, just as long as they stay within a given car or section.

how is it confusing . its done all the time here . it does take awhile on the plaform , but then the train manager wirtes on your ticket , car c , seat 14 a . so you walk to car a and find seat 14 a . it doesnt take longer than it takes them to get your bag and put it in the bagage car anyway .

I would agree assigning the seats at the time of booking would make alot more sense .

Trains make a lot more stops than planes, so picking a seat at booking will cause trains to "sell out" faster with Amtrak losing revenue in the process.

To use a simplified example, you have two seats on your train, A and B.

Passenger 1 books a trip from Washington to Baltimore and chooses seat A.

Passenger 2 books a trip from Philadelphia to New York, and selects seat B.

Passenger 3 comes along and tries to book a trip from Washington to New York and is told there are no "seats" available, despite seating space being readily available for the whole journey.

David Benton wrote:how is it confusing . its done all the time here . it does take awhile on the plaform , but then the train manager wirtes on your ticket , car c , seat 14 a . so you walk to car a and find seat 14 a . it doesnt take longer than it takes them to get your bag and put it in the bagage car anyway .

I would agree assigning the seats at the time of booking would make alot more sense .

Pre-assigned would have to pack singles together early before the car filled up. It wouldn't make much difference on full trains where couples and families took pairs and rows that were being saved for later sale, but if the train doesn't sell out one could end up paired next to a stranger with plenty of open seats around them - not knowing if those seats are open for the remainder of the trip or being saved for passengers who have not yet boarded. There would have to be some facility for changing seats when boarding - having the conductor take care of the reassignments knowing what seats are sold.

That being said, whatever controls are put in place to solve boarding delays need to be designed to not cause boarding delays.

BTW: Planes are easier as there are less stops. One does not have to save seats together for the fourth or fifth leg of an airline flight.

I remember the first time my friend took Amtrak, she was worrying because she hadn't checked in online before going to the station, and she didn't get an assigned seat on her ticket.

The Metropolitan wrote:Trains make a lot more stops than planes, so picking a seat at booking will cause trains to "sell out" faster with Amtrak losing revenue in the process.

To use a simplified example, you have two seats on your train, A and B.

Passenger 1 books a trip from Washington to Baltimore and chooses seat A.

Passenger 2 books a trip from Philadelphia to New York, and selects seat B.

Passenger 3 comes along and tries to book a trip from Washington to New York and is told there are no "seats" available, despite seating space being readily available for the whole journey.

If your booking system is that brain dead, then fire the contractor that created it and hire one that knows what they're doing. The computer ought to be able to scan all of the bookings on a trip and know the instantaneous number of seats available along all segments. As long as it's greater than zero for a desired segment, allow booking...

The nice advantage of pre-assigning the seats is then the conductor can get the info beamed to him, meaning the silly check ticket and direct folks at each station crap can go away, cutting the dwell times, which greatly helps the average speed (after all, a train sitting for 5 minutes has a speed of zero mph for 5 minutes!).

Done right, it should allow passengers to self-position on the platform, and relieve crews of the task of hand holding, since passengers will know where they need to be.

Or, for a better example of how to do it, just go to DB's website, punch in a city pair, and pick an itinerary...

It's been done on the Cascades for many years.

It's hardly a flawless system; on one such trip I was given three duplicate seating assignments - in other words, the Conductor gave me a seating assignment already assigned to another group - THREE TIMES - before I finally got a good seating assignment. Each time, I had to go from the podium in Union Station (Portland), to the car (on the opposite end of the platform) and back, about 1200 feet (a quarter mile). And when I came back (especially the second and third time) the Conductor made me wait while he continued to hand out other seating assignments, despite the fact I had come back multiple times and was already grossly inconvenienced for having to go through the routine. (Maybe I should have just called him out on it?)

And on another trip out of Tacoma, a group of passengers who are used to the typical "board, sit, leave, pull" routine found themselves in a shock when the Conductor gave out seating assignments trainside when the train's doors opened, and then found that their claimed seats were assigned to someone else.

I agree - what should have been a simple five minute stop suddenly became 15 as the Conductor now had to deal with that mess.

wigwagfan wrote:It's been done on the Cascades for many years.

It's hardly a flawless system; on one such trip I was given three duplicate seating assignments - in other words, the Conductor gave me a seating assignment already assigned to another group - THREE TIMES - before I finally got a good seating assignment. Each time, I had to go from the podium in Union Station (Portland), to the car (on the opposite end of the platform) and back, about 1200 feet (a quarter mile). And when I came back (especially the second and third time) the Conductor made me wait while he continued to hand out other seating assignments, despite the fact I had come back multiple times and was already grossly inconvenienced for having to go through the routine. (Maybe I should have just called him out on it?)

And on another trip out of Tacoma, a group of passengers who are used to the typical "board, sit, leave, pull" routine found themselves in a shock when the Conductor gave out seating assignments trainside when the train's doors opened, and then found that their claimed seats were assigned to someone else.

I agree - what should have been a simple five minute stop suddenly became 15 as the Conductor now had to deal with that mess.

Well the Cascades procedure I think is quite weird for a regional train. I like the seat assignment concept for that train, but it does not need to resemble the check-in process on PeoplExpress. I think it could be done when you make your reservation, at check in, or at the QuikTrak machine.

It depends on the train too....Boarding the Westbound LSL at BOS, there is no assignment at all...board, pick a car, then pick a seat. Boarding the Zephyr at CHI, it was being done by car and seat......

Boarding the Eastbound Zephyr at EMY, it was done by car, not seat. Boarding the Eastbound LSL at CHI was also by car, not by seat.


There are assigned seats on the Cascades now??? I hope this doesn't spread to the NEC...that will be a mess!