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Assigned Seats

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  • Member since
    November 2011
  • 40 posts
Posted by LehighLad on Friday, November 29, 2019 8:54 PM

JPS1

Beginning in January business class passengers on NEC regional trains will be able to select their seats.  Actually, the computer will assign them a seat when they complete their reservation, but they can change it.

This sounds to me like another positive step engineered by Richard Anderson or at least signed off by him.  

 

  • Member since
    November 2011
  • 40 posts
Posted by LehighLad on Friday, November 29, 2019 9:13 PM

Will the Amtrak computer show window locations, in scale, with position of intervening partitions? When riding the Acela from DC to Boston, when boarding I like to pick my seat where I have a good view for the 6-hour trip.  If an online Amtrak reservation is just a box check as with an airline reservation, then I'm paying a high price for a pig-in-a-poke. 

I'd hate to be forced to sit next to a window partition, especially on the stretch north of Wilmington where it's enjoyable to experience the train (even a Regional) outpacing northbound cars on I-95. This idea of reserved seats is just another manifestation of loss of freedom in this modern age. You can't even touch the Liberty Bell anymore, as I could on school trips to Philadelphia in my long-ago youth.

To quell the inevitable response, I do understand the predicament of a family boarding a crowded train at an intermediate stop, if reserved seats are not offered.

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